Without ©2001

Without is a video installation in which a 5 by 6.6 foot projection is cast upon the ceiling of an intimate, darkened room. The video projector is hidden beneath a false floor, and there are floor mats and pillows for two viewers. The installation is intended to be viewed while lying down.

Altering the viewer's sense of location by shifting the perspective upwards, Without creates a sense of relinquishment through the physical interaction of lying down. In slow-motion passage, darkened shapes form the outlines of people descending in free-fall. The viewer is swept along with the many dislocated, drifting figures descending from the sky, while the sound of muffled, indistinguishable voices give way to clarity, revealing life’s histories—births, deaths, and acts of loving, planning, working, and aging.

Without is an invocation of the persistence of memory and the endurance of familial history despite the conditions of transience and impermanence. Adrift through air, untethered to material objects, these passing figures eventually rise back into the overhead expanse in a perpetual cycle of descent and ascent.