Laurie Anderson: "Four Talks"
Laurie Anderson's most intricate, interactive, and mesmerizing piece within the Hirshhorn museum, "Four Talks" is my personal favorite, and in my opinion the most interesting piece on display within the museum. It's a wide, painted black room, absolutely overwhelmed with rugged and unique white graffiti.
PERCEPTION OF OBJECTIVE PHENOMENA
To start with, "Four Talks" is a black and white room, with black walls adorned with white lettering and graffiti. There are a variety of words and phrases, facts, and sentences written on the walls and floor. The colors are bold, and stand out, and the room is brightly lit by lights from above. I could see four physical pieces sitting within the room. One being a greenish parrot sat atop a perch, speaking aloud in a monotone, robotic voice. The next, was a large, shiny, black crow figure. It sits with it's wings behind it, and it's long beak outstretched. On the other side of the room on top of a small platform, there was a golden canoe, split in two, with a golden, metallic, almost blood-like substance pooling around either side. Finally, on the exiting wall of the room, there was a shelf adorned with a variety of glass cups, which every so often would rumble, faintly shaking the chinaware on top. On the walls I could see specific phrases and questions such as; What is a Wall? What is a story? Who owns the moon? What is the purpose of panic? What is blaze of glory? and much more.
ASSOCIATION
Personally, when I look at this room, I immediately think of graffiti on the sides of buildings and old trains. It's all thrown together so abstractly like a wall in the city filled by a mural of graffiti, which in turn makes me think of a sort of post apocalyptic city. My mind also thinks of black chalkboards, and even children's sidewalk chalk drawings on the pavement during the summer when I see the room. It almost looks like grade school when the teacher would fill the chalkboard with numbers, facts, and a bunch of other things. I also associate this room with the inner workings and limbo of one's mind. The giant crow figure in the room I believe really looks a lot like one of those monopoly player pieces, or even like a small toy or figure you would get as a child from a gumball machine.
EMOTIVE RESPONSE
When first walking into this room, I felt deeply overwhelmed, like everything was too striking, stimulating, and jarring to look at. I believed it overtook ones mind just as it is supposed to do. I felt confused, yet intrigued, it raised a lot of questions and personal confusion and I wanted to know more, I wanted to read every wall and gain everything it had to offer me. I felt mentally pelted with information on all sides, and that nowhere I could turn would offer me solace from the barrage of jarring information. I felt influenced by the room to pose thoughts, confusion, and to decipher maybe my own meaning or method to the madness immediately. It was both enchanting, yet somewhat scary for someone like myself who has ADHD. I felt almost as if I could relate mentally and emotionally to the room itself, like each wall, item, and even the floor could be compared to the jumbled thoughts, questions, and images that filled my mind every day.
Comments
Post a Comment