Escape Room, 2021

A fully immersive artwork, the visitors enter a room encrusted with sculptures, objects, and models. As they move through the space their motion triggers vocal, musical, and sound effects tracks as well as lighting changes in the room.

Originally shown at Luhring Augustine Gallery, NYC; also shown at The Lehmbruck Museum, Germany and The Tinguely Museum, Basel.

Build: Aradhana Cardiff Miller, Molly March, Robyn Moody, Jamie Oosterhuis, Maryke Simmonds, Jason Thomas, Zev Teifenbach

Thanks to: Titus Maderlechner, Carlo Crovato, Glenn C. Newell (Bidule programming assistance), Julia Speed, Roland Augustine, Laurence Luhring, Donovan Barrow, Junpei Murao, Matt Schenning

Sound: Fictitious language talking by Titus Maderlechner

All Vocals and SFX recordings by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller

Music:
“Preghiera” (1880); music by Francesco Paolo Tosti, words by Giuseppe Giusti. Performed by Alesandro Moreschi (1902)
“Cantus Curatio VI Movement 5”; Composed by Da Jeong Choi, performed by James Yoo
“Mud Castle Drum, Bass and Synth” by Titus Maderlechner
All other music tracks composed and performed on electric guitar by George Bures Miller

Light: Mud Castle Nightclub Lights programmed by Titus Maderlechner

Software: Plogue Bidule, Harpex B, Enttec D-Pro

Excerpt below from Hyperallergic article by Gregory Volk October 14, 2021

“What the artists crafted during their back-to-basics studio time is the labyrinthine, fantastically detailed Escape Room. They escaped, so to speak, into this enormously complex work, which required months of devotion. And now viewers can temporarily escape, too. The installation resembles a studio, very likely the artists’ own, with art materials, tools, books, and empty coffee cups on tables and desks, and with copious photographs and notes on the walls. The raw stuff of art-making is here, not just finished products, and it is jam-packed with clues to the possible meaning of, and influences for, the sculptures, including photos of eclectic buildings and a page from Jorge Luis Borges’s book Labyrinths (1962).

Entering it is like voyaging into a marvelous, yet mysterious and precarious, elsewhere filled with strange, looming sculptures, some with moving parts; complex, at times harrowing, sounds; and ever-shifting lights. This installation seems weirdly alive, in a Frankensteinian way.”

Original article: https://hyperallergic.com/684073/the-profound-soul-of-janet-cardiff-and-george-bures-miller/