Megan and Murray McMillan

One of the inspirations for this project is how we played as children (and how this has informed who we are now). One of Megan’s memories is the game of Lava: you can’t touch the ground because it’s hot lava. She did whatever it took to not touch the ground.

We’re relieved that it feels super stable and acts like a single unit. We’ve placed a “hat” on top to secure it on to the crane to keep it moving rigidly. the floor is 3/4″ thick. Everything is overbuilt.

The room is 10′ x 10 ‘x 10′, with an inside of 8′ x 8′ x 8′. Everything is quadruple reinforced so performers can operate safely. Our Engineer Sam Hogg oversees plans and comes by to double check our details. One question we don’t know yet: how will the performer exit this room? Not sure about the choreography yet…

After being embarrassed with the tremendous loss of energy in our first attempt, we brainstormed over the last weekend and came up with a completely new idea––or at least a highly edited version of our first idea. Here’s the pieces of a large moving room ready to assemble.

Our assistants Chris Capozzi (front) and JR Uretsky making the first cuts on our first idea that was tragically flawed: a gigantic tree. Er, so we should admit that we cut up about 20 4×8 sheets in the large forms we needed before we did our first test–which was such a gigantic failure that we canned the whole tree idea. Trees, as it turns out, are difficult to make.

This is the site for our new project, When We Didn’t Touch the Ground.

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.