Theresa Himmer: All State
Theresa Himmer: All State
Hafnarhús
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Sound composition, 6:04:10 hours, stereo Existing elevator, amplifier, media player, speakers Realized in collaboration with Kristján Eggertsson First installed at Art in General, New York, 2012 A site-responsive sound installation, All State was made specifically for the elevator at Art in General, New York, where it was shown in 2012. All State is a 6-hour-long composition of rhythmically playful arrangements. Using the machinery’s repetitive movement and existing sounds as a starting point, All State intensifies a space that already elicits a heightened sensitivity; the work suspends the viewer between objective and manipulated space.
As All State is displaced and transplanted into the context of Hafnarhús, the meaning of the work shifts and expands.
The elevator in Hafnarhús is newer and quicker. It runs more smoothly and hence is almost silent. The opening hours at Hafnarhús are longer than at Art in General, so the composition must repeat on loop to last long enough. Instead of producing an uncanny doubling of sounds, at Hafnarhús All State produces a series of palimpsestic overlaps defined more by slips and discrepancies than by conjunctions. In this context the zone of suspension is playfully expanded from a spatial-psychological framework to a wider cultural, mechanical and institutional limbo..
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