Amie Siegel. Winter

Amie Siegel. Winter
November 23, 2017 – March 11, 2018

Amy Siegel’s Winter (2013) aims to reactivate the experience of the projection through the ephemeral production of a key component in her movie, the soundtrack. Working with musicians and voice-over actors in each place where the piece is shown, the artist strives to bring the viewing experience closer to the most participatory aspects of the spectacle, eliminating the conventional distance between screen and audience. In Winter, on many occasions the projection space becomes an open sound studio where local performers offer different versions of a futuristic story, with infinite variations in atmosphere, dramatic twists, and moods. In this way, the story unfolds in several times at once: the present of the musical performance, the past of the filmed image, and the future of science fiction. Shot in a white-washed residential compound designed by architect Ian Athfield in the remote region of Khandallah, New Zealand, the film narrates the daily life of a small utopian community in the midst of a spectacular uninhabited landscape. Depending on the music and the words spoken by the transitory narrators, the story seems to change course. While a version of the piece with a standard soundtrack can be seen for much of the time it is on display, on live performance days the viewing becomes a unique, unrepeatable, engaging experience, making Winter a work inseparable from the space in which it is viewed and from the people who participate in it.