Rorrim Room Mirror, 2000
Mixed media installation
Two computer-controlled autoyokes, live video camera (with attached lamp and barndoor), video projector, computer (color, silent)
Dimensions variable
Edition of two and one artist’s proof
Rorrim Room Mirror consists of two computer-controlled motorized pan/tilt systems in which a video camera and video projector are mounted respectively. The units are free standing on the floor along with the necessary connecting cables. Also fixed to the camera is a light with a barndoor attachment that specifically frames the rectangular area the moving camera sees. The closed circuit camera image, consisting of combinatory movements of panning, tilting and pausing provides a continuous programmed view of a given room. The signal is simultaneously displayed by the video projector that is programmed identically to the camera’s movements. Since the projector’s position is reversed or mirrored from that of the camera’s, all movements, as such, cancel each other out. This gives the illusion that, similar to the light itself which “reveals” the surface/architecture of the space, the projected image appears to also be revealing the space. That is, rather than “carrying” an image from one place to another via the projector’s movement, the projected image shows the space as if it were a panning “light.” The image, however, always comes from the other side of the space. In a sense, this simple binary difference begins a kind of enfolding process of the room on to/into itself. Likewise, viewer(s) become a part of the installation as it is being performed as they obscure the projected image, produce shadows, and/or view their own image being viewed.
Gary Hill: Selected Works and catalogue raisonné. Wolfsburg: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2002, GHCR 119, p. 235.
An example of this work was first exhibited in a solo exhibition at Donald Young Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, January 21 – February 26, 2000.
Solo exhibition. Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 17 – June 4, 2000.
Solo exhibition. Museo Caraffa, Córdoba, Argentina, July 7 – 30, 2000.
“Gary Hill: The Performative Image,” WATARI-UM, The Watari Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan, September 1, 2000 – January 14, 2001; Towers Plaza Hall, Nagoya, Japan, February 3 – 17, 2001.
“Gary Hill: Selected Works,” Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany, November 10, 2001 – March 10, 2002. Travelled to: Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon, Portugal, October 10, 2002 – January 12, 2003.
Chung, Yong-do. “Gary Hill: New Art Language Marking History of Reason. ” Art, Korea (October 2000), p. 140 (in Korean).
Gary Hill en Argentina: textos, ensayos, dialogos. Buenos Aires: Centro Cultural Recoleta, 2000, pp. 4, 5, 13.
Gary Hill: Instalaciones. Córdoba: Ediciones Museo Caraffa, 2000, pp. 56 – 57, 58 – 61.
Gary Hill: The Performative Image. Tokyo: Gary Hill Exhibition Committee, 2001, unpaginated.
Gary Hill: Selected Works and catalogue raisonné. Wolfsburg: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2002, pp. 12, 13, 39, 235.
De Volder, Geoffroy (interview with Gary Hill). “L’instant de ma mort.” DITS (MAC’s Grand-Hornu) (Spring 2003), pp. 142 – 153.
Gary Hill: Resounding Arches / Archi Risonanti. (Catalogue and DVD.) Rome: Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali Soprintendenza archeologica di Roma, and Milan: Mondadori Electa S.p.A., 2005, pp. 149.
Odin, Paul-Emmanuel. L’absence de livre [Gary Hill et Maurice Blanchot – Écriture, vidéo]. Marseille: La Compagnie, 2007, p. 68.