Art Lies, Volume 47, Summer 2005 Page: 122
128 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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SAN ANTONIO ;VIEW
Hills Snyder: Book of the Dead
Artpace San Antonio
Lawrence Jennings
Confronted by a chair which looked like the Last
Judgment-or, to be more accurate, by a Last
Judgment which, after a long timeand consider-
able difficulty, I recognized as a chair--I found
myself on the brink of panic.Don't Be A Pussy!
- Aldous Huxley
The Doors of Perception
-Ram AyalaTo experience Hills Snyder's Artpace project on
opening night, people had to wait in a long line
before gaining entrance, one by one, into a very
dark foyer with a low ceiling. At the end of the
foyer, you had to crouch through an elliptical open-
ing like Alice chasing the rabbit down the hole.
A motorized leather recliner and circular video
screen are the only two things awaiting you on the
other side. The video-a daytime sky with clouds
passing by-hovers above; it is the only source of
illumination in the room.
Watching the real-time movement of clouds is
meditative despite the eerie, darkened surround-
ings. Unlike James Turrell's skyspaces, this work
projects illusionary daylight but somehow brings
to mind the real, dark city night outside.
The second chamber is less comforting. It
too contains a chair, this one made of wood and
fluorescent Mylar lit with a black light. The chair
transmits a supernatural glow in the otherwise
murky darkness. Snyder refers to this object as
a hybrid-somewhere between an execution and
conventional chair-and the small space does feel
somewhat like an execution chamber. The piece
also recalls the artist's plastic guillotines, recently
exhibited at the Finesilver Gallery. The word
"STAY" is posted by the exit. Is this a command or
a suggestion, a reprieve from death or a reminder
of our state's notorious record?
As thoughts of Andy Warhol's electric-chair
paintings, capital punishment and murder riddle
my thoughts, I leave the room, saying goodbye to
all external stimuli. I find myself in a crowded, pitch-
black maze. The prevalent darkness throughout
Snyder's labyrinth causes extreme dilation of the
pupils. After a few minutes, my eyes became more
attuned to variances in light and color, much like
a side effect of strong hallucinogens. (This is, per-
haps, why it didn't seem strange that as I entered
the second room, someone nearby started singing
the intro to Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit.)Hills Snyder, Book of the Dead
Site specific installation and performance, 2005
Photo by Michele Monseau
Lil<e isolation tanks used to limit sensory
stimulation, the last portion of Snyder's maze is
best unlocked without other people in the cor-
ridor; a completely solitary, internal experience is
most revealing. Participants must wall< with arms
extended like zombies to feel the space and walls
around them. I repeatedly felt as if my next step
was going to drop off some unseen ledge.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead, used by such
visionaries as Timothy Leary, Ram Dass (al<a
Richard Alpert) and Ralph Metzner as a guidebook
for psychedelic experiences, mentions the journey
of the soul beyond death into the underworld, its
passage into the unknown void and, finally, its
reentry. Snyder's previous works evoke the "splat-
shticl<" horror-comedy hybrid of the Evil Dead
films in which the hero (played by writer-director
Bruce Campbell) fights off zombies awakened by
the reading of passages from the Necronomicon
(The Bool< of the Dead). The series ends with the
bloodied hero's passage through a swirling worm-
hole or time-passage-a space not unlike the pas-
sageway at hand in Syder's current installation.
After negotiating the tunnel, a dim light ap-
pears around a corner. The light at the end of the
path is the entry to a brightly lit, functioning living
room-or, possibly, a waiting room-filled with
the recently departed participants (or the reborn,Hills Snyder, Book of the Dead
Site specific installation and performance, 2005
Photo by Anjali Gupta
depending on your point of view). Familiar faces
lounge on multiple couches and chairs, drinking,
smoking and conversing quietly. Others watch the
startled expressions of people exiting the maze.
Upon reentry, Snyder greets each guest hold-
ing a tray of fluorescent shot glasses filled with
a favored social lubricant: tequila. He gives them
a blessing and a page number from "the book."
This unexpected ending-the abrupt twist from
a dark, internalized and isolated experience to a
bright external, social realm-is very effective.
The experience presents one with an alternating
array of multi-layered, fluctuating meanings that
orbit around classic dichotomies i.e., Light/Death,
Ego/Death of the Ego, Judgment/Punishment,
Fun/Fear, Stasis/Travel and Internal/External.
After two shots of tequila and some living-
room conversation, I left through the final exit
upon which read, "Don't Be a Pussy." I am told this
was one of Ram Ayala's favorite phrases, typically
used to persuade someone to live fully and without
anxiety or fear. On June 24th of this year, Ayala,
patriarch of the San Antonio music scene, was
killed in a robbery of his bar Tacoland. Snyder's
tour de force-like Ram's famous interjection-
can certainly be taken many different ways.122 ARTL!ES Summer 2005
I
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Bryant, John & Gupta, Anjali. Art Lies, Volume 47, Summer 2005, periodical, 2005; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth228012/m1/124/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .