Into the Light

May 21, 2022

curated by Srimoyee Mitra at the Art Gallery of Windsor brings together a series of immersive artworks that are familiar and disorienting at the same time. Using photography, video and objects, Sigi Torinus develops multi-sensory installations that ask viewers to consider how individuals navigate space and their assumptions of places that are foreign or unknown to them.

 

See Art Gallery of Windsor for the curatorial statement by Srimoyee Mitra

Download publication (low-res) Essay by Honor Ford-Smith:
Soaring at the Crossroads: Mobility, Stillness and Space in the Art of Sigi Torinus

 

Supported with a Project Grant by the Canada Council for the Arts

 

video still of INTO THE LIGHT
INTO THE LIGHT video still

Into the Light (2014)

looks at the challenge of keeping an abstract idea insight: losing it, finding it, losing it again, and keeping interferences at bay. The central recurring image is the word REVOLUCIÓN. It remains visible only for a few seconds at a time, and becomes obliterated by pedestrians passing by, traffic, and various other ‘distractions’. It serves as a metaphor for the grand ideas and concepts we have in our lives that give us orientation, at times turning into dogma, or serving as something that calls to be challenged. Interruptions and interventions are necessary as “breathing space” for developing both concrete solutions to the ‘grand’ idea as well as possible alternatives.

 

Three separate and joined projections are created live and randomly from a database of clips timed so that they either revolve in the space one at a time emphasizing the circular motion/revolutions, or at times occur simultaneously, or in pairs.  Max/Jitter programming thanks to Martin Slawig/blackhole-factory Germany.

 

Sound by Brent Lee, with Nicholas Papador on marimba and other percussion instruments:
diegetic sound from the video (mixed evenly between four speakers), composed marimba motives (isolated in individual speakers), and processed percussive sound samples (slowly rotating through the four speakers situated around the gallery space). All of the sound samples are triggered through a controlled random setup in Max MSP; the overall sonic texture remains fairly static but the details are constantly shifting.

also shown at the Festival del Caribe, Santiago de Cuba (2016)

Further works in the exhibition:

SOUNDINGS / AWEIGH (2014)

a 7-channel video/sound installation (SOUNDINGS) with animal navigation maps projection (AWEIGH) – scientific drawings explaining how animals find their way home (orientation/navigation/”homing”)

 

(“soundings” – derives from the practice of determining the depth of water/making a sounding by feeding out a line with a weight at the end; “aweigh” is a nautical term for the moment the anchor is lifted and the boat is free afloat)

 

For me, the combination of both pieces has a lot to do with how we find our place, the importance of knowing how to ground the body, and the wonderful mysteries science is trying to solve.

ZENITH (2014) & SUN IN PISCES (2010)

ZENITH: one chair in mid-air; 2 chairs showing video loops in the seat (the canopy of trees, shot from beneath, and volcanic ground, shot from above)

 

SUN IN PISCES: a 2-channel video as a mediation on the alchemical journey where spirit and matter are in a continual process of creation and destruction, with the sky being the one constant in our lives

INTO THE LIGHT (2014) at the Art Gallery of Windsor
INTO THE LIGHT (2014) at the Art Gallery of Windsor

BLEACHED BY NOSTALGIA (2014)

This piece was very much inspired by curator Srimoyee Mitra as a contextual piece framing the entire exhibition. It shows images reflecting tropes of the tropical island, with photography and digitized Super-8 of my Caribbean childhood by my mother Trudy Torinus.

INTO THE LIGHT (2014) at the Art Gallery of Windsor
INTO THE LIGHT (2014) at the Art Gallery of Windsor

10,000 MONARCHS (performance, 2014)

The performance was inspired by watching thousands of monarch butterflies on Point Pelee take off for their 3000km journey to their winter home in the mountains of central Mexico. For the performance, I worked from a meditative trance and ‘read’ participants’ ‘pictures’ of how they navigate and negotiate that space between home and the faraway. These ‘pictures’ were in a dialogue with images I brought up from a database of video clips using a proximity sensor on the chair that I activated every time a ‘new’ image showed up on my imaginary ‘screen’.

documentation thanks to Martina Konietzny and Nicholas de Cosson

Other works shown: OLOFI (2012) and MIRAME PERO NO ME TOQUES (2011)