A site-specific, telekinetic haunting created with Deborah Stratman inspired by Andrei Tarkovsky's film "Stalker." Deborah and I transformed the gallery space into a traditional living room scenario. When users first enter they find nothing unusual then gradually strange things start to happen. The lights occasionally flicker strangely, sounds emanate from untraceable places, and a glass slides across the table.
Materials:
Super directional loudspeaker.
Custom electronic lighting controls
Custom "ghost glass" mechatronics
Modified furniture
Video
"Stalker" is a science-fiction film structured as a metaphysical journey in search of inner truth and self-worth. Stalker is the name of the film's central character. The central character’s mute daughter is nicknamed Ahbyezyana (Monkey). He is a guide through the "Zone" - a post-apocalyptic soviet landscape which is a minefield of perceptual illusions, booby traps, and shifting geography.
The Zone has been officially recognized as a forbidden area by the government ever since an investigative group went missing (eerily foreshadowing Chernobyl, where the chemical spill area was also referred to as 'the Zone'). Legend has it that nested within the danger-ridden Zone is a sentient room where one's deep inner wishes are granted. The room sees through superficiality and grants not what you may think you desire, but the desires of your soul.
A stalker is someone trained as a guide for people willing to risk their life to reach this wish fulfilling room. The film is, in the end a deep probing of faith, belief and desire. Eventually we find ourselves back outside of the Zone, inside Stalker's house - a raw wooden building adjoining a train yard.
The film concludes with a scene of Stalker's daughter Monkey performing what appears to be a magical feat of telekinesis by willing a group of glasses to move across the kitchen table.
Exhibited: "Ahbyezyana" VONZWECK Gallery, Chicago - Dec 2005/Jan 2006
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Review
Vonzweck, the living room-turned-sometime gallery of Philip Von Zweck, is the perfect space to experience the atmospheric whisper of Ahbyezyana, the latest collaboration between electronic artist Rob Ray and filmmaker Deborah Stratman. The site-specific, multimedia installation was inspired by Stalker, the 1979 cinematic masterpiece by Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. Ahbyezyana (Russian for "monkey", and the nickname of the Stalker’s daughter) is a telekinetic haunting of delicate insistence – nothing calls attention to itself – but small strange events begin to occur the longer you stay in the space. In the film, the daughter redeems the otherwise-doomed spiritual journey of the titular Stalker, and affirms faith as the conceptual pillar of spiritual existence. As such, the Vonzweck installation becomes a site for introspection and meditation on the pulse of the human spirit.
- Flavorpill, 2005
