It may become apparent in the exhibition imagery that there is very little text in the gallery itself. Signage for exhibitions typically includes introductory outdoor banners, posters, and a lobby sign, which are designed by an outside graphic designer and produced off-site. Interior signs, including the introduction and object labels, are usually produced in-house. In many ways, visitors to our gallery feel adrift when there are no linguistic “pointers” for exhibitions. Since one of the aims of Clew was to offer “a rich and rewarding disorientation,” we decided to keep the signage to a minimum. The short introduction (click for PDF) was the only traditional text in the gallery. Even though we created object labels, we decided not to use them. We did not want the audience to rely on textual “directions” for how to experience the exhibition.

The lack of signage proved frustrating for some visitors. They claimed that they were just interested in the materials and artistic process behind Deborah’s paintings. But we suspected that visitors wanted text for reasons beyond simply an understanding of the studio process. People quite often asked which pieces belonged to which artists, but the artists collectively wanted the work to be read as an entire piece—a gesamtkunstwerk or total work of art, an immersive experience, a journey.

For the purposes of this documentation, I will share that the paintings were made by Deborah Barlow, the poem was written by Todd Hearon, the sound design, scrims and video were produced by Jung Mi Lee and Jon Sakata. In my positions as curator, collaborator, choreographer, and curatorial dramaturg, I orchestrated the overall layout, tempo, and spatial arrangements, kept track of and contributed to the multiple emergent narratives, placed many of the paintings, sculptures, and video, helped design the projections in the space, designed the metal trays, created the visual manifestation of the poem, and prototyped many of the installation elements. However, the materialization of the piece in its entirety—which was the piece—was done by all of us together.

Having said all that, now it’s time for me to step out again.

The video projections included abstracted imagery of Deborah’s paintings along with images of industrial internet cable infrastructures and other images. Like the sound, the images were dense, at times inscrutable. Only certain moments of the videos, which changed throughout the day, could be called “legible” in the sense that you could understand what you were looking at. They called to mind the cosmos, the underground, caves, forests, thickets, lines, communication, syntax, and telescopes, among other imagery. People moving through and around the projections created additional layers of sensing and seeing. The installation encouraged playful exploration.

A sounding helps determine depth and position, usuallly in relation to what’s already known. The soundings in Clew offered, and then obscured, any functional or directional aspirations in their voicings. The sound (click to play) in Clew was a heavily mixed version of Todd Hearon reading his poem. The voice and accompanying effects were on a loop that went throughout the day—sometimes booming and omnipresent, and creeping and soft at other times. It was not always understood as the poem (or even as human), and many people never made a direct connection. A sound board was stationed in the main gallery and speakers were placed throughout the space, giving the sound a spatial as well as temporal unfolding that had the effect of crashing over you, or sneaking up on you, alternatively. Some people were intrigued, others were disturbed. The speaker cable, as well as the meandering, looping, and threaded qualities of the sound itself mirrored the many themes of the exhibition in terms of clew, thread, journey, maze, getting lost, discovery, confusion, micro/macro, and infinity.

Clew Direct

The gallery had different moods depending on the time of day and weather. Natural light came in through the glass doors and windows, as well as around the skylights (though closed, light still came through). Periodically, we left select videos and lights on at night. People (especially students) passing through the building when the gallery was closed were able to experience other perspectives on the exhibition. The extreme contrast between the hallways and the projected video viewed from the outside created a type of retinal burn with an after image of what is no longer there.

The territory of water, sand, and metal trays placed on the floor in the middle of the gallery changed continuously. Elements were rearranged intentionally, by people drawing in the salt or moving pieces of coal into the water. We decided that there would be no signage or indications in the gallery about what could be touched or moved. Eventually, the materials themselves began to change on their own. As collaborators, we periodically straightened up the sand or salt, replenished the materials, or rearranged elements, too, often alongside the audience.

One of many landscapes, this terrain evolved and morphed in reponse to the exhibition's conditions.

Every layout choice in the exhibition encouraged a different type of looking and bodily engagement. You could not see everything from one vantage point. You could look forward, or back, or around the corner, but if you turned around you would not see the same thing. The video advanced. The sound proceeded. As you moved, the looking might consolidate. Or it would splinter and disperse, expand and contract. Some elements that might be appealing to view in direct light were left in the dark.

Other elements that called for coherence were left scattered, seemingly untethered from logic or storyline. To the extent that different narrative threads emerged in our own collaborative process, divergent threads were offered to the audience. Every look or movement held the potential of a new narrative direction. No one saw, or noticed, the same thing. Perhaps you were looking at a close-up of a microscopic blob, or a galaxy? Without scale, or reference, how could you know? Did it matter?

To promote divergent types of looking, magnifying glasses were installed on shelves throughout the gallery. How or where to use them was left to the visitor. While the magnifying glasses may seem solely connected to improved ocular vision, their impact was haptic. People did not simply look through the magnifying glasses, but used them in combination with gesture, pose, and position, often using the glass as a shaping tool or meaning generator, carving out close-up areas for interpretation—and with a shift of the glass—a retelling.

Mirrors, and iridescence within the paintings, also functioned as a way to reflect, distort, capture, and refract the movement of light and of people. In the “blink of an eye” became an embodied experience, even when it disassociated the movement from its initiation, the sparkle from its source. These roles were cast onto other unexpecting agents.

One section toward the back of the gallery was installed with a painting titled over a futon on the floor. Other paintings were installed in the room such that they were optimally visible while lying on the futon. This reclined view also gave the audience alternate perspectives into the main gallery space. We left small flashlights on the futon so that visitors could explore the iridescent qualities of the painting overhead, only be visible with the flashlights (or cell phone lights). Again, no instructions were given.

We also had a reading area in the corner of the same room (something I have included in every exhibition since I arrived). For Clew, the resources included books ranging from Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics to Hyper Objects by Timothy Morton.