Cardiff & Miller - Something Strange This Way

Something Strange This Way is the title of ARoS' major presentation of six unique multimedia installations by the Canadian and internationally recognised artist couple Janet Cardiff (b. 1957) and George Bures Miller (b. 1960).

Most art lovers know Cardiff and Miller as sound artists. Many have experienced or heard of their so-called audio or video walks, where you let yourself be guided by Cardiff's familiar voice on walks in public spaces. But while sound is and remains at the centre of Cardiff and Miller's work, the artists also work with a wide range of other media. Since the mid-1990s, they have created a series of spectacular and viewer-involving total installations that incorporate sound, music, narrative, found objects and mesmerising lighting effects. Works like these form the core of the exhibition SOMETHING STRANGE THIS WAY at ARoS.

The exhibition title SOMETHING STRANGE THIS WAY refers to mysterious places, theme parks and museums where strange and bizarre forces are at work. Like many of Cardiff and Miller's works, the exhibition plays on expectation. It tantalises our curiosity and lures us in, only to challenge our expectations.

Like theatre performances and films that activate all the senses and set the whole body's emotional register in motion, Cardiff and Miller transport us into other realities. With sound, light and special effects, they seduce us visually, setting the scene and setting the mood. They simulate lightning and thunder, passing trains that make everything shake, but all without the works appearing superficial like empty glittering shells. Quite the opposite. Even though it is the purely visual appearance of the installations that initially draws us in, they contain a wealth of literary, musical, historical and filmic references.

The Carnie (2010) is a different kind of carousel with rock music and discordant sounds. In the interactive sound work Cabinet of Curioussness (2010), which represents an old archive, we can pull out the drawers and listen to the different soundtracks installed inside. We can choose to listen to one soundtrack at a time or to several simultaneously to create our own cacophony of sounds. With the work Opera for a Small Room (2005), we are enveloped in the melancholic mind of a lonely opera lover. From the large window at the front of the box in which the work is installed, we can look in. There are old vinyl records everywhere. They float on shelves and tables among several record players, a lot of knick-knacks and old speakers. With this piece, Cardiff and the Millers present us with a rock opera. We listen to music, especially opera, to the sound of a passing train and to the man talking about the woman he loved but lost, dreaming away through music to distant cities with opera houses and stimulating culture. In Storm Room (2009), which from the inside resembles an abandoned and run-down dentist's office in Japan, we experience a raging storm. The penultimate work in the exhibition is The Killing Machine (2007), where we are given the role of executioner, but only if we choose to press the big red button that appears in front of the work. If we choose to press it first, there is no turning back. The two installations The Carnie (2010) and Storm Room (2009) will have their European debut at ARoS.

One of the absolute highlights of the SOMETHING STRANGE THIS WAY exhibition is Cardiff's sound work The Forty Part Motet (2001). It is a reinterpretation of a moving choral movement from 1573 entitled SPEM in Alium nunquam habui (I have never put my trust in anyone else), originally composed by English Renaissance composer Thomas Tallis.

As a calming conclusion to the otherwise dark and labyrinthine universe of the exhibition, the visitor in the high-ceilinged, and in this context almost sacred, foyer is enveloped by 40 speakers placed in a circle on the floor. Out of each speaker, 40 choir voices flow, from the deep bass to the high soprano, exactly as in Tallis' original score. The guest can move freely around the voices, stop and listen to each individual voice or stand in the centre and hear the entire choir at once. The experience is overwhelming. At the end, when the music stops, you are left with silence - a silence that can lead to reflection and calm or to a feeling of emptiness, as if something of great importance has stepped out of your life.

Cardiff and Miller love surprises, big emotions and open narratives. With the exhibition SOMETHING STRANGE THIS WAY, they take us on an unusual and marvellous journey through multiple time dimensions, imaginary spaces and moods, to the strangest places.

Exhibition curator: Museum curator Maria Kappel Blegvad