The House of Books has no Windows is the collaborative work of Canadian artists Janet Cardiff and Georges Bures Miller. Using objects, images and sound, they create a collage of impressions and experiences, memories and history. By combining references to high and popular culture, they open up a world of endless tales. The exhibition consists of six different rooms, each with an installation piece offering a multi-layered media experience. In addition there is a small room located on the top floor with a television screen showing interviews with the artists, and several books on the subject to flick through.

The six installations of the exhibition reveal six entirely different worlds. In one room there's a mini cinema to peer into. In another there's a door to open into an attic filled with objects: books, records, record players, speakers, models, notes, sketches. In another there's a small plywood-shed-like structure crammed with 2,000 records and eight different record players. The sound of rain, a train passing, opera music and a male voice fill the room.

Road Trip, 2004 is a mixed media/audio installation. Inside the room are a screen, six chairs, two speakers and a computer-controlled slide projector which runs for 15 minutes. Simultaneously, a male and female voice are heard discussing the slides. Sitting down to watch and listen, there's the feeling of entering a private moment. The way that the voices have been recorded gives the impression that the people talking are present; the informal and familiar feel of the conversation makes it intimate. The conversation describes not only an actual road trip, but a trip through memories: old pictures turned red by time, family photographs, stories of a cancer patient having to travel to New York for treatment. In the quiet moments, it's almost as if their thoughts can be heard..

The Killing Machine, 2007 is a mixed media/audio installation, using pneumatics and robotics, lasting 5 minutes. It stands in the centre of a large room. Its main feature is what appears to be an old dentist's chair, with robotic arms moving around it evoking images of detailed torture. There is a sense of initiating the torture by having to press a red button to make the machine work.

For The House of Books Has No Windows, 2008, the artists have used some 5,000 books as bricks to build a small house - head-height inside, if slightly crouched. They are dictionaries, children's books, classics and more. In spite of being the only piece in the exhibition using no sound media, it seems to speak loudest - an overwhelming sensory experience. There's a muffling stillness when squeezed inside the house's world of books; the colour and the texture of the thousands of book-spines forming the house's structure evoke fairytales and fantasy. And the smell of old books conjures childhood memories of adventures about to begin.

Artist Credits: (alpha order): Artists - Janet Cardiff & Georges Bures Miller. 6 works displayed include: The House of Books Has No Windows, 2008, The Killing Machine, 2007, Road Trip, 2004.

Company Credits: Gallery - The Fruitmarket Gallery. Website - www.fruitmarket.co.uk

END

(c) Trine Garrett 2008

reviewed Thursday 21 August 08 / The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh

Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2012

www.fringereport.com