Shelter for Daydreaming ©2000

Shelter for Daydreaming is a two-channel video which invokes the netherworld of “In-Betweeness.” Projected large-scale onto a free standing, “floating” wall centered within the gallery, the first channel of video shows a small house seemingly suspended in an aqueous region which is without gravity, yet is somehow tethered to the movement of the underside of waves. It is a placeless place, without definition or boundary. The sounds of a world underwater pulsate with the movements of the house. Occasionally, a wave will lift from the base of the house, revealing its underside, which is firmly seated within an entirely different place-- it is the “above-world,” yet this place appears from underneath. Revealed in this momentary flash are trees and a landscape which point downwards, becoming the roots which temporarily stabilize and give location and mass to the house. As quickly as this under/aboveworld appears, it is obscured by the resettling of the wave and the viewer is returned to the isolated, aqueous void into which the house (and the viewer) are slowly being pulled.

The second channel of Shelter for Daydreaming is projected onto the opposite side of the same, free standing wall in the center of the gallery. This large-scale projection shows the interior of an empty house. The view focuses on two rooms, separated by a central wall; the interior sways back and forth as if contained within a boat. The fluid movement can be mesmerizing and meditative, yet also unstable and precarious. To reinforce the notions of interior/exterior, above/below, the movements of the interior view are timed to the surging and bobbing of the exterior view of the miniature house in the first channel of video. Imitating the split -view within the second channel of video, the installation itself is constructed so that the viewer will approach the installation seeing only the thin edge of the free-standing wall in the center of the gallery. Both channels of audio are audible. The viewer will choose to first view the work from either the left or right side of the wall. The audio will then draw them to the other side of the wall to experience the second channel. The large-scale projections both contain fluid, rocking motions that can physically affect the viewer’s equilibrium.

Shelter for Daydreaming summons a feeling of being on a voyage through water and air with no destination named. As if in a daydream, the fluid movement of the video is mesmerizing and meditative, yet also unstable and precarious. There is a sense of searching and isolation, the desire to find a home. Addressing the notions of interior and exterior, above and below, Shelter for Daydreaming invokes the netherworld of "In-Betweeness:" To be without origin, floating somewhere between the solid and the fluid, somewhat awake, yet far away from an actual place.

Shelter for Daydreaming Exhibition dates:
Premiere: John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin; Solo exhibition and catalog, Shelter for Daydreaming, November 2000 to February 2001
Julia Friedman Gallery, Chicago, Illinois; Solo exhibition, Shelter for Daydreaming,
October to December, 2001
Aquaria; Group Exhibition; Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum in Linz, Austria (January - March 2002)
Städtische Kunstsammlungen in Chemnitz, Germany (April/May 2002)
Sioux City Art Center, Iowa: Solo exhibition and catalog, January 2004 to April 2004

Shelter for Daydreaming was made possible in part with funds and in-kind support from: The New York State Council on the Arts, The Jerome Foundation, The Experimental Television Center, Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center, and the MacDowell Colony.