Patty Chang’s Fountain – It’s the sound that makes it happen…

The Haggerty Museum of art’s current exhibition, stop.look.listen (October 23, 2008 – February 22, 2009) is an interesting travel through some of the more adventurous artists in video and performance art currently working. One of these artists, Patty Chang, has developed a series of works that highlight where exactly our focus is drawn on within the piece itself (more on that some other time.) 

One of her works, “Fountain” shows her and her mirror image seemingly facing each other. She leans forward, it would appear that she is going to kiss her self, but suddenly she begins to drink… because she is kneeling over a pan of water with a mirror in it she is able to slurp water out of it. 

Patty Chang

 

The sound carries the most weight.

The moments between the “kisses” are introspective. A person look upon their reflection in the mirror. The mood is set by the silence… we are left to be introspective as well. But as the reflections meet we are confronted with a new reality… the moment she begins to drink the piece becomes something else…  the introspection vanishes and we are suddenly removed to tangle with what’s and how’s of the video. 

But without the sound this impact would be far less dramatic… we can hear her slurping up the water… and it is the suddenness of this aural event is the largest agent of change in our experience with the piece. In the image we can see the ripples begin to grow around her mouth, and the shape of the mouth itself are an indication of what is going on, but the sound itself, breaking the complete silence adds a weight to the  change that the visuals could not, and do not deliver on their own.