Layered Histories: The Wandering Bible of Marseilles by Cynthia Beth Rubin and Bob Gluck :: January 14 - February 24, 2008 :: Reception: January 30, 4:30 - 6:30 pm :: Presentation & Discussion 5:30 pm :: Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale, Allan and Leah Rabinowitz Gallery, 80 Wall Street, New Haven, CT.

Layered Histories represents an innovative approach to the use of new media as a means to engage the viewer in a personal investigation of a non-linear narrative. Cascading animations and a diffusion of sound gestures are triggered and guided by a visitor’s reading pointer movements around the surface of what appears to be an illuminated manuscript. Active gestures on the surface are mapped to a software interface, designed with Max / MSP / Jitter. As in a public reading, all visitors to the space share in the experience of collectively viewing and listening.

Layered Histories tells the imaginary story of an actual 13th century Spanish illuminated Hebrew Bible. Fleeing Spain with the 1492 Expulsion, the Bible was known to be in Safed until the mid 16th century, but then apparently disappeared until it was discovered around 1888 in the Bibliothèque Municipale in Marseilles. The story of Layered Histories is drawn from the imaginary wanderings of the Marseilles Bible, reflecting on the experience of culture as a phenomenon evolving from influences of place and cross-cultural contact.

The linear version of Layered Histories is a through-composed work. Like the interactive installation, the rhythmic display of imagery glides us seamlessly from past to present, from identifiable locations and decorative motifs of the Bible to more universal references of landscape and seascape. As in the interactive version, the sounds reveal an aesthetic parallel to that of the visuals, of veiled sources and more distinctive sounds, with each media emerging and changing independently. The linear work is available on a DVD, which can be projected in a theater or gallery, or on a home computer or DVD player.

As a collaborative work, Layered Histories reflects the differing layers of vision of its authors in describing the experience of a timeless object which has seen history, much of the world, and has many stories to tell. Music and image are melded together in the viewer’s experience, but each follows a separate course of interactivity, coming together in the moment. Evolved from real world photographs and recorded sounds, both music and image were manipulated to reflect the aesthetic experience of place, movement, and change, rather than direct documentation.