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Art is so many things. It is paint and canvas, marble and chisel, glue and wire, pain and emotion. Individual works of art are snapshots of the feelings and personas of the artists.
There is an art to art sometimes. The creation of an installation to fit in a particular space can be as much a work of art as the art that is put in it.
This is no more true than in the case of the Sheldon Museum of Art's new installation, Leighton Pierce's "Agency of Time."
Pierce is an up and coming artist from Iowa, where he is the director of the Film and Video Production Program at the University of Iowa.
"Agency of Time" is a Sheldon-specific multi-media installation that he created specifically for the space that it is displayed in.
"The layout of the screens are low and wide, kind of like the room," Pierce said.
Pierce visited the Sheldon in January to see the space he would be working with. He had been asked by the Sheldon to do an installation.
"He analyzed the size of the room, the height of the ceiling and all the dimensions," said Sharon Kennedy, managing curator for the Sheldon. "There are three large screens and a column that sort of holds up the ceiling that gets projected on as well."
Sound is as much a factor to "Agency of Time" as the way the images are projected. Pierce is a trained musician, but the sound used in his installation is of a more natural and ambient grade, arranged with the moving and changing images to create an ethereal effect of motion.
"The way I do video installations, the sound fills all the empty space," Pierce said. "It's like jumping into a lake of sound when you walk in."
The visual aspect of "Agency of Time" is both in the many faceted images and the way they are projected. The images are a series of stills taken in motion then strung back-to-back to give the illusion of sporadic movement.
The whole effect of these visuals with the sound aspect, as well as the near pitch darkness of the room, gives the viewer a strange sensation of movement, both interior and exterior.
"When I make these things, it's all about the experience you get," Pierce said.
"There are plenty of things to pick out and imagine," Kennedy said. "You're more in there with other senses and emotions. There are plenty of things to pick out and imagine."
"Agency of Time" opened Aug. 12. Pierce will give a formal lecture on the installation at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 30 in Sheldon's Ethel S. Abbott Auditorium.
"We're excited he came to Lincoln to do something like this," Kennedy said. "He doesn't want us to get comfortable with what we see. We're really lucky."
CASEYWELSCH@DAILYNEBRASKAN.COM
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