Megan and Murray McMillan

The Shape of Our Best Intentions: Installation, DeCordova Museum,  Megan and Murray McMillan, 2011

The Shape of Our Best Intentions: Installation, DeCordova Museum,  Megan and Murray McMillan, 2011

The Shape of Our Best Intentions: Installation, DeCordova Museum,  Megan and Murray McMillan, 2011

The Shape of Our Best Intentions: Video (Video still), Megan and Murray McMillan, 2011

The Shape of Our Best Intentions: Photograph, Megan and Murray McMillan, 2011

The Arnolfini Portrait, Jan van Eyck, 1434

The Shape of Our Best Intentions (2011) includes a single-channel video, a site-specific video installation and a series of photographs. This work is loosely inspired by Jan Van Eyck’s “Arnolfini Marriage Portrait” (1434), as a meditation on the institution of contemporary marriage. A real-life married couple fold sheets in a room on a suspended structure, rotating over a reflecting pool of water. The structure is powered by workers. When the structure stops, the couple step out of the room into the water. They walk to the camera and move it to a crane, which pulls back to reveal the structure which was supporting them.

The Remains of Something Whole, 2011

The Remains of Something Whole, 2011

The 2012 RISCA Fellowship Exhibition honoring this year’s recipients opens this Friday, Feb. 3rd from 5-8pm. We will be debuting our single-channel video, The Remains of Something Whole, which features the cast, crew, set and sound during the making of Rachel Jendrzejewski’s experimental text Meronymy, which was performed at the Pell Chafee Performance Center in 2011. The sound design is by Peter Bussigel. You can see the history of the development of this project here.

We are honored to have been selected for both a 2012 RISCA fellowship in New Genres as well as a RISCA project grant to fund our next work (which we’ll be filming in March — more on that later).

2012 RISCA Fellowship Exhibition Feb 2-25
Opening Reception: Friday, February 3rd from 5:00-8:00 PM
Writers Night Friday: February 17th from 6:30-8:30 PM
Closing Reception/Artists Talk: Saturday, February 25th from 1-4:00 PM
Gallery Hours Tuesday – Friday 11 AM – 5 PM and by appointment (401-222-3881)

All events free and open to the public at Machines with Magnets, 400 Main St., Pawtucket, RI

We’ve designed a room for the video that will float similar to the installation in the video. First we  installed the stilts–our assistant JR Uretsky named them Stevens because they needed a name and there is nothing wrong with Steven. We then added the bottom perimeter followed by the walls (starting from the entrance hall). The square cut out will be where the projector shines through.

JR Uretsky (inside) and RWU research assistant Chris Capozzi are positioning the hallway ceiling in place.

We created 9 ceiling supports that JR named Brittany’s. Each of the Brittany’s have last names too, which helped pair them together during transportation.

Walls and ceiling complete–now it’s time to connect it to the museum ceiling.

Each of the boxes hanging from the museum ceiling have four quarter inch rods that are fastened directly to large i-beams above the museum drop ceiling. Our project engineer, Sam Hogg, calculated all weights and limits so all connections are safe.

Here is the inside of the room and the projection screen frame. So the video of a floating room will be shown on a projection screen that floats on a wall within a floating room. BTW, we’re using a stretchable rear projection screen so that a bit of light from the projection will illuminate the back wall subtly.

We’re pre-building installation components in our studio in Providence.

The Shape of Our Best Intentions, 2011

We will be debuting our new video installation, The Shape of Our Best Intentions, at the 2012 deCordova Biennial, which runs from January 23 to April 22. There’s no public opening, but there is a Members Preview Day that’s open to guests of the artists — all you have to do is give them our name at the gate. We’ll also be giving an artists’ talk on Saturday, March 10 at 2pm. Here’s a link to the full list of events for the exhibition. Hope to see you at one of them.

2012 deCordova Biennial Jan. 23rd thru Apr.22nd

Artist Discussion: Artistic Collaboration
Antoniadis & Stone, Megan and Murray McMillan
Saturday, March 10, 2 pm at deCordova

We’re pleased to announce that our current project, The Shape of Our Best Intentions (which was previously referred to under the working title Flying Room) will open as a video installation this January at the 2012 Biennial at the DeCordova Museum in Boston (Lincoln).

Our lead actors will step out into the water, grab the camera using the two handles, lift it up and out of the tray and place into a similar tray installed on a crane that will move away from the structure, while the structure is spinning.