Video still from Nicole Miller: A Sound, a Signal, the Circus, 2021. Mixed-media installation. Image courtesy of the artist and Kristina Kite Gallery, Los Angeles.
California-based artist and filmmaker Nicole Miller hopes to change some perspectives with her new immersive installation, A Sound, a Signal, the Circus, on view at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University from March 25 to July 25.
Fueled by an intention to highlight the Black experience in the United States, the installation is composed of recorded and appropriated sounds and music, accompanied by excerpts of interviews that Miller conducted in St. Louis in 2021. In these various interviews, poets, dancers, educators, and teenagers of color share their personal perspectives on politics, philosophy, and creativity.
“It contains all the components of art-making that I’m passionate about,” Miller says. “For me and my practice, it’s an opportunity to be in relationship with people that I admire, and that’s really what keeps me moving forward. A production like this is really a lot of labor, a lot of time. It’s been years, a whole team of people working for years, and so that interest in being in conversation with each other has to be there and sustain the whole time.”
The work features a carefully composed choreography of sound and moving images, along with laser-light animations. Given the technical and emotional aspects of the installation, Miller had to find a balance between the mechanics behind the scenes and the emotions that are meant to be portrayed throug the body of work.
“I’m constantly having to shift between right brain work and left brain work, from technical computer work in conversation about building lasers, how the lasers work and how to sync that up with video, to really figuring out what it means to sit with a 14 year old in St. Louis, talking about some trauma that they’ve been through in the neighborhood,” Miller says. “A big part of my practice is figuring out how those two things link up.”
Rather than just existing as a work that is simply aesthetically pleasing, Miller wants the installation to aid in testing and challenging the mindsets of viewers as they listen and pay attention to the people highlighted in the work.
“I just hope that the viewers come in and really consider the perspectives that they have on other people, maybe challenge why they maintain those perspectives,” Miller says. “I’m hoping to challenge people also. It’s not just about having a sort of pleasant immersive experience but also being challenged in one’s perspectives.”
The opening celebration for A Sound, a Signal, the Circus will take place March 25 from 7-9 p.m., and Miller will host an artist talk in the Steinberg Auditorium March 26 at 11 a.m.
