Mike MacDonald's video installation "Touched By The Tears of a Butterfly" is the fourth in a series of installations this artist has produced over the past ten years. As with the other three, this work is a simple and direct presentation in the passive defence of ecologies. Unlike the other three, this installation utilizes a single video image, thus transforming the grid which marked the earlier work, as well as employing the external elements in its realization.
"Touched By the Tears of a Butterfly" consists of seven rocking chairs, each a different colour and placed before a silk scrim that flutters in the breeze of an air ionizer. The viewer is invited to sit in one of the chairs to watch the fourteen minute video of a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis and preparing to fly. Following are images of different butterflies feeding.
There are several images which can be said to be archetypal in their portrayal of transformation or metamorphosis. An egg hatching, a flower blossoming, a butterfly emerging from a pupae are symbols so concrete they cease to be metaphors. That MacDonald has begun to use this images should have been predictable when one considers the simplicity of his project. MacDonald's career is noted for his use of technology to bring into focus areas seemingly at odds with the technologies he employs.
These works in installation can be seen as a passionate voice in defence of the environment. They don't give directions or chastise the viewer. It is as if their passion is used up in their construction. There is nothing left for reprimands.
MacDonald utilizes his technologies in ways that are at odds with his message. The thirty-second timing of the shots in the earlier grid works {"Electronic Totem" (1987), "Seven Sisters" (1989), and "Secret Flowers" (1993)} are reminiscent of the TV commercial. The grid itself in "Secret Flowers" seems at odds with the floral cornucopia that is the focus of the work.
In some ways "Touched By The Tears of a Butterfly" grapples with these dichotomies and in others furthers them. The seven rocking chairs MacDonald picked up in antique shops along the St. Lawrence River are painted the seven colours of the video colour bar. The colours at once reveal the artist's palette and function like his earlier grids. The length of the image itself is not that of TV commercial but determined by the subject of the shot.
But the chairs provide an oddly human touch. Each asserts its own personality accented by the bright colours. Together they provide a homespun feel; a funkiness and a sense of joy. The small human scale of the video image is suggestive of a living room rather than a cinema.
The images of the butterfly emerging and then a host of butterflies feasting on the nectar of medicine plants are images of threatened species. The delicacy of their life cycle make them canaries in our ecological mineshaft. The first to go in an environmental situation that is worsening. MacDonald's message is one of warning...and mourning for what is lost.
The result is strikingly familiar. The quiet ambient simplicity of the earlier work is still present, yet a transformation takes place before our eyes. the simple beauty of these few shots speaks directly to what has been lost, while the intrusion of the technology slips away unnoticed. Mike MacDonald, in a process not unlike his subject, transcends the contradictions as he issues quiet warnings of our peril.
Essay: Glenn Alteen, Grunt Gallery.
Curator - Grunt Gallery: D Maracle.
Thanks to: Archer Pechawis