project : A Doll's House
date : October 25 - November 12, 2000
location : Grossman Gallery in Boston, MA

description :
A Doll's House is a dramatic reenactment of the climactic scene in Ibsen's play A Doll's House. The drama was performed and video tapes in a suburban home. This performance is now re-presented in the form of a dual projection video installation. The actions of the script are projected through two windows of a roughly constructed dollhouse made from Home Depot type materials (pegboard, dry wall, indoor/outdoor carpeting). The surface of the dollhouse is articulated by photographic prints of the exterior of the home in which the performance was recorded.

I'm interested in how relationships become scripted. I'm often struck by uncanny moments of interacting with people when you feel yourself or them saying someone else's lines. How do relationships form in response to fictions and how does art feed from reality? Ibsen's A Doll's House was highly controversial when it was released by addressing the status of women in society. How does this same script operate when pondering the current status of male identity in a domestic setting?

 


The dollhouse is 3ft high and is placed on the floor. This requires the viewers to crouch or re-scale themselves to clearly view the projections.



The audio is appropriated from an actual theatrical production of the play and is strong and clear. There is slippage or loss of sync between the performance video footage and the appropriated audio.



A Doll's House investigates the slippage between acting/performing/reality in relationships by engaging multiple layers of artifice/reality into one space.


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