MULTIMEDIA INSTALLATION

 

press release

Tim White-Sobieski
“Seventh Heaven- The Sound And The Fury”
Part 1: April 7, 1928

(based on the novel “The Sound And The Fury” by William Faulkner)
Single channel video for theater release, HD format, color, stereo
Project was also released as a synchronized seamless 4-channel video projection for a gallery/museum setting.
Soundtrack by the artist, surround sound.

Multichannel video and sound, HD format; aspect ratio 16:9,
surround sound Dolby Digital 5.1; Video projection size 15x28 ft (4 x 7 m)
Approximate duration 15:00 min per video channel

Seamless multichannel video field, combined resolution 4x HD format video format (5760x1080 px). Plasma monitors and DLP Video Projections, mounted acrilyc screens.
script-coded frame animation.

2008-2009

 

The new video work by Tim White-Sobieski is a hypnotic re-creation of the opening section of William Faulkner’s 1929 novel “The Sound and The Fury”. Faulkner took his title from “Macbeth”: “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” The artist does not try to impose his own order on Faulkner’s prose but is trying to translate main character’s nonlinear, non-interpretive point of view on time that is never easy to quantify.

It only seems logical, after the series of “Deconstructed” films and photographs where time appears not sequential but simultaneous, that the artist stylizes and puts together elements seemingly incongruous, sparingly spiced with surrealistic accents, in “Seventh Heaven” (apparently, title stretches from the subtitle of the literary work – “April Seventh, 1928”).
The video is a ravishingly detailed, photo-realistic evocation of what the protagonist’s disruptive worldview might have looked like. His inability to connect cause and effect, even when the cause is himself, is most sharply convened in the film.

One of the constant themes of the artist is time; and blur between the past and the present in this video is resembling  an impressionistic painting that at first seems to lack distinct forms, but watch long enough, and details emerge so accurately that it becomes finally sharper than any photograph. Here comes a magical opportunity: to encounter again the artist’s talent in video and to rediscover the thrill of one of the great achievements of Western literature.

The novel takes place in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County and is split into four sections. The first is from the viewpoint of Benjy Compson, a thirty-three year old man with mental retardation. The second segment is set eighteen years earlier than the other three and is told from the point of view of Quentin Compson, a Harvard-educated student who commits suicide after a series of events involving his sister Caddy. The third is from the point of view of their cynical, embittered brother, Jason, and the fourth is from a third-person-limited-omniscient narrative point-of-view focused on Dilsey, the Compson family's black servant, and her unbiased point of view, which allows the reader to make his or her own assumptions from the actions of the other characters. Jason is also a focus in the section, but Faulkner gives glimpses of thoughts and actions from everyone in the family. The story overall summarizes the lives of people in the Compson family that has by now fallen into ruin. Many passages are written in a stream of consciousness. This novel is a classic example of the unreliable narrator technique.
The title of the novel is taken from Macbeth's soliloquy in act 5, scene 5 of William Shakespeare's Macbeth:
"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
The video segment of the project is based on the first part of the book which is told by Benjamin, who is developmentally disabled and lives in his illusionary world. The flow of his mind sometimes has nothing to do with reality and is revealed in structurally indistinct phrases and is illustrated in his mind by floating shapes and colors.

Most immediately obvious is the idea of a "tale told by an idiot", in this case Benjy, whose version of the Compsons' story opens the novel.
The four parts of the novel relate many of the same episodes, each from a different point of view and therefore with emphasis on different themes and events. This interweaving and nonlinear structure makes any true synopsis of the novel difficult, especially since the narrators are all unreliable in their own way, making their accounts not necessarily trustworthy at all times. Also in this novel, Faulkner uses italics to indicate points in each section where the narrative is moving into a significant moment in the past. The use of these italics can be confusing, however, as time shifts are not always marked by the use of italics, and periods of different time in each section do not necessarily stay in italics for the duration of the flashback. Thus, these time shifts can often be jarring and confusing, and require particularly close reading.
The general outline of the story is the decline of the Compson family, a once noble Southern family descended from U.S. Civil War hero General Compson. The family falls victim to those vices which Faulkner believed were responsible for the problems in the reconstructed South: racism, avarice, selfishness, the psychological inability of individuals to become determinants. Over the course of the thirty years or so related in the novel, the family falls into financial ruin, loses its religious faith and the respect of the town of Jefferson, and many of them die tragically.

Timeline of the video: Part 1 - April 7, 1928

The first section of the novel is narrated by Benjamin "Benjy" Compson, a source of shame to the family due to his mental retardation; the only characters who evidence a genuine care for him are Caddy, his older sister; and Dilsey, a matriarchal servant. His narrative voice is characterized predominantly by its nonlinearity: spanning the period 1898-1928, Benjy's narrative is a pastiche of events presented in a seamless stream of consciousness. The presence of italics in Benjy's section is meant to indicate significant shifts in the narrative. Originally Faulkner meant to use different colored inks to signify chronological breaks. This nonlinearity makes the style of this section particularly challenging, but Benjy's style develops a cadence that, while not chronologically coherent, provides unbiased insight into many characters' true motivations. Moreover, Benjy's caretaker changes to indicate the time period: Luster in the present, T.P. in Benjy's teenage years, and Versh during Benjy's infancy and childhood.
In this section we see Benjy's three passions: fire, the golf course on land that used to belong to the Compson family, and his sister Caddy. But by 1928 Caddy has been banished from the Compson home after her husband divorced her because her child was not his, and the family has sold his favorite pasture to a local golf club in order to finance Quentin's Harvard education. In the opening scene, Benjy, accompanied by Luster, a servant boy, watches golfers on the nearby golf course as he waits to hear them call "caddie" - the name of his favorite sibling. When one of them calls for his golf caddie, Benjy's mind embarks on a whirlwind course of memories of his sister, Caddy, focusing on one critical scene. In 1898 when their grandmother died, the four Compson children were forced to play outside during the funeral. In order to see what was going on inside, Caddy climbed a tree in the yard, and while looking inside, her brothers—Quentin, Jason and Benjy—looked up and noticed that her underwear was muddy. How each of them reacts to this is the first insight the reader has into the trends that will shape the lives of these boys: Jason is disgusted, Quentin is appalled, and Benjy seems to have a "sixth-sense" in that he moans (he is unable to speak using words), as if sensing the symbolic nature of Caddy's dirtiness, which hints at her later sexual promiscuity. At the time the children were aged 9 (Quentin), 7 (Caddy), 5 (Jason) and 3 (Benjy). Other crucial memories in this section are Benjy's change of name (from Maury, after his uncle) in 1900 upon the discovery of his disability; the marriage and divorce of Caddy (1910), and Benjy's castration, resulting from an attack on a girl that is alluded to briefly within this chapter when a gate is left unlatched and Benjy is out unsupervised. Readers often report trouble understanding this portion of the novel due to its impressionistic language, necessitated by Benjamin's retardation, and its frequent shifts in time and setting.
The video is displayed as projections on free hanging screens.
Originally conceived as a single-channel video for a theater release, it was additionally re-rendered as a multi-channel installation for a gallery and museum settings. This decision allowed to emphasize on the main idea of the style, where the content is displayed though multi-faceted prism of the main’s character perception. Every subject and action is perceived by him in multiple meanings and has many starting points of his associative mentality.

It is illustrated through comparison of different images related to the storyline. The video has a soundtrack including narration of the original text from the book and a complex “live noise”, composed in multi-track recordings of sounds related to this history period. The “ambient noise” which is present constantly in the mind of the main character creates a “double-layer” storyline behind the visual narrative.

Installation requirements / Technical specifications

 

The video installation is projected from multiple high definition projectors positioned in any upper level of an exhibition space. Video source plays from an array of HD hard-disk players or BluRay players controlled by a sync board.
Screens for projections: black nylon designed for video stretched on aluminum frames. The screens can be freely placed in the room upright, affixed to the floor and/or suspended from the ceiling. Visitors will be able to walk around the screens and view the projection from any angle and side thus becoming an interacting part of the installation.

 

 

Installation includes composition of stainless steel constructions, full-color light-emitting diodes panels, and fiber-optics. Additional elements include: LED light controllers, electric circuit boards, transformers, DMX programmed light array.
Site-specific installation, dimensions variable

 

Video project was released as a theater version (single channel) and gallery version (synchronized seamless 4-channel video stream.
Available in DVD, HD-, and BluRay versions (Pal/NTSC, monitor and projection versions)
Original release HD PAL EU

 

 

© TIM WHITE-SOBIESKI