Miami Artist David Rohn will present ‘Marry Me-Western Union’ an installation/performance piece at the Carol Jazzar Gallery in Miami on April 18 2008.
The multi media piece will include the artist as prospective bride with live video feeds, telephone and audio content to connect conditions inside the gallery and outside in the adjacent garden.
The artist has used the metaphor of marriage and a presumptive bride named ‘Esperanza” (which means both ‘hoping’ and ‘waiting’ in Spanish) to address the idea of ‘union” or connection (whether to a spouse, self, a community or a deity )–which he sees as fundamental to the search for meaning.
The piece will include references to the writings of the 16th century Spanish mystic Saint Teresa of Avila on Desire, Union, Rapture Extasy , and Internal Prayer, particularly from her book called ‘Interior Castle’, in which she frequently described her union with God as one of a Bride to a Spouse.
The marriage metaphor in the context of various means of connection are meant to demonstrate that the desire for union and meaning are Western as well as Eastern although Western spiritual traditions often seem to show less evidence of the mystical search for ‘Union’ as it s Eastern counterpasts.
The Sanskrit word ‘yoga’ for example is a direct relative to the work ‘yoke’ (as in ox yoke) and means simply ‘union’.
In the case of this installation / performance the use of the internal (gallery) space and exterior (garden) space is meant to provide a sense of the internal and external conciousness ; the use of electronic media to connect and provide communication between the two domains is meant to demonstrate that the achievement of connection or union is more related to a receptive state of mind than to the various means of communication or connecting available to us now: In other words that we can just as easily feel disconnected in spite of the ease of communication available to us now ; or conversely we can feel disconnected because of the expectations all these forms of communication media available provide us with .