pfe


no.16


Sitting in a pitch black room...
On the back wall is a projection.


Bill Viola "The Messenger"
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Originally commissioned for the Durham Cathedral 1996
and displayed in the Great West Door.


Hunched up in the dark, watching, not daring to move.

The cycle begins, an abstract glimmering light under the water.
   From this light comes the figure of a man rising.
                Bubbles flowing from his nostrils.


As he breaks the surface...


"Eyes immediately open and he releases a long
held breath from the depths, shattering the
silence of the image as this forceful primal
sound of life resonates momentarily in space."
					                        	Bill Viola


The man then takes a long breath
             and falls back to the depths...
      as he sinks the figure again
             looses its referent.


        I find myself falling into sleep
        loosing time and space,
        hallucinating with open eyes.


_______and the sound, what sound!


Underwater we hear a drone, radar like trebles,
reverb, faint drips.


- the sounds so remind me of
Alan Lamb's Wind Organ...
I can find no cause for the reverbing pulse...
there's no point trying to find commentary which
refers to the sound in the work....


The drone increases as the figure draws nearer the surface.
     As he breaks it,
  eyes open with confused fearful look,
     he breaths in a heavily distorted and loud gasp
    shattering the silence of the soundscape.
Breath rings as he draws a final intake,
          the walls vibrate as he drops back under
      to begin the cycle again.





____-----:: pfe

------^^:  caleb k