A different ‘Frame’ of mind

Young Chang

It sounds intellectual, Grahame Weinbren says, but the interactive

cinema work that is his historical, philosophical and artistic creation

is really just a game.

“Frames,” which opened Friday and closes Dec. 2 at UC Irvine’s Beall

Center for Art and Technology, makes all kinds of statements about

psychoanalysis, the truth in photos, the perception of insane people and

even the matter of a viewer’s relationship with art.

But it’s just a game, Weinbren repeats.

There are three gigantic screens, each connected by wire cables to a

vertically hanging frame about 10 feet from it. Each frame frames the

image on each screen for the person standing in front of it.

The black-and-white images are of women incarcerated in insane asylums

during the mid-1800s. The women were photographed by Hugh Diamond, an

asylum director and amateur photographer who used his photos as

psychiatric tools to diagnose the inmates.

But stand in front of a frame and point through it, at the photo, and

the voice of an 1800s doctor, John Connelly, will give you a description

of the patient’s condition. Point again and the photo will morph into a

modern-day actress trying to transform herself into the ancient madwoman

who preceded her.

Keep pointing and figure out the best rhythm for your pointing to help

the actress completely become the intended insane person. Slowly, the

sleeve of the actress’ contemporary red T-shirt will change into the long

sleeve of the inmate’s old-fashioned dress.

With an appropriate rhythm that’s not too fast nor too slow, the

actress will become the woman in the photo -- down to the crucifix

necklace nestled on her chest.

The objective of the game is to transform the actress. As there are

three screens, you do this on either the left or right screens. When an

actress is successfully transformed, she appears on the middle screen.

When two players at the left and right screens succeed at the exact same

time, the two actresses meet in the middle screen and interact. They

fight. They talk. They are very much alive.

OK, so it’s not just a game.

“It’s a lot about coming to know these people,” said Weinberg, a new

media artist who lives in New York. “Getting a relationship with a

subject on the screen in a way you can’t have when you just watch

something. When you affect something, you have a different relationship

with a piece.”

In 1999, a communications company in Tokyo commissioned Weinberg to

create “Frames.” He used Diamond’s photos because they posed, for the

artist, questions about the photographer’s role in creating a photograph.

“He obviously had asked them to pose in a way that he thought best

brought out the nature of their condition,” Weinberg said of Diamond. “So

he sort of made them into images of hysteria or religious mania or

alcoholism.”

This question of perception and portrayal can extend to all

photography, he continued, because a photo is the image of a world as

seen by the photographer.

Jeanie Weiffenbach, director of the Beall Center, compares the notion

to phrenology -- when people used to measure intelligence by measuring

the size of a brain.

The exhibit “deals with the powers of photographs to interpret a

person,” Weiffenbach said.

“But it’s a very large-ranging work,” she added. “It has the added

interest of being very complicated historically and art historically, and

in terms of the larger areas of the humanities like psychoanalytic

discourse.”

“Frames” also puts a different slant on the truth of photography.

After all, if an image is alterable, what does that mean?

“And the work deals with the whole notion of how mental sufferers are

portrayed, and, by extension, how anyone is portrayed,” Weiffenbach said.

But for Weinberg, who is quick to dismiss the intellect, technological

savvy and intrigue behind his creation and who repeatedly calls it just

“a game,” one of the objectives in “Frames” is to think about how we see

the world.

“Really, what the piece is about is having this quiet, sort of intense

experience where you have a relationship with these people,” he said.

FYI

WHAT: “Frames”

WHEN: Through Dec. 2. The center is open noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday

through Sunday; noon to 8 p.m. Thursday

WHERE: UC Irvine’s Beall Center for Art and Technology, at the corner

of University and Campus drives

COST: Free

CALL: (949) 824-6206