SCHWELLE I

Salter Chris
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Salter Chris
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Salter Chris
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Salter Chris
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Salter Chris
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720 × 480

Salter Chris
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Part I is a thirty-six minute audio/visual performance exploring the experience undergone at the threshold of the dissolution of the body and consciousness. Shot in High Definition video, the work is front projected onto a single screen and consists of three overlapped and synchronized projections that form a panoramic image with up to 8 channels of surround sound.

Over the course of the performance, the spectators are taken on a powerful journey through changing landscapes of fleeting images and sound. A sweeping light from the darkness that suddenly illuminates the space, everyday images of people emerging from a subway station in a snowstorm and a barren snowscape give a sense of the invisible and uncontrollable forces lurking behind everyday experience.

As the image landscape becomes increasingly abstract with Rothko like colors and dense walls of sound, Part 1 builds toward peak intensity, transporting the viewer through the threshold stages of dying and dissolution.

Schwelle I is inspired by the tibetan Buddhist concept of the bardo, the in between state between death and rebirth, or the exhalation and inhalation of breath.