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On Opening Night. . .
A Voice In The Dark: "It is too much to take in all at
once."
Tricia Wasney Wrote In The Guest Book: "I liked (and
didn't like) being distracted, wanting to see everything,
not wanting to miss anything."
Is this not Life, in both serenity and in panic?
Nature, with all the poetic accolades consecrated to it,
can be so intense one feels insignificant when enveloped by
its powers. But on the other hand, in spite of its
foreboding threat, Nature offers us a sense of Place; we are
comforted by our location within its overwhelming presence.
That is what the Night Sky of the Prairies and the Big Sky
of Alberta and Montana do for me - I feel equally frightened
by Nature and empowered by its force. Life ebbs with beauty.
But Nature is not the only unbridled law which governs
because, on the other hand, there are the laws and
conditions imposed by Humanity; laws and conditions which
generate chaos and panic. It is this engendered chaos and
panic which severs our interpersonal contacts, disconnecting
phone links, leaving us shouting into a Kafka void. It is
this disruption, unattended to and piled one upon another
like razor blades, that causes us to rip our hair out, to
slam our head against a brick wall or, in the most extreme
and desperate situation, fire a gun off down Portage Avenue.
Life ebbs with ugliness.
Alex
Poruchnyk's A Bird In The Hand confronts us like Existence.
We are drawn to a drama pregnant with secrets and codes on
one monitor. At the instant we begin to think we are
connecting with this drama our attention is arrested by
another drama formulating on another monitor, overtured by a
mooing cow or rolling steel pressing down on a steel track.
We move to the second monitor. Again, unfolding in an
Universe where dice is the house game, we are distracted by
the images emerging from six other locations in the sculpted
environment. We scurry from monitor to monitor, not wanting
to miss anything, but, of course, in the laws and conditions
of Nature and Humanity, we do. Sometimes we gravitate toward
a crowd of people huddled around a monitor. We must see what
they are seeing, but we arrive too late. The image has moved
on, or there remains only the residue of the aftermath. The
sounds and images are fleeting and confound us. Yet we
persist to find meaning.
Life ebbing with beauty and ugliness.
Some find comfort moving with the crowd. Five heads may
be better than one. Others feel discomfort and set out on an
independent path only to discover they are part of a another
crowd, or have become a kernel or a magnet for a new crowd.
Still the clues and codes to ravelling the secrets elude us.
But no
matter what path we take we are touched intellectually,
emotionally and physically by Poruchnyk's A Bird In The
Hand. We feel its power under our feet and above our heads.
The sculpting of light and sound rocks us, moves us or
physically disturbs us by the confluence of images and
sounds; all positive responses for a mirror projection of
Existences which encompasses us. Life ebbing with beauty and
ugliness.
On one hand, A Bird In The Hand, based on a cursory
glance, is bleak and disparate Existence, laded with loss
and the inability for human contact. The sex trade unfolds
here. There is danger in the blindness of night over there.
Male callousness behind us. A disregard for Nature beside
us. Life is a phone link severed, and faint and distant
voices scream out syllables in the Kafka void.
A Bird In The Hand becomes an indictment. An indictment
of God or an indictment of something of our own making
becomes one and the same. An anger is clarioned. Life ebbing
with ugliness.
But this is only on one hand. Poruchnyk's ambitious
installation, in spite of its portrait of a bleak condition,
possesses an undercurrent of optimism. At times A Bird In
The Hand becomes a secular Psalms. A small 's' spirituality.
But we have to look for the beauty under the disfiguring
skin. Sweep away the debris, with a broom or our hands.
Human contacts are registered, but these human contacts are
simple and quiet. They occur unpretentiously; at a railway
crossing, a mysterious phone call in the kitchen of a
restaurant, and in the coming together of the lowest in
rank. The Hoodoos persist. Their voices are genuine and
compassionate. Hope emerges in conflicting environments.
Life ebbing with beauty.
But where do we find the crossword clues to decipher
Poruchnyk's complex narrative. At first we might feel the
answer lies in the video projection curling up toward the
ceiling of the gallery. The video projection seems to be the
foundation to A Bird In The Hand, or, as a student from the
School of Art at the University of Manitoba noted, the sixth
sense for the work, a base for grounding. Much of the
secular Psalm derives from these images - the cosmology of A
Bird In The Hand. Or do we look somewhere else?
We can investigate the threads of A Bird In The Hand like
the police with its plainclothes detectives, photography
units, ballistic squads and forensic labs. We can also
ferret the clues individually. In A Bird In The Hand a
private detective, reminiscent of Sam Spade and Philip
Marlowe but with a computer and futon, intimate with the sea
of disparateness, offers a possible resolution. He appears
to be an indifferent participant, cold and unmoved, but he
is not. He is as familiar with his client as he is with his
cigarette dangling from his lips. He forays into the bleak
Existence, knows what its sweat smells like, his hands do
get dirty. But he also affords the time to stand on the
periphery to draft the landscape.
To ravel the clues we must be the detective. It is on the
periphery that the crossword clues are discretely whispered.
They emerge on the monitor which speaks to the corner like a
truant child. However, without expedition into the
environment sculpted by light and sound (rocked, moved or
physically disturbed), rich with human perspiration, sullied
hands and moments of quiet simplicity, the crossword clues
remain mute. We must become the private detective of A Bird
In The Hand for nothing can be revealed to us without
participation and risk before the analytical contemplation
of a cat.
Grant Guy
is a performance and theatremaker, based in
Winnipeg.
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