Lethe - Drawing River, 2005 Installation and performance: cotton, crayons, pencils, artist's body, projected video, sound composition. Courtesy The Lab Gallery, San Francisco. Photo: Leslie Bauer.
Lethe - Drawing River, 2005
Thin, semi-translucent cotton fabric was spread on the ground. The wrinkles and folds in fabric resemble white waves. It was sawn it in multiple places,
creating a flower-like piece. During performative action, I lie on the ground and draw around my body with back crayons and grey pencils. I freequently
stop, as if falling asleep or as if going away. Suspended from the ceiling a video camera becomes the source of life image projection. Some of the
visitors decide to join me in the process of lying down in the fabric and drawing. For the remaining time of the exhibition the edited footage becomes
an independently functioning video. The video is again projected on the wall beyond the sculpture of fabric, which retains traces of the drawing action.
I composed the sound from waterfall, rain, wind, birds singing and fragments of medieval and baroque vocal compositions, which I recorded and altered
to create the sound environment. I worked with vocalist Anthony Roth Costanzo.
Mythological River Lethe (Greek: "Oblivion"), is one of five rivers that traverse the underworld. In Orphism, a Greek mystical religious movement,
it was believed that those who drank from the River Lethe would lose all memory of their past existence.
