Robert Wilson b. 1941
Deafman Glance (1981)
1981, 26:53 min, color, sound
This haunting work for television has been excerpted and adapted from Wilson's five-hour "silent opera" of the same title. Wilson tells a stark and stylized story of murder, using time and space, light and movement, and isolated sound in place of spoken words. The ritualistic action, which moves from a spartan kitchen through the silent halls, stairways and rooms of a lonely house, is both dreamlike and sinister. A somber, menacing woman washes white dishes and a gleaming carving knife, pours milk into a glass, and then slowly attacks first one young boy and then another. Not a word of dialogue is uttered. Suggesting the disparate worlds of both ancient Greek tragedy and contemporary tabloid headlines, Deafman Glance harbors paradox: The events are terrifying but not violent; characters are both real and symbols of reality; pacing reduces action to abstraction; and morality and mortality are ambiguous.
Lighting: Danny Franks. Produced by Byrd Hoffman Foundation. Executive Producer: Lois Bianchi. With: Sheryl Sutton, Jerry Jackson. Rafael Carmona. -- EAI
This title is available for exhibitions, screenings, and institutional use through Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), NY. Please visit the EAI Online Catalogue for further information about this artist and work. The EAI site offers extensive resources for curators, students, artists and educators, including: an in-depth guide to exhibiting, collecting, and preserving media art; A Kinetic History: The EAI Archives Online, a collection of essays, primary documents, and media charting EAI's 40-year history and the early years of the emergent video art scene; and expanded contextual and educational materials.
RESOURCES:
Robert Wilson in UbuWeb Sound
This haunting work for television has been excerpted and adapted from Wilson's five-hour "silent opera" of the same title. Wilson tells a stark and stylized story of murder, using time and space, light and movement, and isolated sound in place of spoken words. The ritualistic action, which moves from a spartan kitchen through the silent halls, stairways and rooms of a lonely house, is both dreamlike and sinister. A somber, menacing woman washes white dishes and a gleaming carving knife, pours milk into a glass, and then slowly attacks first one young boy and then another. Not a word of dialogue is uttered. Suggesting the disparate worlds of both ancient Greek tragedy and contemporary tabloid headlines, Deafman Glance harbors paradox: The events are terrifying but not violent; characters are both real and symbols of reality; pacing reduces action to abstraction; and morality and mortality are ambiguous.
Lighting: Danny Franks. Produced by Byrd Hoffman Foundation. Executive Producer: Lois Bianchi. With: Sheryl Sutton, Jerry Jackson. Rafael Carmona. -- EAI
This title is available for exhibitions, screenings, and institutional use through Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), NY. Please visit the EAI Online Catalogue for further information about this artist and work. The EAI site offers extensive resources for curators, students, artists and educators, including: an in-depth guide to exhibiting, collecting, and preserving media art; A Kinetic History: The EAI Archives Online, a collection of essays, primary documents, and media charting EAI's 40-year history and the early years of the emergent video art scene; and expanded contextual and educational materials.
RESOURCES:
Robert Wilson in UbuWeb Sound