I went to the Museum of Modern Art in NYC this week. There is a retrospective exhibition of the work of Douglas Gordan. He is a conceptual artist who explores time-based medium, mostly film. For example, his 24 Hour Psycho is the Alfred Hitchcock movie Psycho projected onto a screen so slowly that it takes 24 hours to see the whole thing. I thought that particular piece was more interesting when I read about it in the NYT's review than when I saw it in person.
I did really like his Between Darkness and Light (After William Blake). In this piece Gordan has The exorcist projected on one side of a screen and The Song of Bernadette projected on the other side. The screen is transparent enough that you can see both films on either side. One film showing through in the shadows of the other. The soundtracks are also played together.
I sat and watched the two films for a while and really enjoyed the experience. There were some really interesting moments when the two films seemed to come together in meaningful ways. And I guess by meaningful I mean poetic.
But whose meaning was it? You see, the films aren't the same lengths and so they never sync up the same way. So perhaps this is just an example of the viewer's mind finding meaning where there is really just randomness. I'm not denigrating the art. I think it is brilliant to create such an environment.
It reminds me of dreams. I don't think that dreams have any intrinsic meaning, but they can catalyze us to find meaning within their randomness.
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