Entries Tagged as '2008 The Listening Array'

The Listening Array at Aqua Art Miami

December 2nd, 2009 · No Comments · 2008 The Listening Array

List-photo-at-gallery

photo credit: Maya Allison

Tomorrow morning, I’ll be on a plane to Miami. Murray and I are participating in Aqua Art Miami with 5 Traverse Gallery. If you’ll be in Miami too, come by Booth 15 or check in with me. It’s a great group of artists showing with 5T — we’re glad to be included in the line-up.

2nd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art and Art Athina

May 15th, 2009 · 2 Comments · 2008 The Listening Array

 

We are gearing up to leave for Greece next week to attend the openings of two exhibitions that we’re participating in: 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art and Art Athina: International Contemporary Art Fair.

We’re particularly honored to be included in the Biennale, which is curated by Bisi Silva of the Contemporary Art Centre, Lagos, Nigeria, Gabriela Salgado of Tate Modern, and Syrago Tsiara of the State Museum of Contemporary Art, Greece.

We’ll be showing the video and photograph for The Listening Array. Here’s a link to our catalogue page on the Biennale website. From the text about our work:

“Megan and Murray McMillan’s work is gifted with an unusual terseness full of meaning; within about one and a half minutes, it visualizes and represents, in exquisite density, simplicity and technical perfection the unformed meeting of two contradictious, implicitly connecting, worlds: one the one hand, the representatives of a declining yet elitist aristocracy, who continue their journey in blessed eternity, while the boat is sinking, without having the faintest worry although the watchful eye of the workers (?) excluded from this circle spies on them with unsolved intentions.

This work consitutes a poetic, social psychograph of the fin de siecle, the dead calm before the storm, the sweet life on the verge of revolution.” 

Preview Berlin, Video Art Program

September 18th, 2008 · 2 Comments · 2008 The Listening Array

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We’re excited to have been selected to have our video, The Listening Array, included in the Video Art Program of “the emerging art fair,” Preview Berlin.

Fair Dates: Thursday October 30 – Sunday November 2, 2008
More info here.

The Listening Array: Video

March 10th, 2008 · 1 Comment · 2008 The Listening Array

Our current work, The Listening Array, has three distinct manifestations: a site-specific installation currently on view at Whittier College’s Greenleaf Gallery, a large related photograph, and this video, which is shown on a television monitor incorporated into the installation.

Inspired by the social politics of the Reagan-era Cold War, issues of class and the notion of noblesse oblige — the concept of benevolent, honorable behavior that is considered to be the responsibility of persons of high birth or rank — The Listening Array is a study in the small personal interactions that influence the larger world.

The audio is from an 1878 Russian choral piece, Вы жертвою пали (You Fell Victims). Here’s a translation of the last few stanzas:

And the tyrant is feasting in luxurious palaces
Drowning his anguish in wine
But the deadly hand is drawing
Threatening letters on the wall.

Tyranny shall fall and the people will rebel
The great powerful and free people
Farewell our brothers! You have walked with honor
Your road of worthiness and nobility.

We will keep the video on YouTube until the exhibition closes on April 4, 2008.

* YouTube doesn’t allow resizing of its videos, which is the reason the video is cropped on this blog. We recommend double-clicking on the video to see it in its native YouTube setting rather than hitting the play button to watch it on our blog.

The Listening Array Installation

March 2nd, 2008 · 2 Comments · 2008 The Listening Array

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The Listening Array: Opening Tonight, 7-9pm

February 28th, 2008 · 1 Comment · 2008 The Listening Array, Los Angeles

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Megan and Murray McMillan, The Listening Array: Photograph, 2008, 25” x 50”, ed. of 3

Our opening is tonight at Whittier College from 7-9pm (info).

Hope to see you there.

Building the Array (3)

February 27th, 2008 · No Comments · 2008 The Listening Array

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We spent yesterday wiring and getting the structure ready for plastic, then last night our good friend and fellow artist Zach Kleyn came by to help attach the plastic (thanks Zach!). Today will be all-plastic / all-day.

Lecture is tonight at 7:15pm at the Alumni House on campus, info here.

Building the Array (2)

February 26th, 2008 · 2 Comments · 2008 The Listening Array

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Yesterday we finished the wood frame. Today we’ll wire the speaker system, install the AV equipment, and fasten and finish the plastic. If all goes according to schedule, we’ll be done tonight.

The audio we’re using in the video is from an 1878 Russian choral piece, Вы жертвою пали (You Fell Victims). Here’s a translation of the last few stanzas:

And the tyrant is feasting in luxurious palaces
Drowning his anguish in wine
But the deadly (fatal) hand is drawing
Threatening letters on the wall.

Tyranny shall fall and the people will rebel
The great powerful and free people
Farewell our brothers! You have walked with honor
Your road of worthiness and righteousness (nobility).

[The rank of young (fresh) soldiers is following your footsteps
Ready to die and to accomplish high deeds
Farewell our brothers! You have walked with honor
Your road of worthiness and righteousness.]

Building the Array (1)

February 25th, 2008 · No Comments · 2008 The Listening Array

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Yesterday we built about 65% of the wood frame structure for the array. Today we finish the frame and begin to attach the plastic skin. We’re a bit ahead of schedule, but with things like this, something tricky always comes up so it’s nice to have a time bonus.

It had been a while since we’d seen the gallery, and it’s much more lovely than we remembered: hand-painted wood beam 20-foot ceilings, Moorish architectural details, iron chandeliers.

Lecture is Wednesday night and the opening is on Thursday.

Arrived in Los Angeles and Everything is Green

February 24th, 2008 · No Comments · 2008 The Listening Array

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[source]

After a long day of travel yesterday, we arrived in LA to begin our install at the gallery. It’s raining and everything is vivid green: the hills are vibrating with leprechaun color.

We checked in at the gallery and immediately started our materials hunt, beginning with the best thrift store in the universe. It’s over by Dodger Stadium, but that’s all I’m gonna say: years ago I was sworn to secrecy about divulging its location. True to its rep and we scored a 1984 television studio monitor that we’re building into the installation. We knew we wanted old technology that speaks to the time period of the piece, and 1984? Could that be a more perfect year? Reagan in office and the Orwellian year of prophecy.

These bits and pieces of data — that the TV is from 1984, say — are the kind of thing that, while not conceptually necessary, add a consistency that reads true in a way that some slick new flatscreen from Frye’s wouldn’t.