it’s two weeks later, and i am still processing the things i saw at the sundance festival. this one is about music! one of the installations at the new frontier exhibit was called The End, a piece by Ragnar Kjartansson. i thought it was absolutely brilliant and it made me feel inspired.
you walk into a very dark, rectangular room. there are five screens, each one with a film of one or two guys playing instruments. the sound from all the films is synced and piped out through the same speakers; in every film they are playing a different part of the song. in one they are both playing acoustic guitars, in one there is a piano, in another there is one guy playing guitar and one playing banjo. in one there are drums and a guitar. they are also laced with humor, or maybe sarcasm – for a while, one of the guys just stands there. then one of them hangs out and smokes a cigarette while the other keeps playing.
okay, i guess that doesn’t sound super funny as i’m typing it out, but i promise, i giggled.
as i stood in the middle and spun in a slow circle, my eyes and my ears tried to align everything, matching up what i was hearing with what they were doing in each film at the time. i guess it’s actually really similar to seeing a band play live, but without someone elbowing you in the back or someone spilling beer on you. and with guaranteed humor on a continuous loop! i listened to it a few times through to try to catch everything they were doing.
the piece had everything i would hope for in an installation: a banjo, a cool song, wit and/or charm, and a grand piano out in the snow. my video doesn’t even remotely do it justice or capture all that happens, but here is a glimpse: