"Night and Day" uninstalled

Roman Hrab's photo and sound installation in the former "Night and Day" was taken down this past weekend.

to Let opening

Thanks to everyone that came out for the to Let opening yesterday! Please let us know what you think of the installations by commenting on the posts. Or ask an artist a question, etc.

Here are some photos from last night. Many thanks to two of our fantastic interns, Mollie Miller and Elaine Oh, who gave the walking tours.

Lindsey Glover had open studio hours at The Flower Shop, the evolving phenomena behind her installation, A Plastic Garden. Last night had an impromptu music performance.


Natalie Campbell gave a talk on the taxonomy of clouds in relation to her installation, The Weather Metabulator.

"Night & Day" - Roman Hrab - 135 The Commons

Two sources of inspiration / information are the basis for Night & Day. Firstly the Internet, and this website. It is a link to a web cam located on Ithaca Commons, which takes a live shot every 15 seconds of a section of the Commons. It is owned and operated by a local graphic design firm. When I first came across this website, I found it raised many issues regarding the surveillance of the public realm via the web and social networking. The camera page also has a live Twitter feed as well as a link to a ‘best of” web cam photo page on Flickr.

Rather than appropriate images from this Flickr album, I collected images directly from the web cam until I came across a pair of stills that conveyed a sense of solitude and foreboding. One image was taken during the day, the other at night. From these images I made large-scale prints that were manipulated to resemble security camera shots. A final print, an aerial view of the Commons from Google Earth, serves as a pop cultural “You Are Here” marker for this psychogeographical mapping.

Secondly, the name of the store, Night & Day, instantly brings to mind the Cole Porter classic. The song has been recorded by countless artists, from Frank Sinatra to Billie Holiday and many others, and is best known as a song of longing and yearning, of unrequited love. But when taken out of its 1930’s musical context, the lyrics begin to seem a bit more sinister in intent when juxtaposed with the 21st century realm of the Internet, surveillance, web cams, and social networks.

An audio loop plays a recording of artists and musicians reciting, whispering, singing, and playing their own versions of Night and Day, with these issues in mind. Their voices are heard in the vestibule of the store, sometimes solo, sometimes paired in twos or grouped in disharmonic quartets or octets. Together with the images, the audio is an eerie reminder that there is always someone unseen watching the public realm, night and day.

The recordings are performed by:
Yura Adams
Carrie Chalmers
George Hrab
Roman Iwasiwka
Andrew Kowal
James Mongan
Wayne Montecalvo
Jennifer Murray
Kathleen Thum
Tricia Wright

Here is a mix of all performances. At the installation site, this mix and other versions play in random order on a continuous loop 8am-10pm.


Roman Hrab's website