Later...

The sky is turning periwinkle again and we have returned from our daily sojourn. What a festival of sensation was to be found at the Venice Biennale! Too many, of course, to list in detail here, although maybe when I am home I will write more about the pieces. Most notable of what I saw were two pieces by Haroon Mizra. He is my new favorite living artist. His installations were so intense. The first one I saw was Apavillion of Then and Now. One enters a triangular box, practically light tight. The walls are covered in a sound-proofing-like layer of large foam triangles, gray. In the center of the room's ceiling is a halo of LED lights. The light is accompanied by a buzzing speaker under the grated floor making a noise reminiscent of an electric frequency. The noise and the light slowly intensify in volume and brightness. The frequency morphs from a muffled buzz to a sharp pinging. Suddenly light and sound cuts out completely, leaving the viewers confused. It was great! It made my adrenaline pump and I had to stifle giggling each time the light cut out and I could hear people shifting their weight in the darkness, wondering what to expect. After about 15 eternal seconds, the light and buzzing dimly return to existence and the intensification begins again. It was really entertaining. In the other installation called Sick, Mizra's work is once again in a wedge shaped space. It consists of speaker wire and speakers, a telted screen which played some cut up imagery and resided under a small plastic bench which supports a speaker. The speakers howled and barked in a twangy way with similar electrical feedback sounds, diminishing, morphing crescendos and decrescendos, playing with the ear and the sensations of vibration, bouncing off the unfamiliar angles of the room. One speaker, on its back, is fitted with a piece of plastic tubing. On the speaker face a piece of gold foil dances. It was so simple but sincerely intense.
Turrell's light installation did not disappoint either. The glowing blue rectangle on the wall was, of course, a room to walk into. Entering the environment was like entering a realm of the subconscious. The luminescent blue lent a foggy, nondescript experience of the environment of the chamber. The presumed lighter blue wall in the back of the room was a drop off into a larger blue-lit room. Sensual deluxe!

Outside of Haroon Mizra's Apavillion of Then and Now

Frog King

Anonymous Stateless Immigrants Pavillion

Tomorrow is our last full day in Italy. Not much is on the agenda. Today, some of the boat drivers were on strike so we could only get a boat from our Ferrovia station to Rialto. We walked a great deal today, but by now we were used to it. Maybe I'll take Jonas hiking in the mornings until he goes back to school. I wish we could afford to send him to Waldorf.