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Monster Manual
sound and video installation
LMAKprojects Williamsburg, Brooklyn
June 30 - August 5, 2006
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Monster Manual explores ideas of human transformation and the role of metamorphosis in our shared cultural images of embodiment. Four video-channels are projected in a vertical column, partially overlapping, to form a narrow image of human scale. Each video represents a 'Monster', culled from a bestiary of cinema creatures and corresponding to a transformation of the human form. The piece consists entirely of images and synch sound from the moments in each of these films where the monster reveals itself to us.
The top frame shows creatures of the head and the brain, including parasites and invasive creatures entering the ears and mouth, but also transformations by psychic and telekinetic forces. The frame below demonstrates full body transformations, mainly bodily devolutions, reverting to an earlier or primal physical state. The third frame, birth, shows moments when a new creature emerges from its host body, often based on the physiology or DNA of the host. The bottom frame, called vessel, is the most conceptual of the monsters. It shows moments in which the creature is latent or suggested within two specific types of shots: images of empty hallways, and shots of arms receiving injections into their veins.
The eight channels of sound are live-processed using an evolving series of Max/MSP patches, so although the video is being played in a loop, no two viewings of the piece will be identical as the soundtrack mutates in real time.
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