Transformation through Installation: Portraying Ovidian Metamorphoses via Multimedia

Location

King Building 321

Document Type

Presentation

Start Date

4-28-2017 3:00 PM

End Date

4-28-2017 4:20 PM

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to create a physical embodiment of Ovid’s theme of transformation in his work, Metamorphoses, focusing on how the corporeal changes of women into trees affect their expressions of grief. The project is installed in a park or outdoor space (planned for Tappan Square), and it consists of cloths with the names of women from certain myths hung around trees, notecards hung from the branches containing quotes from the myths or contemporary adaptations (on one side) and questions (on the other). There is an audio component created for listening on headphones, which consists of thematic music and spoken excerpts from the myths. The three featured characters are Daphne, Myrrha, and Dryope, because their causes for transformation are each fairly different from one another; Daphne is changed as a form of escape, Myrrha for the sake of pity, and Dryope because of an unfortunate blunder. Yet their metamorphoses all invoke an experience of suffering, which is embodied in the same final form of a tree. The installation is designed to personify these trees as a way of paying homage to the women in the stories, and provoking the viewer to engage in complexities of what their transformations mean, both in regards to the myth and in regards to contemporary applications of the concepts.

Keywords:

installation, myths, Ovid, grief

Notes

Session II, Panel 8 - Literary | Comparisons
Moderator: Jed Deppman, Professor of Comparative Literature and English

Major

Technology in Music and Related Arts (TIMARA)

Advisor(s)

Peter Swendsen, TIMARA
Sylvia Watanabe, Creative Writing

Project Mentor(s)

Wendy Hyman, English

April 2017

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Apr 28th, 3:00 PM Apr 28th, 4:20 PM

Transformation through Installation: Portraying Ovidian Metamorphoses via Multimedia

King Building 321

The purpose of this project is to create a physical embodiment of Ovid’s theme of transformation in his work, Metamorphoses, focusing on how the corporeal changes of women into trees affect their expressions of grief. The project is installed in a park or outdoor space (planned for Tappan Square), and it consists of cloths with the names of women from certain myths hung around trees, notecards hung from the branches containing quotes from the myths or contemporary adaptations (on one side) and questions (on the other). There is an audio component created for listening on headphones, which consists of thematic music and spoken excerpts from the myths. The three featured characters are Daphne, Myrrha, and Dryope, because their causes for transformation are each fairly different from one another; Daphne is changed as a form of escape, Myrrha for the sake of pity, and Dryope because of an unfortunate blunder. Yet their metamorphoses all invoke an experience of suffering, which is embodied in the same final form of a tree. The installation is designed to personify these trees as a way of paying homage to the women in the stories, and provoking the viewer to engage in complexities of what their transformations mean, both in regards to the myth and in regards to contemporary applications of the concepts.