Stanford Memorial Church Light & Sound from Sunrise to Sunset

Stanford Memorial Church Light & Sound from Sunrise to Sunset, LED lightbox with back-lit transparency (lightbox: 2011 and 2012 versions; video installation: 2011 and 2013 versions)

Stanford Memorial Church Light & Sound from Sunrise to Sunset, 2011 and 2013 versions; 2011: single channel version with sound; 2013: video monitor embedded in a 90 x 60 x 10″ plywood platform with 2 chairs); TRT: 3 min, from Mel Day on Vimeo.

A time-lapse sequence of the evolving and intermittent light at the Stanford Memorial Church from sunrise to sunset—a light that both reveals and disrupts at the same time. All intelligible language is removed from recordings of multi-faith sermons at the Stanford Memorial Church. The remaining ambiguous collective and individual sounds (people standing up, sitting down, turning pages, whispering, coughing, etc.) are paired with the video work.

This large-scale projection with sound was exhibited at Peak Gallery in June 2011 as a single-channel projection with sound. A new version was created in 2013 for Stanford University’s Performance Studies International Conference (Roble Gym). In this second version the video was embedded in a plywood platform with two chairs and two sets of earphones.