Soundings, 1979
Video (color, sound); 18:03 min.
Two color video cameras, two microphones, Dave Jones prototype modules (input amplifiers, variable soft/hard keyers, output amplifier, analog-to-digital converter, bit switch, digital-to-analog converter), assorted speaker cones, enclosed speaker, sand, large spike nails, lighter fluid, lighter, amplifier, wire, and water
“Occasioned by a production grant from WNET Channel 13 New York, I conceived this work for ‘public television,’ where the loudspeaker serves as ironic subject; it is the host (speaker). The subject is introduced as a kind of abstract object—its physical properties magnified to an extreme. The camera zeros in on a tweeter, and a high, whispery voice enunciates the lines, ‘Mouth stretches like nodes of a tiny instrument vibrating soft experimental kisses.’
The voice is heard again,—‘…sounding the image; imaging the sound…’—forwards and backwards speech coincides with my hands turning and spinning a hanging speaker cone copying the direction of the speech. A short intervening section involves holding two speaker cones face to face, rubbing them and crashing them together like cymbals. The body of the work comprises a series of explorations in which I put sand, nails, fire, water, and electricity directly on the speaker cone. As I impact the membrane of the speaker by touching, burying, burning, and puncturing, my voice is heard ‘processed’ by each action, reciting a particular passage that, reflexively, refers to the specific material/action being carried out. The work ends with a ‘plea’ from the speaker, absent of the pronoun ‘I,’ expressing the desire to communicate, even as greater amplification sent to the terminals ‘fries’ the speaker.”
Quasha, George and Charles Stein. An Art of Limina: Gary Hill’s Works and Writings. Barcelona: Ediciones Polígrafa, 2009, p. 592."Image Processing: The Electronic Manipulation of Television,” The Kitchen Center for Video and Music, New York, New York, December 4 – 29, 1979.
“Video Viewpoints: Processual Video,” Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York, February 26, 1980.
Solo exhibition. Media Study/Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, May 3 – 11, 1980.
“American Video: New York, Seattle and Los Angeles,” organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York. Travelled to: The Seibu Museum, Tokyo, Japan, May 10 – 18, 1980; The Museum of Modern Art, Hyogo, Kobe, Japan, May 23 – June 1, 1980; Fukuoka Art Museum, Fukuoka City, Japan, June 6 – 15, 1980; Osaka Prefectural Contemporary Art Center, Osaka City, Japan, June 20 – July 2, 1980; Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo City, Japan, July 8 – 12, 1980; Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan, October 1980.
Image Dissector Screening Series, University of California, Los Angeles, California, June 10, 1980.
“Art Vidéo Rétrospectives et Perspectives,” Palais des Beaux-Arts, Charleroi, Belgium, February 5 – March 27, 1983.
“The Electronic Gallery,” University Art Gallery, State University of New York, Binghamton, New York, March 2 – March 25, 1983.
Solo exhibition. Center for Media Art, The American Center, Paris, France, December 13 – 15, 1983.
Solo exhibition. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York, May 24 – June 15, 1986.
2e Semaine Internationale de Vidéo, Saint-Gervais Genève, Geneva, Switzerland, November 16 – 21, 1987.
Solo exhibition. Musée d’art moderne, Villeneuve d’Ascq, France, January 19 – February 19, 1989.
Vidéoformes 89: Festival de la Création Vidéo, Clermont-Ferrand, France, April 20 – 29, 1989.
Solo exhibition. “OTHERWORDSANDIMAGES,” Video Galleriet, Huset, Denmark and Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark, April 20 – May 13, 1990.
“16 Dagar," Nýlistasafnid, The Living Art Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland, June 26 – July 11, 1993.
“Gary Hill: Sites Recited,” Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, California, December 3, 1993 – February 20, 1994.
“Gary Hill: Selected Videotapes 1978 – 1990,” Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, June 7 – August 28, 1994.
“Gary Hill,” (travelling exhibition organized by Riksutställningar, Stockholm, Sweden) Moderna Museet, Spårvagnshallarna, Stockholm, Sweden, February 4 – April 17, 1995; Museet for samtidskunst, Oslo, Norway, April 26 - May 21, 1995; Helsingin Taidehalli, Helsinki, Finland, June 29 - July 30, 1995; Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden, September 3 - October 15, 1995, Jönköpings läns museum, Jönköping, Sweden, October 22 - November 15, 1995; Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Göteborg, Sweden, November 15, 1995 - January 14, 1996.
Sedicesima Biennale Internazionale del Bronzetto Piccola Scultura Padova, Padua, Italy, October 29, 1995 – January 28, 1996.
“Gary Hill: O lugar do outro/where the other takes place,” Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 1 – 6, 1997 (not the full run of the exhibition); Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, October 3 – November 2, 1997.
“Surveying The First Decade: Video Art and Alternative Media in the United States,” San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California, October 23 – November 23, 1997.
“Gary Hill: Rétrospective de ses premières oeuvres mono-bandes,” Cinéma Lux, Caen, Basse-Normandie, France, December 11, 1997.
Solo exhibition. Center for Contemporary Images, Saint-Gervais Genève, Geneva, Switzerland, September 9, 10, 1998.
“Gary Hill: Video Works,” NTT InterCommunication Center, Tokyo, Japan, February 16 – March 31, 1999.
“Re: soundings,” Film Video Series at Pratt, Pratt Institute of Art and Design, Brooklyn, New York, April 5, 2000.
Solo exhibition. Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 17 – June 4, 2000 (May 23, 2000 screening).
Solo exhibition. Museo Caraffa, Córdoba, Argentina, July 7 – 30, 2000 (July 15, 2000 screening).
“Video Time,” The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York, October 16, 2000 – February 17, 2001 (screenings on December 8 & 19, 2000).
“Gary Hill: Selected Works 1976 – 2003,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan, May 2 – August 24, 2003.
“Videoformes 2005: XXth Manifestation Internationale d’Art Vidéo et Médias,” Clermont-Ferrand, France, compilation screening moderated by Rosanna Albertini on March 18, 2005.
“Outer Ear Festival of Sound,” Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago, Illinois, December 4 and 8, 2005.
“Video Trajectories: Selections from the Pamela and Richard Kramlich Collection and the New Art Trust,” MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, October 12 – December 30, 2007.
“Analogue & Digital,” Fieldgate Gallery, London, England, November 23 – December 16, 2007.
“On Time,” video program in conjunction with the exhibition, “Synthetic Times – Media Art China 2008,” The National Art Museum of China (NAMOC), Beijing, China, June 10 – July 3, 2008.
“See This Sound: Promises in Sound and Vision,” Lentos Art Museum, Linz, Austria, August 28, 2009 – January 10, 2010.
TONSPUR_expanded III, MuseumsQuartier, Vienna, Austria, December 10, 2010 - February 20, 2011.
Tokyo, Fukui, Kyoto, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1979, p. 19.
Hoberman, J. “Videosyncrasies.” Village Voice (December 31, 1979), p. 39.
Hill, Gary. "Exhibition: Gary Hill: Opening of War Zone – A Video Installation and Presentation of New Videotapes." Media Study/Buffalo (January/May 1980), p. 10.
The Electronic Gallery. Binghamton, New York: University Art Gallery, State University of New York, Binghamton, 1983, unpaginated.
Oeuvres vidéo de Gary Hill en sa présence. Center for Media Art. Program notes. Paris: American Center, 1983, unpaginated.
Furlong, Lucinda. "A Manner of Speaking: An Interview with Gary Hill." Afterimage 10, 8 (March 1983), p. 12.
Hanhardt, John G. Gary Hill. The New American Filmmakers Series 30. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1986, unpaginated.
Rankin, Scott. Video and Language: Video as Language. Los Angeles: Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), 1986, unpaginated.
2e Semaine Internationale de Vidéo. Geneva: Saint-Gervais Genève, 1987, p. 126.
Nash, Michael. “Video Poetics: A Context for Content.” High Performance 37, 10, 1 (1987), p. 67.
Gary Hill: DISTURBANCE (among the jars). Villeneuve d'Ascq, France: Musée d'Art Moderne, 1988, unpaginated.
Vidéoformes '89: Festival de la Création Vidéo. Clermont-Ferrand, France: Festival de la Création Vidéo, 1989, p. 12.
Nash, Michael. "AFI Video Festival." Artscribe International (Summer 1989), p. 87.
Sarrazin, Stephen. Chimaera Monographe No. 10 (Gary Hill). Montbéliard, France: Centre International de Création Vidéo Montbéliard, Belfort, 1992, pp. 10, 16, 26, 27, 28, 81. (Including excerpts from a preface by Gary Hill and an interview with Gary Hill)
Van Assche, Christine. Gary Hill. Paris: Editions du Centre Georges Pompidou, 1992, pp. 36, 38, 83.
Gary Hill: Sites Recited. Long Beach, California: Long Beach Museum of Art, 1993, p. 25.
Van Assche, Christine and Corinne Diserens. Gary Hill. Valencia: Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno (IVAM), Centre del Carme, 1993, pp. 40, 42, 87.
Thériault, Michèle. Gary Hill. Selected videotapes 1978 – 1990. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1994, unpaginated.
Gary Hill: Tall Ships, Clover. Stockholm: Riksutställningar, 1995, pp. 48, 57.
Carnegie International 1995. Pittsburgh: The Carnegie Museum of Art, 1995, p. 94.
Klangskulpturen – Augenmusik: Grenzgange zwischen Musik und Plastik im 20. Jahrhundert. Koblenz: Städtische Museen Koblenz, Ludwigmuseum im Deutschherrenhaus, 1995, p. 88.
Duncan, Michael. “In Plato’s electronic cave.” Art in America 83, 6 (June 1995), p. 70.
Surveying the First Decade: Video Art and Alternative Media in the United States. San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Art, 1997, unpaginated.
Dantas, Marcello. Gary Hill: O lugar do outro/where the other takes place. Rio de Janeiro: Magnetoscópio, 1997, pp. 23, 24, 69, 81.
“Imagem éloqüente. Gary Hill: O Lugar do Outro.” Revista Veredas (July 1997).
Gary Hill: Video Works. Tokyo: NTT InterCommunication Center, 1999, pp. 10, 22.
Morgan, Robert C., ed. Gary Hill. Baltimore: PAJ Books / The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000, pp. 11, 30, 71, 72, 163, 190, 220.
Gary Hill en Argentina: textos, ensayos, dialogos. Buenos Aires: Centro Cultural Recoleta, 2000, p. 7, 25.
Gary Hill: Instalaciones. Córdoba: Ediciones Museo Caraffa, 2000, p. 12, 28 – 29, 70 – 71, 73.
Lageira, Jacinto. Des premiers mots aux derniers silences in Gary Hill: Around & About: A Performative View. Paris: Éditions du Regard, 2001, pp. 6, 60 – 63 (excerpt of transcription), 72.
Sans Commune Mesure: Image et texte dans l’art actuel. (Paris: Éditions Léo Scheer, 2002), pp. 60.
Gary Hill: Selected Works and catalogue raisonné. Wolfsburg: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2002, pp. 20, 21, 82 – 85, 122, 209.
De Volder, Geoffroy (interview with Gary Hill). “L’instant de ma mort.” DITS (MAC’s Grand-Hornu) (Spring 2003), pp. 142 – 153.
Video Acts: Single Channel Works from the Collections of Pamela and Richard Kramlich and New Art Trust. Long Island City: P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, 2003, pp. 166 – 167.
Unfolding Vision: Gary Hill, Selected Works 1976 – 2003. Taipei: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2003, pp. 98 – 101.
Odin, Paul-Emmanuel. L’absence de livre [Gary Hill et Maurice Blanchot – Écriture, vidéo]. Marseille: La Compagnie, 2007, pp. 153, 165, 170.
Quasha, George and Charles Stein. An Art of Limina: Gary Hill’s Works and Writings. Barcelona: Ediciones Polígrafa, 2009, pp. 10, 23, 25, 37, 427 – 429, 564, 584, 592, 603, 613, 624, 625.
Ramos, María Elena. Gary Hill. Caracas: Centro Cultural Chacao, 2009 (in Spanish), pp. 8.
Comer, Stuart, ed. Film and Video Art. London: Tate Publishing, 2009, pp. 85.
See This Sound. Versprechungen von Bild und Ton / Promises in Sound and Vision. Linz: Lentos Kunstmuseum, 2009, p. 233.
Gary Hill: Viewer. Moscow: GMG Gallery, 2010 (in Russian and English), pp. 16, 17.
Note: The transcription is incomplete as it appears in the catalogue raisonne, Gary Hill: Selected Works and catalogue raisonné. Wolfsburg:Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2002, and is reprinted in full below.
Transcription of spoken text:
sounding the image
imaging a sound
locating the sound of my voice
imaging my voice
pushing my voice through the object
setting my voice to the image
to the sound
sounding the image
imaging the sound
touching my voice
encoding the object
touching the object
decoding my voice
fingering the threshold
surfing the space
following the edge
circuitous spiral inverting the polarities
investigating both beginnings and both ends
around an extended period of time
the time of my voice
the space of determination
tangent with my finger
my voice my finger
two nodes tuning the meaning of an action
sounding the image
imaging the sound
my skin its skin forming another skin
the skin of myself circulating with self-corrective pressure on its skin
forming a skin of space where I voice from
the skin is always forming and shedding itself
I have my finger on it moving it
I have my finger on my voice tracking it
driving it
moving the skin
spinning the skin
continuing the space
playing the meaning
stretching the skin taut
touching down
touching sound
touching image
touching touching
voicing my thoughts between the skins
playing the skin
drumming my thoughts into the skin
driving the space
driving the speaker
imaging the sound hitting your skin
keeping the space taut
drumming your mind through the skin
circulating the space
circulating the sound
grafting my voice to the skin space
tracing our spiral in and out
pulling the skin
pushing the skin
sending the skin to push the space to pull your skin taut
to touch your space
circulating the skin
I have my finger on my voice
tangent to the skin
put your finger on it
put your mind through it
skin your thought
graft your skin
shed your skin
I want your skin
give your skin to me
I want to put my finger on it
I want to circumscribe the space
tracking the threshold
imaging the sound
sounding the image
forming the skin space
drumming your mind through the skin
drumming the skin stretched through your mind
I want your mind
I want your mind for the skin space
I want to peel the skin through the space
imaging the skin
peeling back the space
sounding the skin taut
the skin is pushing my voice
the skin is pulling my voice
forming a skin of space where I voice from
stretching my voice to the edge
pulling the skin
pushing the skin
sending the skin to push the space to pull our skin taut
sounding the sounding
imaging the imaging
sounding the imaging
voicing the skin
spacing the thoughts under the skin
pulling it taut
locating the space
imaging the distance between soundings
sounding the skin stretched between us
I want the skin
I want to spread the skin
I want to cover my voice with the skin
steal the skin giving voice to the skin
cover the skin with the image of skin
space the sound
ground the voice to the skin
Bury the sound imaging the skin space underground [repeats]
Drive the image of a spike with a spike through the imaging sound [repeats]
Burn the skin imaging the sound away [repeats]
Watering the sound imaging the skin space [repeats]
Written text:
Generate a text from the changing state of the object as it attempts to rectify its own medium of communication through a continuing increase in volume.
Spoken text:
[] have always wanted to get close to you. [] know that [] am self centered and constantly drawn in two directions. It is a dialectical fact. At times [] fluctuate so much [] thoughts draw a blank and translation is minimal. If only you could hold [] the nature of [] thoughts could be felt. At least then you would know it’s not a matter of mind but it comes directly from [] to you. And [] know after a while no matter how clear [] am it all blurs together and [] ripped [] self open to deliver all [] know how to deliver putting [] self in an irreversible solid-state of confusion.