Double blind

Double Blind is an installation consisting of multiple works by Sayler/Morris. In the aggregate, these works reflect on the failure of society to take any meaningful action to address climate change, despite years of warnings. Sayler/Morris examines themes of certainty, rationality, faith and agency within the prospect of catastrophe. 

Large-scale photographs of landscapes impacted by climate change drawn from Sayler/Morris’ A History of the Future project are left covered by black fabric, insisting that viewers rely on the descriptions next to the prints in order to apprehend the images.* This frustrates the impulse of viewers both to regard only the aesthetics of the photographs and/or to regard them unequivocally as evidence. Conversely, several of the images cloaked in the gallery are displayed on large commercial billboards in the surrounding metropolitan area. What cannot be seen in the gallery can be seen in a space normally devoted to advertising, but entirely without words or context.

In the center of the gallery are several video pieces and two installations. Quartet for the End of Time uses poker as a metaphor for negotiation, decision-making, and fate. Crowd, Franklin Indiana isolates individuals emerging from and returning to a generalized crowd, a study in inertia vs. individual will. Exit Strategy uses the story of Noah’s Ark to ponder actions of last resort and notions of what is essential.

*  The photographs in the gallery are available for viewing by special request in a private tour by the artists.