Susan Hiller: The Dream Seminar II

From June 28 to July 20, Antonio Ratti Foundation hosts the XVII edition of its Advanced Course in Visual Arts. Entitled The Dream Seminar II, the course will have as Visiting Professor Susan Hiller (born in the USA in 1949 she has lived and worked in Britain since 1970s). The course, directed since 1995 by Annie Ratti, is curated by Andrea Lissoni and Cesare Pietroiusti, and coordinated by Angela Maderna.

On July 14 at 7pm Susan Hiller will give the conference The Provisional Texture of Reality at the Foundation (Villa Sucota). It will be followed by the opening of the artist's solo exhibition, at Spazio Culturale Antonio Ratti, which can be visited from Tuesday to Sunday, 4–8 pm until September 8, 2011.

Susan Hiller's exhibition is centred on the impressing and fascinating 5-channel installation PSI Girls (1999), showed in Italy for the first time and installed specifically for the space of the Church of San Francesco.

PSI Girls presents five brief loop sequences of girls with paranormal telekinetic powers, depicted while concentrated in producing the movement of an object with the strength of their mind. The sequences are taken from five famous films (The Fury by Brian De Palma, 1978; The Craft by Andrew Fleming, 1996; Matilda by Danny De Vito, 1996; Firestarter by Mark Lester, 1984, and Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker, 1979) whose colours were altered by Susan Hiller. The artist transformed each film in a blue, yellow, red, purple and green monochrome. The original audio of the films was replaced by a single soundtrack, taken from the record of a gospel choir of St. George's Cathedral of Charlotte, North Carolina, USA.

The colours slide from one sequence to another in a casual way, and are projected in the surrounding environment, thus producing a constant alteration of the perception of the surrounding space. The alternation of sound and silence, together with the moving colours and the length of the single sequences, creates the hypnotic effect of a performative work that is constantly changing. This work immerses the viewer in a iridescent perceptive flux, and offers many possibilities of being seen and interpreted: from the representation of the "alienated" condition of the teenager, to that of the feminine identity; from the use of fonts to the artist's possibilities of championing and manipulation, from a possible reflection on power, to that of the production of the contemporary imagery of the gender movie.

These images oscillate between different dimensions that go from the dreamlike experience, between alienation and activity, to a field of seduction from the latent erotism of the sequences, and even to a more contemplative dimension. The Aura: Homage to Marcel Duchamp (2011), a photographic installation conceived by the artist for the exhibition that accompanies PSI Girls, contribute to set the Church of San Francesco in an obscure, mysterious, disturbing, but perhaps revealing environment.

The exhibition opens way to a dialogue between art, illusion, magic and alteration of perception, themes close both to the great tradition of history of art of late Modernity, and with the instances explored by Susan Hiller during the workshop The Dream Seminar II.

Susan Hiller
The Dream Seminar II
Kuratoren: Andrea Lissoni, Cesare Pietroiusti