GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Eija-Liisa Ahtila keenly brings to light difficult, often disturbing aspects of contemporary life, empathetically communicating their effect on everyday people through today's evolving technologies of film and video. The House is based on extensive interviews Ahtila conducted with women who had experienced psychosis. Using a combination of film and installation, the artist has created an encompassing and finite sensory space, relaying for the viewer the sensations of isolation, estrangement, wonder, and delusion her subjects experienced.
Three screens depict, in varying time sequences, a solitary woman narrating and moving through her domestic routine and environment. However, as the film progresses into domestic surrealism, boundaries between the principle subject's perspective and objective reality begin to shift and blur. A cow ambles off of the TV screen and into the room, the foghorn of a ship sounds in the dense forest, a tiny version of her car drives across the wall as she wonders aloud if her car will remain where she parked it. All the while, the calm, monotone voice of the principle subject and the honesty of her story act as anchors, alleviating the anxiety of the work and suggesting a way out of madness through a resigned incorporation of the fantastic and delusional into everyday life.
Excerpt from
Anna Katherine Brodbeck, ed., TWO X TWO X TWENTY: Two Decades Supporting Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas: Dallas Museum of Art), 2018.
NOTES
- DMA unpublished material=
- This three-screen installation by Finnish artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila explores the mind of a young woman who is losing her grip on reality. Deftly moving from one screen to the next in an exchange of images from one mindset to the next, Ahtila relays the story of the slowly disintegrating mind of a woman whose disorientation is mirrored in the disruption of the causal logic of space, time, and perception in traditional cinematic narrative. It is representative of a singular use of video to bring about an interior psychology.
- Charles Wylie, Acquisition Proposal, September, 10, 2002. In Collections Records object file (2002.52.A-H).
- Exhibitions: Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Talo/The House, DMA 2003: ID - 11676, Tms Id - 2315 ; Performance/Art, DMA 2009 (all added in exhibitions module)
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
Process/materials
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
Until 2002: Eija-Liisa Ahtila (b. 1959)
2002: Dallas Museum of Art and The Rachofsky Collection, purchased through Crystal Eye Ltd., Helsinki, Finland [1], [2]
Notes:
[1] See the copy of the Co-Tenancy Agreement in the Collections Records object file (2002.52-A.H).
[2] See the copy of the invoice dated November 21, 2002, in the Collections Records object file (2002.52-A.H).
AUDIO ASSETS
VIDEO ASSETS
IMAGE ASSETS
WEB RESOURCES
- UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television~Read an essay about Ahitla's work The House.
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES
FUN FACTS
TEACHING IDEAS
RULES
Apply to objects where number equals 2002.52.A-N
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General Description
Eija-Liisa Ahtila keenly brings to light difficult, often disturbing aspects of contemporary life, empathetically communicating their effect on everyday people through today's evolving technologies of film and video. The House is based on extensive interviews Ahtila conducted with women who had experienced psychosis. Using a combination of film and installation, the artist has created an encompassing and finite sensory space, relaying for the viewer the sensations of isolation, estrangement, wonder, and delusion her subjects experienced.
Three screens depict, in varying time sequences, a solitary woman narrating and moving through her domestic routine and environment. However, as the film progresses into domestic surrealism, boundaries between the principle subject's perspective and objective reality begin to shift and blur. A cow ambles off of the TV screen and into the room, the foghorn of a ship sounds in the dense forest, a tiny version of her car drives across the wall as she wonders aloud if her car will remain where she parked it. All the while, the calm, monotone voice of the principle subject and the honesty of her story act as anchors, alleviating the anxiety of the work and suggesting a way out of madness through a resigned incorporation of the fantastic and delusional into everyday life.
Excerpt from
Anna Katherine Brodbeck, ed., TWO X TWO X TWENTY: Two Decades Supporting Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas: Dallas Museum of Art), 2018.
Fun Facts
Archival Resources
Web Resources
Notes
- DMA unpublished material=
- This three-screen installation by Finnish artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila explores the mind of a young woman who is losing her grip on reality. Deftly moving from one screen to the next in an exchange of images from one mindset to the next, Ahtila relays the story of the slowly disintegrating mind of a woman whose disorientation is mirrored in the disruption of the causal logic of space, time, and perception in traditional cinematic narrative. It is representative of a singular use of video to bring about an interior psychology.
- Charles Wylie, Acquisition Proposal, September, 10, 2002. In Collections Records object file (2002.52.A-H).
- Exhibitions: Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Talo/The House, DMA 2003: ID - 11676, Tms Id - 2315 ; Performance/Art, DMA 2009 (all added in exhibitions module)
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
Process/materials
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
Until 2002: Eija-Liisa Ahtila (b. 1959)
2002: Dallas Museum of Art and The Rachofsky Collection, purchased through Crystal Eye Ltd., Helsinki, Finland [1], [2]
Notes:
[1] See the copy of the Co-Tenancy Agreement in the Collections Records object file (2002.52-A.H).
[2] See the copy of the invoice dated November 21, 2002, in the Collections Records object file (2002.52-A.H).
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VIDEO ASSETS
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