From Flickr user SillyFrog

I went upstairs to see the Adaptation installation, and was immediately drawn to the unassuming Herrera exhibit, “Les Noces”.  It presents itself from outside as a placard and a pitch dark walkway leading into the unknown from which emanates the intense singing and occasional screaming of a Stravinsky scored ballet.

Hearing the unmistakably Russian 20th century music with tall chords and harsh brutal sounds, I was intrigued, but the video installation was so well protected from outside light that I was afraid I’d walk into something.  Honestly, I was simply afraid of the whole exhibit, and I turned on my heel returning to the light of the museum.  I eventually had to psyche myself up to enter.  My initial experience of the piece was unsettling not least of which was due to my body adjusting to the levels of adrenaline my system released simply walking through the light trap.

Source image from Arturo Herrera’s two-channel digital projection Les Noces, 2007. Courtesy the artist and Sikkema & Co.

The music was harsh. I found myself wondering who performed and conducted the recording that was blasting through the room.  The vocals sounded intentionally raw, and it added to the discombobulating effect of two screens each displaying two images per screen with bits of photography and drawing projected onto either end of the room without direct connection to the music being played.  Here was an adaptation, the substitution being the constant animation of squiggles and what might be Bullwinkle the Moose’s right arm and torso rather than the dancers on a stage. Instead of viewing the performance as a member of an audience in a group of people organized in orderly rows the performance surrounded me, the single viewer.  This created a personal experience, one that was both meditative and jarring.  The abstract images lent themselves to individual projection.  I watched the piece and listened to the music and simply experienced what was happening.

Given the opportunity to try and decode the images and the references to marriage and ballet or to simply observe with my eyes and ears I chose the latter.  There comes a time when the meta-memes outpace themselves and all antecedents have to be used as springboards rather than the object of reference.  Wugh.  It was shortly after I arrived at that conclusion that the final resolution of the swelled and clacked, I shook my head back into the present, and  I made my way out of the room back into the airy museum.  I took a deep breath when I got out.  I had gained an abstract experience I could not describe.

Not bad for a lazy Saturday.

Guy Ben-Ner is another artist featured in the exhibition Adaptation. IMA Curatorial Associate of Contemporary Art Allison Unruh and I had the pleasure of asking Ben-Ner about his work earlier this year:

Interview with video artist Guy Ben-Ner

What first drew you to working in video?
When my daughter, Elia, was born I was still an undergraduate art student in Israel. I realized I could not spend much time in a studio anymore, with the demands of work, studies and fatherhood. I decided to work from home and include my cohabitants in my plans. To get a child involved with immediate video magic was quicker than working with marble and much cleaner than painting at home. Besides, for the narratives I started to be interested in, video seemed to me the best tool. I needed things that unfold in time.

In collaborating with your family on videos, how do you negotiate the roles of artist and father?
At the time, I worked hard to conclude that both are one and the same role – so I did not have to negotiate too much.

Your works in Adaptation take inspiration from Melville’s novel Moby-Dick and Truffaut’s film L’enfant sauvage (The Wild Child). Why did you choose to engage with these particular sources?
Moby-Dick was part of a few “sea adventure” narratives I was interested in at the time, partly for the escape they offer (you sail away, leaving the family behind) and partly for the Western mythology they take part in as creators. Truffaut’s movie interested me because I understood it not as a wild-child’s story but as a director’s account of what it means to direct a child actor – an act that can never be fully justified or moral. So I will not call them inspirations but rather tools that helped me tell my own stories in a fictional disguise. I used them rather than being inspired by them. But maybe that is the same thing?

For Wild Boy, you built a large-scale installation that echoes the set you created in your home where you filmed the work. How do you feel that this installation changes the experience of the video for the viewer?
It is comfortable. It suggests to you, the viewer, to lie down, relax and take your time – that’s it. I am usually not very found of video installations, and I can live with Wild Boy detached from the installation very peacefully. (View an excerpt from Ben-Ner’s single-channel video Wild Boy, 2004)

Can you tell us about the projects you are currently working on?
My next movie is being shot with the kind help of the people at Mass MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art), where I will open a show [on May 23]. All I can tell you now is that it will involve a light airplane, a car, a double bicycle and two people. I hope that sounds intriguing enough.