Rune

Description:

As part of the video installation series Luminous Sites, Randy Gledhill and Berenicci Hershorn presented Rune, an installation on the thirty-first floor of an office tower in downtown Vancouver.

Monitors displaying anthropological montages of ancient rituals, marvels of the world, and archaeological sites were embedded in assemblages of oversized letters that suggested language but never resolved into actual words. These abstract letter formations were constructed from Styrofoam and painted grey to resemble concrete, riffing on “concrete poetry.” The typographic sculptures reflected on a society of information overload and the breakdown of communication. The interplay of monitors and letterforms also referenced the computer science term “graceful degradation,” in which a system under stress continues to function but at a reduced capacity, eventually outputting disordered or nonsensical code.

The installation was staged to evoke a tourist attraction built around a cultural ruin. In one sculpture, monitors and letters were arranged beside a constructed hole in the ground, giving the illusion they were emerging from a tomb. In another, a screen was presented as an altarpiece, flanked by glowing red lights and wing-like fragments of disassembled letters to suggest a ritual site found in situ. 

To accompany the installation, Gledhill and Hershorn staged a performance in the harbour that was viewed from the office tower. This was presented as part of the parallel series Luminous Performances.

Video documentation is available upon request. 

Curated by Daina Augaitis and Karen Henry.