Gaslighting- Outside In

Outside-In by Anne Murray from Anne Murray on Vimeo.

​Darkness, airless space, a silence that is an expression of infinite depth, calm and sleek, unaware of my own boundaries, I still move.  A flash, then silence, but there is light and then an ominous and lucid moment of clarity, of something having passed me by.  I continue around it, orbiting the edge of this unknown threshold into a new dimension.

​Outside-In is a video of a replica bulb that is made to appear as antique gaslighting. The video is part of a sound installation with each of three videos containing sounds that work together in the gallery space, beginning and ending at different time intervals, with a choral effect. The work is a research into the nature of everyday micro-aggressions, which are used to manipulate, devalue, and create a sense of unease. 
​Micro-aggressions take form in sexism, racism, xenophobia, and religious intolerance, and can create a stressful and undulating surface on which the identity of an individual resides, causing a ripple effect, as a kind of seasickness in a vast array of daily experiences. Gaslighting is a term that describes the experience of self-doubt that is caused through deliberate and pre-meditated micro-aggressions, in an effort to unbalance and shift power relations between individuals. The term originated from the play Gaslight by Patrick Hamilton, and its subsequent film versions. 

Light as a Feather (with sound) from Anne Murray on Vimeo.

​Shifting in space I am aware that I exist, only by the disturbance around me.
Air moves and objects vibrate.
I feel shattered, somehow expelled from the garden.
Falling, falling free and light
Wind capturing my limbs with grace
I leave a legacy behind for all to breathe.

Light as a Feather is a video with images of a deceased pigeon. One does not see the horror of the scene, just the delicate details of the feathers stained with a pale pink tint across the white and grey feathers of its wings. One senses that the bird has died through the subtle clue of the pink stains. The music in the video is choral music from a procession to a church in Goa, India, where the members sing in the local language, Konkani. Their voices create a haunting and beautiful contrast to the twilight images of the bird's wings.

Waiting Game from Anne Murray on Vimeo.

Waiting Game depicts a woman on the street in Oran, Algeria. Veiled, she becomes a form, as a statue, standing outside the cinema for a prolonged period of time, the image is dispersed through a kitsch separation of animated squares, each turning and folding in upon itself. The sounds form the third component to the sound installation in the gallery. One hears the sound of cars and the call to prayer intermittently.

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​The space is tight, confined, limited, and yet, by letting go of everything, I can move in infinite directions, a web of knowledge surrounds me and intertwines with my ideas in limitless ways.  I leave something in each place, a piece of jewelry, a dress, a note, something precious, which was given to me by someone else, I leave anything I can behind. Still, I am weighed down.  Technology makes me carry cords and ways to save things, the weather makes me conscious of a need for a coat, the lightest down that becomes compact as a pillow. 

I carry documents that represent my birth, tiny footprints on the back, of which, play witness to the slight congenital distortions in my feet.  My diplomas, years of following a structured path, that mean so little to me, but so much to those who would judge me; these are made of heavy paper curving at the edges. I try to curl myself into a tighter and tighter form, washing my clothes more in order to need less. I conserve everything I can, to gain more, more time, more experience and perhaps, one day, more love. I walk new paths and follow the same ones, to see things more closely. 
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At different times of day, the sun introduces me to new things on the same path; I might stay in one place for the duration of a month or perhaps two.  The more I give up, the more compassion I feel, the less stressed, more open, the more people I meet who I love.  This is the life of a nomadic artist, abandoning objects, while collecting the hearts and minds of people, a web linking one to another.

This series of photographs and sculpture is entitled Arganauta, which is inspired by the octopus argonauta, with just one letter changed to also refer to Argan oil from North Africa. The sculpture made of a white bridal veil material, is a representation of the female octopus argonauta, which creates a paper thin shell to protect herself and her eggs.  In the installation she floats between floors, from above appearing as if the floor below is an aquarium, where the viewers regard the artist as an animal at a zoo. The series of photos began with the same gaslight as ​

seen in Outside In, but the camera is moving, capturing the light in a motion that begins to look like the forming of a nautilus shell, or the paper nautilus fragile and elegant shell of the argonaut. The interpretation is that the light is a barrier, which can allow us to see into things, but that can also create a shell, a protection from the daily agressions we encounter, while permitting us to experience and remain open to experiences.