"When I Whistle," a 13-minute multimedia art installation will take place at 7 p.m., 7:45 p.m. and at 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 11, at the Swan House, on the Atlanta History Center campus. Free for this event. 130 West Paces Ferry Road NW, Atlanta. 404-814-4000, www.atlantahistorycenter.com/
The Swan House at the Atlanta History Center is known for serving as President Snow's fabulous headquarters in "The Hunger Games" movies and for hosting impeccably dressed partiers at the Swan House Ball.
On Thursday, Feb. 11, the Swan House loosens its bow tie and trades evening clothes for body paint in a multimedia art happening, complete with video projections, moody music, cryptic poetry and costumed dancers.
The installation/event is called “When I Whistle” and was created by Benita Carr and Bill Orisich. It’s a meditation on the meaning of home and freedom, staged in one of the most distinctive homes in Atlanta.
“A house protects you and shelters you, but it can also confine you and imprison you,” said Carr.
"When I Whistle" is presented in conjunction with an exhibition at the Swan Coach House Gallery, called "Print or Projection," which opened on Jan. 14 with three performances of "Whistle."
The gallery show runs through Feb. 19, but because the Swan House is a public museum, Carr was restricted in the number of times “Whistle” could be performed. The installation will be presented three times on Feb. 11 and then will fold its video screens and slip away.
Carr collaborated with video producer Bill Orisich on the project. The video elements will be projected on three screens in the Swan House’s entrance hall, while moody music from Atlanta composer/performer Adron plays through a sound system and costumed dancers recite poetry, with lines describing “some bit of bird song snagged in the folds of a dress.”
Said Carr of the video, “when you see it, it feels like you’re watching a painting come to life.”
The Swan House was built in 1928 by cotton millionaires Edward and Emily Inman, and designed by notable Atlanta architect Philip Shutze. The history center acquired the Swan House in 1966, and maintains it as a house museum, with many of the Inman’s original furnishings.
Some of those furnishings use images of birds, which makes the “Whistle” reference appropriate.
This is a new direction for the Swan House and the Atlanta History Center - co-presenting cutting edge and contemporary art installations inside its walls. The history center wants the house to expand its purposes, and become more than just “a static house museum, but a place that has surprises,” said spokesman Howard Pousner.
