10-minutes
4 Channel 3D Animation Installation
Empire features a four-screen continuous surround animation of a virtual monument running the "course of empire." It is inspired by the 1836 paintings of Hudson River School artist Thomas Cole's series. Empire slowly decays and molds as it transits from sunrise to sunset. This piece uses a cenotaph drawn by Étienne-Louis Boullée the 18th-century French visionary architect as its source. It slowly decays and morphs from pink to blue, from sunrise to sunset. Camera motion is a slow zoom, direction z.
Empire premiered at the Wood Street Gallery, an art center dedicated to media at, in Pittsburgh in 2010. For the opening, Hart created a performance featuring the composer Ella Buckley as an extension of her world. Buckley composed the music for the animation, which also serves as the basis for a live improvisatory “performance object,” on view during the installation opening.
A box made from crude stage scrim hangs in the center of the installation space. Every half hour it is lowered to reveal the performer, suspended from wires, hovering 18-inches above the ground. The performer wore a dress designed by Kristin Mariani Frieman, made from plastic screen material. A rose is projected on the dress.
The cyborg Buckley wears jewelry consisting of miniaturized electronic instruments of her own design, complimented by an array of contact microphones attached to her skin. She performs for 10 minutes by stroking her body and rubbing her legs together.
At the end of this cycle, Buckley is lowered and the scrim box raised. The performance is repeated throughout the course of the evening.
Empire was revived in a 3-channel version in 2018 by Kelani Nichole, curator and director of Transfer Gallery, LA, as part of her Download projection system. It toured internationally between 2016 and 2019.
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Empire, Wood Street Galleries
April 23 - June 20, 2010
Empire, by Claudia Hart, features a three-screen animation of a virtual monument running the “course of empire,” inspired by the paintings made by Hudson River School artist Thomas Cole’s series. For the piece, Hart also created a performance featuring the Empire music composer Ella Joyce Buckley as an extension of her world. Empire consisted of a four-screen continuous surround animation of a virtual monument running the "course of empire." It is inspired by the 1836 paintings of Hudson River School artist Thomas Cole's series. This piece uses a cenotaph drawn by Étienne-Louis Boullée the 18th-century French visionary architect as its source. It slowly decays and morphs from pink to blue, from sunrise to sunset. Camera motion is a slow zoom, direction z.
Wood Street Galleries
601 Wood Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
p 412.471.5605 f 412.232.3262
woodstreetgalleries@pgharts.org
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