From the press release:
"
The Eyes of Ayn Rand is a new performance piece, created for Performa 11 by artist Dennis McNulty. It begins with the house that Russian Constructivist architect Konstantin Melnikov designed for himself in Moscow in 1927 and follows a path that leads to author Ayn Rand's eyes, scanning a TV studio in New York in 1958.
In
The Eyes of Ayn Rand, certain media fragments become the basis for a re-orientation of the experience of the present. 'Texts' relating to Rand, Melnikov, and American architects Peter Eisenman and Frank Gehry (both of whom were included in MoMA's Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition in 1988), are fragmented and collaged, becoming the basis for a series of scenarios which play out in a large darkened space.
Two performers, a man and a woman, journey through a space of language, sound, light and image, not necessarily searching for something, but attempting perhaps, to come to terms with something. An array of media technologies are employed to create a physical experience in a physical space, one which attempts to realign, or at least plaster over the cracks of, the Cartesian mind/body split. In this space, sound and light offer guidance, but confusion is never far away."
This project was part of
Imagine Ireland,
Culture Ireland's Year of Irish Arts in America 2011.
PERFORMERS
WOMAN: Jenn Dees.
MAN: Benjamin Holbrook.
The Eyes of Ayn Rand
Press Release.
I produced a pamphlet to document this work. You can
read it here.