At The Brink Gallery first friday opening reception of my show fix yourself, I watched a person taking a video of my video, learn more to earn more, on the window with their point-and-shoot camera. It might have been the most perfect moment of the show for me.
First, you can only see this video at night. The projector hangs inside the gallery and points out an exterior window, so during the day the light of the projector doesn't compete with daylight.
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| learn more to earn more, video, lectern, encyclopedia minus core cut out, moss, window, silver leaf |
In daytime, you can see just inside the gallery stands a lectern with an encyclopedia and moss growing inside it. On the window's surface, silver-leaf layers form a circle at eye-level, over the book on the lectern.
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| learn more to earn more, view from outside during the day |
When dusk rolled in on the later side of opening night, it was after most gallery walkers were heading to dinner with friends. I was about to leave for the night too. I stood in the middle of the gallery, when I saw a person outside the gallery stop to watch the video emerging in the circle on the window. learn more to earn more was the last piece that we had installed for the show only a few hours before, so I had not even seen it on the window yet myself. The person outside was probably the first to see this video as it was intended - on this window of this gallery, framing the objects inside.
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| learn more to earn more, demo (with gallery staff member, Marlo,) of a person looking through the window |
As I stood inside, twenty paces away and watching, their face, blurred by the filmy substance inside the circle that 'catches' the projecting image, they were perfectly framed in the silver-leaf halo. I thought, "fini." But then they lifted their pocket camera, framed a shot of the video and held steady. Their lens pointing into the window, framed by the photographer's fuzzy face, framed in a halo of silver-leaf framed by a window of darkness. This was more than I had hoped for. The woman next to me saw what I did, and without a hint of irony said, "Toni, you gotta get a picture of that!"
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swell, core of encyclopedia, rope |
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| learn more to earn more, detail at night |
You can't really see the video at this angle, but you can see the layout of the elements at night. The light from the video is 'captured' inside the circle of silver leaf, and also reflects off of it, back onto the encyclopedia.
The video with learn more to earn more ran for the last time last Friday night.
