Claudia Esslinger, still montage, The Synergy Project, mixed media installation, 2007
Installation view of The Synergy Project
The Synergy Project (2007), an interactive video/audio installation, explores the way that narratives change through the shifting juxtaposition of elements. Visual and aural phrases are chosen by visitors to create intuitive, new relationships. The phrases employed reflect nature/ technology, culture/politics and incongruity/humor. Formal aspects of the video clips allude to magical realism, ritual and abstraction.
Visitors are invited to select images and sounds, changing their speed and volume to create sequences of interest. Although Brian Harnetty and I have created the phrases, it is our hope that viewers will experience a degree of authorship, with interpretation depending one's personal context.
Video by Claudia EsslingerAudio by Brian Harnetty.
Thanks to Leslie Seiters, Ron Estes, Adia Millett, Alice Gould, David Heithaus, Jane Miller, Yana Forney, Stephen DeSanto , Kate Skelly, Julie Brodie and Rachel Esslinger. Jack Esslinger, Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA, Kenyon College and the Ohio Arts Council are thanked for their support of the project.
Installation view of Spoems
SPoems (2007) is an interactive installation based on a series of poems written from email spam that I collected during the spring of 2006. Although spamming tactics and syntax change frequently (as a means of circumventing internet filters), during the period I was gathering this text, the words were disconnected yet related lists, lacking the sinews that bind traditional narratives. With as little manipulation as possible I have woven new narratives, leaving in the absurd jumps in subject and embracing odd phrasing.
SPoems's visual projection presents original spam content, gathered and arranged. The audio portion features actors reading the poems. Walking across the projection, viewers control the speed of the voice and image. (The piece functions best one viewer at a time.) Gallery visitors who leave their email address will receive a free gift Spoem.
Readers: Jon Tazewell, Liesel Schmidt, Ted Hornick, Claudia Esslinger
Searching for the Aurora
Searching for the Aurora (2007) is a video sculpture based on the poem, "We Searched for the Aurora," by G. C. Waldrep. The imagery is from the Headlands Center for the Arts, and the audio features the poet reading the text.
-Claudia Esslinger