:::::::::: 1: The Open Air Between Us / 12:13 AM	:::::::::: Detail of The Suspended Room at The Art Gallery of Windsor, 1998	:::::::::: 2: Divinity, Obscenity, Infinity / 1:57 AM	:::::::::: Detail of Fadeout Element: Repetitive Stabbing Device

The Suspended Room (1998)

medium: six speaker/lightboxes, neon sign, fan, shovel, electronic compenents, various sound compositions
dimensions: variable
sound: soundtrack lengths for each scene vary; the linear total of all six scores = 52m00s

The Suspended Room has been described as "a deconstructed noir murder tale". It is a broken narrative play that explores life and death, mental instability and issues of human intimacy. It is presented in an installation environment, and reveals itself to the viewer abstractly, through a number of disparate elements and objects; these objects — photographic speaker/lightboxes, a neon sign, an industrial fan, a shovel — are placed in specific relationships to one another: positioning occurs in a clockwise fashion from the entrance of the space moving in a circle and back out. Six language-based audio scenes make up this installation, environmental and ambient in nature — hypersynthetic recordings of outdoor sceneries. All scenes are played at once in the gallery space, randomly interacting in a collage of sound, atmosphere and voice.

The presentation of The Suspended Room requires an alteration of the white box normally associated with gallery spaces — instead, walls are painted a dusk-blue, and all sources of ambient light are blocked out; this theatrical transformation of the gallery is meant to simulate a nighttime atmosphere, where the narrative takes place.

• Project commissioned by Helga Pakasaar for the Art Gallery of Windsor. Sound recordings created during a self-directed residency at Charles Street Video.

• Read Essay 01 by Ihor Holibizky (also leads to an animated view of 'Repetitive Stabbing Device')
• Read Article 02 by Helga Pakasaar