Surmatants - Mars Rising
Surmatants - Mars Rising
Mattress Factory Museum of Contemporary Art
Three channel video installation, mirror acrylic, polyester fiber, silk flowers, mirror glass, metallic fabrics, electric rotation motors, programed LED lights, steel, wood, epoxy floor paint. Participants are greeted by a spinning life size Motanka doll figure, as they exit the elevator into a three room installation joined by an ascending black and white striped ramp. Accompanying in the spinning Motanka figure in the “white room”, is a spinning inverted white horse with sound samples from Mars, as part of Jesse Gelaznik’s four-channel sound component beginning with an etherial vocal composition, building throughout the installation to a violent brass composition. One continues to ascend the ramp into the “red room” traversing a choreography of spinning shimmering red curtain columns. Through the columns, the third “black room” reveals itself with a circular three channel video, that at times places the viewer in the center of an accelerating Slavic folk dance circle — following themes of resurrection and ascendance from earth to Mars. The video was shot on location at Pittsburg’s history Carrie Furnaces.
Surmatants - Mars Rising is an elegiacally visceral response to the CV19 pandemic in three acts, through a release of dance. The work is informed by Pittsburg’s Slavic immigrant labour history, and 13th century bubonic plague imagery, referencing in particular the late 15th century painting - Surmatants, by Bernt Notke. Themes of Russian Cosmisim and transcendence are evoked through Jesse Gelaznik’s musical compositions, paired with renowned choreographer - Željko Jergan and John Harbist’s dances performed by the Tamburitzans. The installation is structured through through a physical ascent, connecting three spaces (the white room, red room, and black room) — crescendoing to three channel circular video projection transmitting a human resurrection on Mars from the future. I would like to thank and acknowledge with the greatest admiration everyone involved in the realization of the SMR installation, while navigating the CV19 pandemic.