Janet Cardiff
Chiaroscuro Parts I &II
Nine Artists in the Nineties
Sept 13 - Jan 6
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
http://www.sfmoma.org

I recently had the chance to go see Janet Cardiff's two part electronic
media piece that is showing in the SFMoMA's exhibition, "Nine Artists in
the Ninties."

Chiaroscuro Part I is a an audio tour of the museum. The user
checkes-out a walkman from the front desk and is instructed to listen to
the tape and do what it says. The instructions lead the user around the
different levels of museum while a narrative unfolds regarding
surveillance, power-relations and sexual difference. The artist invites
the user to listen to her footsteps and to use them as a metronome to
pace their walking. The found audio and music accompaining the spoken
text is emotionally effective and uses techniques of traditional
hollywood cinema to evoke an emotional response.

Chiaroscuro Part II is a telescope on the top floor of the museum. It
points out of the window. It is motorized to tilt and pan, guiding your
view of the parking lot and alley-way outside. However, instead of
having a lens, the telescope has a small monitor that displays an hour
long video loop of the view outside the window. The narrative consists
of different characters entering frame, interacting with each other, and
then exiting. The video contains similar themes and interactions as the
audio narrative of part I.

I was interested in how both parts of the piece work in terms of virtual
space. Each took a part of the user's sensory system and substituted
a new stream of information that operated in the same local time, but a
different global time. This was an interesting way to approach the idea
of "augmented senses" through prothesis or through a virtual
environment.