The Fourth Space2010

A 4-channel video installation presented at Participant Inc. Gallery, New York, 2010. It begins with a fixation on two structures in the New Haven landscape: Marcel Breuer's Pirelli Tire Building (1969), built as an office complex, but now sitting empty in the Ikea parking lot; and the Knights of Columbus Headquarters, by Roche-Dineloo Architects (1969), a brutish 23-story red tower with circular concrete columns at each corner. The K of C is visible directly across from the Ikea lot. I shot both buildings from as many angles as possible. I went to Chicago to look at more architecture, specifically Studio Gang's 2009 86-story Aqua Tower. It was designed to move Chicago's famous wind around it rather than presenting a surface that pushes against it. The Aqua is not weighted at the top, a design alternative to the practice of adding tonnage to the tops of skyscrapers, steadying them against high winds. While in Chicago, I also shot the Marina Towers, the Wrigley Building, the Trump Tower, the Chase Bank, the Mercantile Exchange, and what was happening on street level. The Fourth Space resulted from months of wandering, having no fixed address, and being autonomous. It is a record of where I found myself during that particular year: in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus; standing on snowy ridges in the Swiss Alps; watching a demolition on Dean Street in Brooklyn; of beds slept in, tables worked at, ceiling fans stared up at, cats petted, fire escapes, windows, garden paths, airplanes, oceans. Altogether, the record of a year of taking note of location.

With live sound installation by composer

Aleksei R. Stevens