Courtesy of the artists
Multimedia installation: three-channel wall video (color with sound), graphic score notation, custom fabricated seating, 15:00 minutes
Mirages embody a paradox—they are both manifestations of reality and optical illusions, illustrating the fluid nature of perception. In its simplest form, a mirage is created by two air bodies of different temperatures interacting, causing light to refract. Viewers are compelled to confront the distinction between what we see and what exists, a tension that resonates deeply in our current digital landscape.
With a shared interest in environments, optics, and time, SV Randall, an assistant professor of visual and performing arts at The University of Texas at Dallas, and Sara Dittrich, an interdisciplinary artist based in Baltimore, have collaborated to create a new installation for Crow’s multimedia gallery.
The title, [ _____ ] Mirage, pronounced “blank mirage,” employs textual iconography as both a visual and conceptual device. By leaving the brackets empty, the work invites viewers to add their own interpretation of what is seen/unseen, real/unreal. The interplay between text and void becomes a mirage in itself, an illusion shaped by perception, context, and interpretation.
To inform this installation, the artists conducted fieldwork across areas of the Tularosa Basin in the southwestern United States—geographies historically associated with extreme atmospheric phenomena. At each site, they documented video of phenomena using a camera equipped with a super-telephoto zoom lens. They also collected environmental data, including humidity, temperature, pressure, and illuminance, to trace the invisible forces that condition visual phenomena.
The composition—performed by percussionists—translates these visual and environmental cues into multiple movements. Developed from an experimental graphic notation designed by the artists, the music embraces the marimba and other percussive instruments. Working closely with the performers, Randall and Dittrich shape a soundtrack built on improvisation, which reinforces the installation’s conceptual core: that perception is fluid, continually negotiated through context, movement, and the instability of what seems to be.
About the artists
Sara Dittrich is a Baltimore-based interdisciplinary artist. Her artworks include sculpture, prints, video, and interactive installations with biometric sensors, as well as data-driven performance. Often informed by residencies and travel, such projects have included time-lapse imaging of landscapes, local skies, and tidal patterns, and the somatic effects of time and a place on the body. Residencies and research programs have included Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (Omaha, NE); Sculpture Space (Utica, NY); and Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design (Prague). She is the recipient of a Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship (Provincetown, MA), Vermont Studio Center Fellowship (Johnson, VT), and Mary Sawyers Baker Artist Award. Dittrich’s work has been exhibited with the Baltimore Museum of Art (Baltimore, MD), The Sculpture Center (Cleveland, OH), and DiverseWorks (Houston, TX). Her performances and screenings have been presented by CultureHub (New York, NY), Revolutions per Minute Film Festival (Boston, MA), and Maryland Art Place (Baltimore, MD).
SV Randall is an interdisciplinary artist from Buffalo, NY. Working with sculpture, installation, painting, and performance, Randall addresses the various ways in which objects mutate in nature and function across time. He received his MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from VCU and his BFA from Alfred University. His work has been exhibited at David & Schweitzer Contemporary (Brooklyn, NY), the El Paso Museum of Art (El Paso, TX), Ditch Projects (Eugene, OR), and the Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez in Mexico. Randall is the recipient of the Toby Devin Lewis Fellowship Award and has most recently participated in residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (Skowhegan, ME), Sculpture Space (Utica, NY), the Fine Arts Work Center (Provincetown, MA), the Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT), and the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program (Roswell, NM). He is currently an assistant professor of visual and performing arts at the University of Texas at Dallas.