INSTALLATION ART
McCoy, Jennifer; McCoy, Kevin
U.S. (1968 - ); U.S. (1967 - )
Soft Rains (loft)
2003
Sculpture with miniature video cameras and computer hardware and software with sound
21 x 32 7/16 x 44.3125 in. (53.3 x 82.4 x 112.6 cm) overall; 65 7/8 x 32 7/16 x 44 5/16 in. (167.3 x 82.4 x 112.6 cm) assembled size
Purchased with funds donated by Natalie and Marc Angelillo, Sarah Barton and Irving Marcus, John and Shari Behnke, Cathy and Michael Casteel, Kimberly and Dennis Daugs, Julienne and Peter Kuttel, Jennifer Middleton, Susan Moseley, Rebecca and Alexander Stewart, William and Ruth True, and anonymous donors
FA 2005.2
Keywords: Human figures; Architecture (interior); Northwest artist: Washington

Soft Rains #4 (The Loft) is the fourth of seven tabletop movie sets that reveal stories familiar to us from various Hollywood genres. Each work in the series follows the path of a lady dressed in red and projects her activities on the wall at a grand scale. Like the flexible cameras looming over the tableau focusing on different parts of the set, viewers observe the miniature scenario and piece together sequences of possible scenes. This surveillance, which is present throughout the work, allows the viewer to examine both the role of technology and the individual in society through this cinematic medium.

In a recently published book on the artists, essayist David Frankel describes the entire narrative created by the seven individual tabletop scenarios. “We start with a scene recalling the David Lynch of Blue Velvet, a white shingled house sporting an American flag on the porch and tulips growing in a straight row against the white picket fence in the garden. Next the housewife who lives here – always identifiable by her red dress – goes to a dinner party at a hotel, an opening on a bigger life. She starts to think about escape, to imagine fresh options for herself. In the next episode she visits the loft of a male artist who paints big, mural-sized paintings; she attends a soirée, hobnobs with collectors, and when everyone else leaves she stays and spends the night. Soon she will show up as a nightclub singer, a James Bond-type action hero, and – hey, these are the movies, an ax murderer.” (David Frankel, “Jennifer and Kevin McCoy: Transposing Time and Space,” Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Learning to Watch, Bilbao, Spain, 2004). -- Label copy for 150 Works of Art, October 1, 2005 to February 26, 2006.

Soft Rains #4 (The Loft) is one of a series of seven works, collectively titled Soft Rains, that explore the idea that thought, experience, and memory are structured through genre and repetition. The installation platform of Soft Rain #4 (The Loft) shows in miniature an exploded spatial view of what one experiences temporally in film. Soft Rain #4 (The Loft), based on the 1978 romantic-drama An Unmarried Woman, follows the miniature ‘heroine,’ clad in a red dress, through a story told in eight shots. All of which are simultaneously filmed by eight separate, uniquely angled video cameras. The live feed from each video camera is connected to a computer-based video sequencer, which switches between cameras to create an edited sequence projected as large scale video. With Soft Rain #4 (The Loft), the McCoys suggest movement by spreading actors and locations into different spatial moments, translating static three dimensional space into action on a two dimensional screen, resulting in a deconstruction of the art of film making that maintains the magic of cinema as a whole.