Bash Compactor: Message Received

I checked my spiritual preconceptions at the door when I walked into the Lutheran Church of the Messiah on Tuesday evening, the site of James Case-Leal’s exhibition Radical Spirit. For the next week, the chapel will be transformed into a full-on art display, featuring a monumental sculpture, video instillation and live TV broadcast. In a very meta way, the multiform project is focused on forms of communication, and the information that we both send and receive.

The building isn’t just the site of the exhibition; it is part of the artwork. “Just coming to church makes it all more powerful,” said Case-Leal’s mother. The sanctuary reinforces the artist’s spiritual themes, while also commanding an atmosphere of solemnity and reverence. Footsteps are slowed and conversation is hushed to a whisper. Even I, admittedly a slave to my cell phone, silenced my BlackBerry and vowed to ignore all calls and messages received.

The pews in the center of the chapel, usually reserved for praying Protestants, were blocked off by a dozen radio tower replicas shooting at the ceiling. “James uses [radio towers] a lot in his work,” said Jade Townsend, who helped Case-Leal install the project. “To me, they’re indicative of sending out signals and whether anyone will receive them.” The radio towers range from three to 13 feet in length and, if you step to the wrong angle, can look like they’re about to stab you in the face.

As a backdrop to the towers, a video instillation is projected onto the slanted ceiling. The footage shows ethereal bodies floating from New York City streets and ascending to the sky. Live musicians play this baleful, ominous music in the background while onlookers watch from the back pews.

“What is he doing up there?” asked one woman, suddenly pointing to the bell tower in the back of the church. “He’s rolling something,” she murmured, “I’m just not sure what.” Abruptly, everyone realized that while we were wandering around the church, the artist was sitting in the bell tower visibly dismembering magazines and rolling them into scrolls.

“It’s up to interpretation, but I think they’re scriptures,” Townsend said of the scrolls. “Like, you can read them, but they’re really just junk.” Real-time footage of Case-Leal constructing the scriptures is streamed on two television sets sitting on the church floor. New Yorkers can watch the video live on the analog channel 17.

After the scrolls are bound, they are added to a collective heap behind the pews. A recent issue of The New Yorker, ripped apart and reassembled, sits next to a wound and bound copy of People. According to a press release, “The artist becomes messenger handing down the word, the Promethean flame of civilization, but these sacred texts are ours already.” Whether it is through scripture, television, or radio towers, Case-Leal emphasizes the influence of messages, especially spiritual ones, and our reception to them. Sometimes the signals are junk, hollow, or contrived. But it’s different for everyone: One man’s trash is another man’s Holy Grail.

As I walked out of the chapel, I didn’t really feel more spiritual, but I guess that wasn’t the point. I did, however, pause for a moment before checking the influx of messages I’d missed. I’m proud to say that I had half a dozen emails and texts in my inbox, but rather than respond, I turned my phone off and tucked it back in my purse. Radical Spirit advertises a “new communion ready to be picked up by any willing receiver.” Message received.