CURATORIAL TEXT
BRATTLEBORO MUSEUM AND ART CENTER, 2019:
"At noon on November 18, 1883, the American and Canadian railroads implemented four continental time zones, Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific, as a means of synchronizing time. Previously, each town and city had maintained their own individualized system of time based on the angle of the sun. Standardized Railway Time created a conformity of timekeeping across towns and regions in order to allow corporations greater control over the shipping of their goods.
Angus McCullough’s site specific installation, Coincidence Control, invites viewers to re-imagine their relationship with time, to unplug and reflect. Housed in the ticket booth of Brattleboro’s former Union Station, Coincidence Control presents an alternative to standardized time through the mediums of video, sound art, artist books, drawings and an interactive time capsule which visitors are invited to enter.
There will be regularly scheduled programming throughout the duration of this exhibition which will include a bookbinding workshop, historical tours of the old Brattleboro train stations, guided meditation sessions and musical performances."
*The following images are courtesy of Angus McCullough and the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center.
Click HERE to read a review of the exhibition in Art New England.
The ticket booth window contained a free publication of McCullough's dream journals, a timetable containing the schedule for the exhibition's public programming, and a vintage travel poster that was cut, collaged, and printed on glass to reflect the face of the viewer.
At the entryway, visitors encountered a poster inviting them to turn off their devices and interact with the artwork as well as the original conductor's door (installed backwards) from when the museum was still Union Station.
Upon entering the room, visitors encountered a small library of books and albums pertaining to the theme of time, a collection of handmade artist books, and photographs of Union Station courtesy of the Brattleboro Historical Society.
The center of the room contained a temporary sculpture consisting of an assemblage of tenuously arranged found objects. The sculpture contained a bell which visitors were invited to ring.
The west wall of the gallery was comprised of a series of hand drawn maps documenting the expansion of the US railway system, one line drawing for each decade. The maps were presented in reverse order, starting with the railway system in the 1950's and receding back to the first train line in the 1800s. They were accompanied with a set of headphones which played a recording of the artist narrating his dreams.
The central component of the exhibition was a private meditation capsule designed to look like a shipping container. The inside of the capsule was wood paneled with a cushioned seat where visitors were invited to sit and look through a customized window that overlooked the mountains.
This was the exterior of the window where the capsule was located with a passing Amtrak train below. The sound of the passing train was an integral part of the soundtrack for the exhibition.
