{"id":45352,"date":"2016-11-08T19:52:15","date_gmt":"2016-11-09T01:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=45352"},"modified":"2016-11-08T23:45:56","modified_gmt":"2016-11-09T05:45:56","slug":"artist-diane-thater-is-transforming-the-landscape-of-video-installation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/artist-diane-thater-is-transforming-the-landscape-of-video-installation\/","title":{"rendered":"Artist Diane Thater is transforming the landscape of video installation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Lauren Ball<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"dropcap\">As if entering hallowed ground, stepping into an art museum implies formality. We try not to click our heels too loudly against the wood floor. We make ourselves as small as possible to avoid blocking the views. And, somewhere in there, we attempt quiet contemplation. This type of learned behavior is exactly what renowned video installation artist Diane Thater destroys.<\/p>\n<p>Wandering through the spaces Thater creates, the initial effect of color is dizzying. Her current exhibition, the Sympathetic Imagination at Chicago\u2019s Museum of Contemporary Art, saturates walls in light projections of glowing red and darkened shades of blue, every segment of space carefully cultivated for spontaneous interaction and response. Thater rebels against the typical gallery convention of a framed picture on a simple white wall.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis building, in particular, gives me a great opportunity to grow with the architectural elements,\u201d said Thater at an MCA public artist&#8217;s talk. \u201cThese are not just white surfaces. They have this wonderful vaulted ceiling that I can work with, and use to sculpt the artwork.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thater began her career in Los Angeles in the early 1990s and her use of video installation as a medium has transformed over the past couple of decades. Projecting only rectangular images on a darkened wall at her first show, her exhibitions now explode with experimentations of color, variations of light, and differing mediums of video, from film to digital. But this artistic growth evolved along with bouts of hardship.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Diane Thater, Untitled Videowall (Butterflies)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cj_owJrd8R8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI felt very alone (in my work),\u201d said Thater of her beginnings as an artist. \u201cI had this professor, Patti Podesta, who was a film and video artist, and worked in experiments with time, space, and narrative. But she didn\u2019t do things like this, and I kept thinking \u2018What could I add to this medium that would transform it and make it new again?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Within <em>Knots + Surfaces<\/em>, one of Thater\u2019s largest projections, honeybees wildly skim the wall\u2019s surface while surrounded by colorful hexagonal structures, creating a multi-dimensional impression. \u201cI started to experiment with breaking video images out of the rectangle,\u201d said Thater of <em>Knots + Surfaces<\/em>. \u201cI wanted to break into architecture and work spatially because, for me, installation is halfway between sculpture and architecture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Diane Thater, Knots + Surfaces\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ndOqyVtsdCs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the most unprecedented theme that courses throughout Thater\u2019s work is the inclusion of the audience as forms moving within the installations and as part of them. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing, in these videos, the shadows of viewers melting into the piece,\u201d said Joey Orr, MCA postdoctoral fellow and curator. \u201cThat\u2019s something that (Thater) very much welcomes and engineers into the work.\u201d While Thater\u2019s light show buzzed and oscillated within various wall crevices and surfaces, darkened silhouettes continuously broke up the displayed images.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have always wanted viewers to penetrate the projections,\u201d said Thater. \u201cThe idea is that the viewer is never outside of the artwork. I never want them to be outside the work of art, just looking at it. I want them to be inside looking through it, in it, and with it. They should be conscious of their own body\u2019s relationship to the work of art, and of themselves experiencing something in space and time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Diane Thater, Delphine\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/c9Ut1WwrsyA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Yet, even after being welcomed to participate in the pieces by the artist herself, viewers at the October 29 exhibition debut seemed hesitant to walk in front of, or even near, the projection devices. Some shyly opted to wait until others walked out of a room before experiencing the work for themselves.<\/p>\n<p>As I wandered around Thater\u2019s gallery space, ghostly in its silent openness, I came to understand the audience\u2019s general reluctance. To have one\u2019s body displayed in such a public manner is disquieting &#8211; viewers have grown to expect art to remain static. Within Thater\u2019s space, we become hyper-aware of our bodies, our breath, our off-kilter walks and flyaway hair. But we also see these imperfections mimicked in the jolted video movements, light leaks, and film grains. In this way, Thater\u2019s work invites us to feel the warmth of acceptance and familiarity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wanted to do something that hadn\u2019t been seen before,\u201d said Thater. \u201cI don\u2019t innovate for the sake of innovation; I innovate for the sake of the content and the medium of the work. I do things that I think need to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"featurecaption\">Photo at top: Diane Thater&#8217;s work at MCA invites the participation of audience presence (Lauren Ball\/MEDILL)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Lauren Ball As if entering hallowed ground, stepping into an art museum implies formality. We try not to click our heels too loudly against the wood floor. We make ourselves as small as possible to avoid blocking the views. And, somewhere in there, we attempt quiet contemplation. This type of learned behavior is exactly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":317,"featured_media":45357,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194,452,1145,2941,28],"tags":[3250,3251,998,3252],"class_list":["post-45352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-beyond-chicago","category-election-2016","category-fall-2016","category-general-interest","tag-diane-thater","tag-mca","tag-museum-of-contemporary-art","tag-video-installation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Artist Diane Thater is transforming the landscape of video installation - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/artist-diane-thater-is-transforming-the-landscape-of-video-installation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Artist Diane Thater is transforming the landscape of video installation - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Lauren Ball As if entering hallowed ground, stepping into an art museum implies formality. 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