The Infinite Cave, an installation piece by Canmore artist Dan Hudson, will be at the Esplanade from Jan. 14 to April 15. NEWS PHOTO KENDALL KING, JAN. 11, 2023
kking@medicinehatnews.com
The Esplanade Arts & Heritage Centre is inviting Hatters to experience the world like never before with Canmore artist Dan Hudson’s digital art installation The Infinite Cave.
Making its first public debut this Saturday, the multimedia installation is both a commentary on and a representation of human experience through the medium of film.
“When I was developing this work, I was thinking about how the planet is represented in cyberspace,” Hudson told the News. “With social media, everywhere on the planet, someone is recording. So, I had this idea to (use different recordings) to create a kind of digital apparition of the entire planet.”
A culmination of more than eight years of work, the installation features more than 500,000 unique video clips from around the world displayed on 162 monitors, as well as two additional monitors which show videos of the sun and moon respectively.
“To me, this really brings up some big questions about who and what we are, and our place in the universe,” said Hudson. “And that’s a little bit of the reason why I included the sun and the moon.”
None of the film included in the installation is Hudson’s own, rather it is all publicly available material Hudson found online.
“Every aspect of this is sourced or mined from the internet, mostly from social media, but also, in the cases of a sun and moon, from various space agencies,” said Hudson. “And this will never repeat itself. You could come here 100 times and you’re not going to have the same experience; we could be standing beside each other and we’re not going to have the same experience.”
A unique aspect of Hudson’s installation is that while each monitor shows a unique video, every monitor has a theme to its video content.
“I set it up as in the four elements,” said Hudson. “So, the middle is all fire-related videos, so that includes people cooking, explosions, volcanoes, industry, campfires, etc. And then, surrounding that is Earth-related videos, which includes people, landscapes, animals, vegetation, flowers, you name it. Surrounding that is all water-related videos. And then the outer ring is all air-related.”
Seating options are placed in front of the monitors, as Hudson encourages those who visit the installation to immerse themselves in what they see on the screen, and draw their own conclusions.
“My idea was that I’m going to present as much of the Earth as I can, and anybody who comes in here is going to act as their own algorithm to interpret what (the meaning of) this is,” he said. “I’m excited to get feedback and what people’s experiences are or what it makes them think about.”
The installation will be at the Esplanade from Jan. 14 until April 15, and is accessible during scheduled operating hours. Admission is pay what you will.
While there are no age restrictions on admission, viewer discretion is advised.
