Bowen, Dore

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San Jose State UniversitySJSU ScholarWorksFaculty Publications Art and Art History & Design DepartmentsJanuary 1998Narratus Interruptus: Gary Hill’s23:59:59:29—The Storyteller’s RoomDore BowenSan Francisco State University, dore.bowen@sjsu.eduFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/artdesign_pubPart of the Contemporary Art Commons, and the Interdisciplinary Arts and Media CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Art and Art History & Design Departments at SJSU ScholarWorks. It has been acceptedfor inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of SJSU ScholarWorks. For more information, please contactscholarworks@sjsu.edu.Recommended CitationDore Bowen. "Narratus Interruptus: Gary Hill’s 23:59:59:29—The Storyteller’s Room" Camerawork: A Journal of Photographic Arts(1998): 18-19.Capp Street Project May 15-June 20, 1998exhibition review”^D ore B ow enNarratus Interruptus:During and After Gary Hill’s 23:59:59:29— The Storyteller's RoomOn May 15th, after much anticipation and delay, Gary H ill’s installation 23:59:59:29— The Storyteller’s Room opened at Capp Street Project. Hill, a longtime pioneer of video-based multimedia art, creates intense interac­tive installations that challenge the viewer to confront the mystery o f memory and perception, intertwining  the two in order to reveal an experience— not an object— for contemplation. Rather than using audio­video technology to create a linear narrative. Hill taps the poetic possibilities of the medium.The work concerns time, and it takes time; in fact, nearly half an hour is required for the images to register with detail. This demands of the viewer a certain amount of patience and partic­ipation, something those of us raised with the immediacy of modern living—five-minute rice, quality time, disposable diapers-—-are terribly unprepared for. 23:39:59:29 may allude to the twenty-plus minutes it takes for the image and narra­tion to recycle— the time of the story. On the other hand, as "military time,” this number refers to the penultimate moment before the bewitching hour of midnight—a fraction of a second before Cinderella becomes a pumpkin and werewolves roam the countryside. There is time to imagine and time to forget.The intimacy of this particular installation is accentuated by its site specificity. By including both the space of the gallery and the viewer’s own bodily experience into the work, the usual aesthetic detachment involved in art viewing—what is called “absorption” or “disinterestedness”— is diminished. In the midst of this installation the viewer becomes aware of the time involved in viewing an image and the length of a gallery wall.In the darkened room of H ill’s installation—momentarily leaning against a column, straining to see the dim image on the bare wall— I begin to wonder whether what I am seeing originates from the video projectors mounted on the beams above or my own psyche. Is that a tumbleweed, a car rushing by, or a figure walking through a barren landscape? Is it the texture of the brick wall on which the image is screened, or another viewer silently pacing the gallery floor? It occurs to me that my confusion in differentiating Hill’s dreamlike video tableaux, the space of the room, and my own imagination is precisely the intent of this work. What is the story told here? It is a story about the act of reading a story; it is a story that addresses the difference between reading into, reading onto, reading between, and reading over. More precisely, the story isthe space and time of the storyteller’s room. I am the storyteller, feebly attempting to read this experience as language, to follow the image and voice to the site of meaning. The difficulty of this process speaks to the inherently double countenance of repre­sentation— the sign is both here and gesturing elsewhere— without resolving this contradiction.the story may have begun. . . beside me. .. under the influence of an imageVague patterns emerge on and over the rough brick and alu­minum structures that surround me. As I concentrate on one wall the image of an industrial landscape appears, and after a time there is movement—a train passes, a figure traverses the terrain, cars rush by on the freeway overhead. A strobe light illuminates the room. Again, darkness. Only now, without the distraction of light, do I hear the voice uttering fragments of a story. The words are stated matter-of-factly and with such loose and extended phrasing that the narrative thread is lost; the meaning of the story is as distant as a far-off train whistle. Like the dimly illuminated image, the voice does not allow me to read across it, to patch together the bits and pieces of this story and thus to renderl the plot intelligible. Rather, through the| suspension of the narrative, reading itself becomes the object of inquiry. Watching, pacing, listening, remembering, and forget-l ting do not lead to a moral or message. I ami left to loiter in a dark room. Across the longi gallery I see the image flicker again on the| opposite wall.in cold silence I kept reading. .. and I keptl from readingThis work operates through depth, not plot. I The installation is an archaeology of this site, which includes the gallery and the urban exterior. The gallery wall acts as an opaque screen illuminating the scene both inside and out. The light from the video image reveals the space in the gallery—• girders, beams, people— and projects the space outside— industrial waste, rubble, trucks, and train tracks. The video land­scapes are taken from the environs around.Capp Street Project—an upwardly mobile* former industrial wasteland south of down-. ^ town, a district where empty factories havep\ been renovated to serve as high-tech office buildings and the site of our future ballj park. Yet it remains an empty, flat terrainj * where pothole roads and vaulting overpasses J ; lead the traveler elsewhere.i8and expectation)A moment of intense illumination. After the strobe light, my retinal afterimage blends with subsequent specters. I see the moment prior, an image of a tall man standing with arms out­stretched, a landscape I remember hurrying past hours ago, the texture of an aluminum door, and I feel my body as it moves through this dark chamber. As the images shift from wall to wall I wander among them. Columns are padded with foam so that my inevitable contact is buffered. I am impatiently pacing now. I am hungry for meaning.When 23.'39:^9:29— T/)e Storyteller’s Room closed on June 20th, Capp Street Project, for years the locus of San Francisco’s most experimental exhibits, closed its doors as well. Capp Street Project will terminate its artist-in-residence program and merge with the California College of Arts and Crafts. H ill’s installation is an interesting finale, for, after much effort and delay, this work successfully enables the viewer to experience the time and the location of this public space in a particularly intimate fashion.There is something cruel about this severed plot, this narratus interruptus culminating in a fabula rasa. And Hill has done this before. Suspension of Disbelief (for Marine) for instance, a 1995 installation at the Guggenheim Museum SoHo, both offers and denies the viewer voyeuristic satisfaction. In this installa­tion, close-up images of two naked bodies—one male and one female—flow back and forth across monitors suspended above the floor. As the bodies drift across the span of screens, their movement is interrupted by an electronic mechanism that fragments the anatomical forms. By refusing us the expected visual cohesion. Hill exposes us to ourselves (our afterimage.Dore Bou'en is an artist, art critic, and Ph.D. candidate in the Visual and Cultural Studies Program at the University of Rochester. She is currently teaching at San Francisco State University.\p ro jec tion , desire, and expectation) and the ground upon ;; which the cinematic apparatus is made visible (the screen, the gallery, the environment). Our longing to carry meaning - ;■ across the dislocation of space and time—^the suspension of disbelief-—is interrupted and the annihilation of the moment jija|(o#r afterimag^iis felt as discomfort.

Narratus Interruptus: Gary Hill’s 23:59:59:29—The Storyteller’s Room

San Jose State University

San Jose State University
SJSU ScholarWorks
Faculty Publications Art and Art History & Design Departments
January 1998
Narratus Interruptus: Gary Hill’s
23:59:59:29—The Storyteller’s Room
Dore Bowen
San Francisco State University, dore.bowen@sjsu.edu
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/artdesign_pub
Part of the Contemporary Art Commons, and the Interdisciplinary Arts and Media Commons
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Art and Art History & Design Departments at SJSU ScholarWorks. It has been accepted
for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of SJSU ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact
scholarworks@sjsu.edu.
Recommended Citation
Dore Bowen. "Narratus Interruptus: Gary Hill’s 23:59:59:29—The Storyteller’s Room" Camerawork: A Journal of Photographic Arts
(1998): 18-19.
Capp Street Project 
May 15-June 20, 1998
exhibition review”^D ore B ow en
Narratus Interruptus:
During and After Gary Hill’s 
23:59:59:29— The Storyteller's Room
On May 15th, after much anticipation and delay, Gary 
H ill’s installation 23:59:59:29— The Storyteller’s Room 
opened at Capp Street Project. Hill, a longtime pioneer 
of video-based multimedia art, creates intense interac­
tive installations that challenge the viewer to confront 
the mystery o f memory and perception, intertwining  
the two in order to reveal an experience— not an 
object— for contemplation. Rather than using audio­
video technology to create a linear narrative. Hill taps 
the poetic possibilities of the medium.
The work concerns time, and it takes time; in fact, nearly half 
an hour is required for the images to register with detail. This 
demands of the viewer a certain amount of patience and partic­
ipation, something those of us raised with the immediacy 
of modern living—five-minute rice, quality time, disposable 
diapers-—-are terribly unprepared for. 23:39:59:29 may allude 
to the twenty-plus minutes it takes for the image and narra­
tion to recycle— the time of the story. On the other hand, as 
"military time,” this number refers to the penultimate moment 
before the bewitching hour of midnight—a fraction of a second 
before Cinderella becomes a pumpkin and werewolves roam 
the countryside. There is time to imagine and time to forget.
The intimacy of this particular installation is accentuated by 
its site specificity. By including both the space of the gallery 
and the viewer’s own bodily experience into the work, the 
usual aesthetic detachment involved in art viewing—what is 
called “absorption” or “disinterestedness”— is diminished. In the 
midst of this installation the viewer becomes aware of the time 
involved in viewing an image and the length of a gallery wall.
In the darkened room of H ill’s installation—momentarily 
leaning against a column, straining to see the dim image on 
the bare wall— I begin to wonder whether what I am seeing 
originates from the video projectors mounted on the beams 
above or my own psyche. Is that a tumbleweed, a car rushing 
by, or a figure walking through a barren landscape? Is it the 
texture of the brick wall on which the image is screened, or 
another viewer silently pacing the gallery floor? It occurs to 
me that my confusion in differentiating Hill’s dreamlike video 
tableaux, the space of the room, and my own imagination is 
precisely the intent of this work. What is the story told here? 
It is a story about the act of reading a story; it is a story that 
addresses the difference between reading into, reading onto, 
reading between, and reading over. More precisely, the story is
the space and time of the storyteller’s room. I am the storyteller, 
feebly attempting to read this experience as language, to follow 
the image and voice to the site of meaning. The difficulty of this 
process speaks to the inherently double countenance of repre­
sentation— the sign is both here and gesturing elsewhere— 
without resolving this contradiction.
the story may have begun. . . beside me. .. under the influence of 
an image
Vague patterns emerge on and over the rough brick and alu­
minum structures that surround me. As I concentrate on one 
wall the image of an industrial landscape appears, and after a 
time there is movement—a train passes, a figure traverses the 
terrain, cars rush by on the freeway overhead. A strobe light 
illuminates the room. Again, darkness. Only now, without the 
distraction of light, do I hear the voice uttering fragments of a 
story. The words are stated matter-of-factly and with such 
loose and extended phrasing that the narrative thread is lost; 
the meaning of the story is as distant as a far-off train whistle. 
Like the dimly illuminated image, the voice does not allow me 
to read across it, to patch together the bits 
and pieces of this story and thus to renderl 
the plot intelligible. Rather, through the| 
suspension of the narrative, reading itself 
becomes the object of inquiry. Watching, 
pacing, listening, remembering, and forget-l 
ting do not lead to a moral or message. I ami 
left to loiter in a dark room. Across the longi 
gallery I see the image flicker again on the| 
opposite wall.
in cold silence I kept reading. .. and I keptl 
from reading
This work operates through depth, not plot. I 
The installation is an archaeology of this 
site, which includes the gallery and the 
urban exterior. The gallery wall acts as an 
opaque screen illuminating the scene both 
inside and out. The light from the video 
image reveals the space in the gallery—• 
girders, beams, people— and projects the 
space outside— industrial waste, rubble, 
trucks, and train tracks. The video land­
scapes are taken from the environs around.
Capp Street Project—an upwardly mobile* 
former industrial wasteland south of down-. ^ 
town, a district where empty factories havep\ 
been renovated to serve as high-tech office 
buildings and the site of our future ballj 
park. Yet it remains an empty, flat terrainj * 
where pothole roads and vaulting overpasses J ; 
lead the traveler elsewhere.
i8
and expectation)
A moment of intense illumination. After the strobe light, my 
retinal afterimage blends with subsequent specters. I see the 
moment prior, an image of a tall man standing with arms out­
stretched, a landscape I remember hurrying past hours ago, the 
texture of an aluminum door, and I feel my body as it moves 
through this dark chamber. As the images shift from wall to 
wall I wander among them. Columns are padded with foam so 
that my inevitable contact is buffered. I am impatiently pacing 
now. I am hungry for meaning.
When 23.'39:^9:29— T/)e Storyteller’s Room closed on June 
20th, Capp Street Project, for years the locus of San Francisco’s 
most experimental exhibits, closed its doors as well. Capp Street 
Project will terminate its artist-in-residence program and 
merge with the California College of Arts and Crafts. H ill’s 
installation is an interesting finale, for, after much effort and 
delay, this work successfully enables the viewer to experience 
the time and the location of this public space in a particularly 
intimate fashion.
There is something cruel about this severed plot, this narratus 
interruptus culminating in a fabula rasa. And Hill has done this 
before. Suspension of Disbelief (for Marine) for instance, a 1995 
installation at the Guggenheim Museum SoHo, both offers 
and denies the viewer voyeuristic satisfaction. In this installa­
tion, close-up images of two naked bodies—one male and one 
female—flow back and forth across monitors suspended above 
the floor. As the bodies drift across the span of screens, their 
movement is interrupted by an electronic mechanism that 
fragments the anatomical forms. By refusing us the expected 
visual cohesion. Hill exposes us to ourselves (our afterimage.
Dore Bou'en is an artist, art critic, and Ph.D. candidate in the Visual and Cultural 
Studies Program at the University of Rochester. She is currently teaching at San Francisco 
State University.
\p ro jec tion , desire, and expectation) and the ground upon ;; 
which the cinematic apparatus is made visible (the screen, the 
gallery, the environment). Our longing to carry meaning - ;
■ across the dislocation of space and time—^the suspension of 
disbelief-—is interrupted and the annihilation of the moment jija|
(o#r afterimag^iis felt as discomfort.


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Narratus Interruptus: Gary Hill’s 23:59:59:29—The Storyteller’s Room

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