Tony Oursler
United States, b.1957
Sang
- 2008
- Fibreglass, gesso, audio / video projection
- Purchased with the support of Christchurch City Council's Challenge Grant to the Christchurch Art Gallery Foundation, 2013.
- 420 x 460 x 180mm
- 2013/066.a-b
Location: Touring Gallery B
Tags: abstraction, biomorphic abstraction, eyes, lips, motion, people (agents), purple (color), sound (acoustics), speech (psychological concept)
With her lurid, bulbous head, goggling, chameleon-like eyes and plaintive chatter, Tony Oursler’s biomorphic video-sculpture Sang is as off-putting as she is unforgettable. With no body to speak of, she’s the original talking head, magicked up from light and sound into a strange stand-in for a living being. If she’s less than human, though, no one seems to have told her – she seeks our attention and involvement with an urgent and unsettling intensity.
(Dummies & Doppelgängers, 2 November 2024 – 23 March 2025)
Transcript of Sang's monolgue:
Close close close clean clean clean Sang
Cold cold cold cold black guard pattern clouds clouds clouds clouds clouds
Come come come come come sheen
Hard hard hard hard hard image hot hot hot hot hot hot
Atmospheric, static, velvet
Exposure, fog fog fog fog star star star star star
Lips lips lips lips lips lips
Light dark rush rush rush rush rush rush.....
Plot catch rainbow rainbow rainbow rainbow rainbow rainbow
Black black black black black
Kill coax coax coax coax
Fall tension tension, wonder bright burn want want want want weave wonder rush wind wallow out
Help help help help help help help help test follow voice skin sonar?
Life life life life life life life life life ........
Soft black box blow trip trip trip trip trip trip trip trip
Crash
Colours, cool good glow gone perfume perfume perfume perfume
Smile smile smile smile
Number number number number number number number number number number number....
Spectator crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy.....
Message money money money money money money money money money money money......
Mud sacrifice primitive primitive primitive
Image seeking seeking seeking seeking seeking seeking seeking
Dream dream dream dream
Close close close
Clean clean sing cold cold cold cold