2008-2009
Series
(4) 5:00 minute loops
Editions of 5
Animation, sound/silent
Format: 15" / 24" monitor with custom PC &custom housing OR Blu-Ray disc for 1920x1080 projection or monitor OR Qucktime 1024x768
Sound for installation versions by Pat Irwin

OVERVIEW

The Elixir pieces describe impossible landscapes: cut-crystal bottles bob and toss like buoys in the ocean, beacons bearing potions, poisons, messages, genies. Each bottle contains an animated figure engaged in a repeated, metronomic action. In Elixir I, a woman is rowing; Elixir II, a blindfolded man stumbles to stay upright. Elixir III holds a little girl trying to fly with paper wings; and in Elixir IV, a high diver twists and arcs, while the bottle presses forward in an Antarctic landscape. The highly layered video treatment pays tribute to the 19th century Russian painter Ivan Aivazovsky, whose portentous, luminous paintings of tiny ships on huge swells of ocean both mesmerize and terrify the viewer.