If you happen to be visitng Barcelona, take the time to visit the MACBA (Museu Contemporani de Barcelona) and check out the Janet Cardiff and Georges Bures Miller exhibit “The Killing Machine and Other Stories” currently showing until May 1st.
Combining bits of fictional stories, snippets of overheard conversations, sound effects and three-dimensional installations, the exhibit is a collection of physical experiences which question the visitor’s senses and perceptions. Walking through the space, your eyes and ears are offered glimpses into inner worlds, whether you put your ear to a tin can to overhear a private conversation between two people, or walk through someone’s home, taking in the physical space filled with their books, a private journal left open, dried-up bits of fruit peel on the night table. Like walking through a theater set, without the aid of a script, the visitor is given clues and left to imagine the whole story.
Canadian artist Janet Cardiff is well known for using audio and film in her installations and often works in collaboration with her partner Geogres Bures Miller. In particular, Cardiff is internationally reknowned for her audio and video “Walks” where visitors are given instructions by the artist through the aid of a CD walkman or a video camcorder and participate in the stories created through these suggestions, while immersed in the sounds of voices, footsteps, cars and gunshots which make up the soundtrack. Past and present, reality, fantasy and meomory all intermingle with the participants’ own projections and desires.
The exhibit is made up of ten installations including The Dark Pool, In Playhouse and Night Canoeing. The best part of the exhibit, if you have the patience to wait in line, happens during four minutes and five seconds inside a private booth, behind closed curtains. Here you enter your very own private cinema and with the aid of headphones, are made witness and accomplice to a performance and plot you will not forget.
“The Killing Machine and Other Stories” is currently showing at Barcelona’s MACBA and runs until May 1st.
This article was published Wednesday, February 14, 2007.
