Megan and Murray

Site Updated

Our new portfolio site features our new project, The Listening Array, full-length videos of all of our work and an improved interface.

Summer of the Midnight Sun: Residencies in Finland, Travel in Germany

Åland Archipelago, Finland [source]

Turku, Finland [source]

We've been invited to spend the summer working in Finland at two artist residencies: first on the island of Kökar at the Åland Archipelago Guest Artist Residence and then in the city of Turku at the Arte Sumu Artists' Residency, where we'll be putting together an exhibition that will open at the Galleria Titanikin.

Helsinki, Finland [source]

Before we get to Finland, we're meeting up with Murray's sister, who has lived in Germany for the past ten years, in Berlin. We'll travel through northern Germany to her home in Bremen and then Hamburg before leaving for Helsinki, where we'll spend a few days before going to the islands.

Berlin, Germany [source]

We're hoping to work in trips to see the northern lights, Tallinn and the Hermitage in St Petersburg. Any other suggestions or must-sees as we plan our trip to Northern Europe, the Baltics and Scandinavia?

The Listening Array: Opening Tonight, 7-9pm

Megan and Murray McMillan, The Listening Array: Photograph, 2008, 25'' x 50'', ed. of 3

Our opening is tonight at Whittier College from 7-9pm (info).

Hope to see you there.

Building the Array (3)

We spent yesterday wiring and getting the structure ready for plastic, then last night our good friend and fellow artist Zach Kleyn came by to help attach the plastic (thanks Zach!). Today will be all-plastic / all-day.

Lecture is tonight at 7:15pm at the Alumni House on campus, info here.

Building the Array (2)

Yesterday we finished the wood frame. Today we'll wire the speaker system, install the AV equipment, and fasten and finish the plastic. If all goes according to schedule, we'll be done tonight.

The audio we're using in the video is from an 1878 Russian choral piece, Вы жертвою пали (You Fell Victims). Here's a translation of the last few stanzas:

And the tyrant is feasting in luxurious palaces
Drowning his anguish in wine
But the deadly (fatal) hand is drawing
Threatening letters on the wall.

Tyranny shall fall and the people will rebel
The great powerful and free people
Farewell our brothers! You have walked with honor
Your road of worthiness and righteousness (nobility).

[The rank of young (fresh) soldiers is following your footsteps
Ready to die and to accomplish high deeds
Farewell our brothers! You have walked with honor
Your road of worthiness and righteousness.]

Building the Array (1)

Yesterday we built about 65% of the wood frame structure for the array. Today we finish the frame and begin to attach the plastic skin. We're a bit ahead of schedule, but with things like this, something tricky always comes up so it's nice to have a time bonus.

It had been a while since we'd seen the gallery, and it's much more lovely than we remembered: hand-painted wood beam 20-foot ceilings, Moorish architectural details, iron chandeliers.

Lecture is Wednesday night and the opening is on Thursday.

Arrived in Los Angeles and Everything is Green

[source]

After a long day of travel yesterday, we arrived in LA to begin our install at the gallery. It's raining and everything is vivid green: the hills are vibrating with leprechaun color.

We checked in at the gallery and immediately started our materials hunt, beginning with the best thrift store in the universe. It's over by Dodger Stadium, but that's all I'm gonna say: years ago I was sworn to secrecy about divulging its location. True to its rep and we scored a 1984 television studio monitor that we're building into the installation. We knew we wanted old technology that speaks to the time period of the piece, and 1984? Could that be a more perfect year? Reagan in office and the Orwellian year of prophecy.

These bits and pieces of data — that the TV is from 1984, say — are the kind of thing that, while not conceptually necessary, add a consistency that reads true in a way that some slick new flatscreen from Frye's wouldn't.

California Bound

Tomorrow — if the coming storm doesn't stop us — we're on a plane to the City of Angels to install our show at Whittier College (opens on Thur, Feb 28, from 7-9pm). As usual, we'll be blogging our process here.

Sure, we're looking forward to seeing the new BCAM, but we're really excited about going back to our favorite little dive in Santa Monica... oh boy, cha cha cha.

The Listening Array: Audio

spectrogram of decoded sounds from a Russian selcall system [source]

One fascinating find in our research into this project was the existence of "Numbers Stations:" radio stations of unknown origin which broadcast strings of spoken numbers over shortwave radio in various languages. We had unknowingly crossed paths with this idea before, in Wilco's album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which takes its title and many of the samples from a particular numbers broadcast.

Numbers stations are quite mysterious and have a dedicated following of shortwave radio enthusiasts and decoders. The running theory is that these stations are transmitting nearly unbreakable coded messages, but no one really knows, because no official agency will acknowledge their existence. Here's a story NPR did on the phenomena in 2004.

The Listening Array: Essay

on the set at The Listening Array photo and video shoot

I have spent my week listening to secret tapes from Kennedy’s office during the Cuban Missile Crisis and reading the transcripts of Reagan and Gorbechev’s Cold War dinner parties in Reykjavik, Iceland. It all boils down to espionage, really, and the bug the Russians put in the U.S. seal at the American embassy in Moscow. That seal, plus fifty-year-old listening devices and gold halos in historical art: that’s the jist of this project.

It doesn’t necessarily make sense, and that used to bother me, back when I was suspicious of postmodern art, before I started making serious art myself. Yet it does make a kind of sense when you see it all in context. This project we're working on is called The Listening Array: a term that refers to a series of microphones connected in different intervals that correlate data to determine position. It’s a device used for spying. It’s also exactly what it sounds like: an arrangement of things that are used to listen. In this project, it references both meanings.