The full-length version of “Open Your Eyes” is 3.5 minutes.
“Open Your Eyes” is an experimental video that follows a woman’s journey through the reverse process of hypnotic induction. Old memories haunt her new living space, but the presence of her faithful dog keeps her from slipping too far into the past.
This latest video by Allison Hunter explores a nonlinear narrative that reflects the outer self contrasted with inner thoughts. Scenes cut between still photographs and domestic interiors. The hypnotic ticking of a clock provides a soundbed that grounds the audience within a filmic space tinged with anxiety.
ALLISON HUNTER is a visual artist who over the past twenty years has worked in photography, video, drawing, sculpture, and installation. Born and raised in New Jersey, Hunter left the States at age nineteen to pursue art studies in the French-speaking Canton of Vaud, Switzerland. She earned first MFA at the Cantonal Art School of Lausanne, Switzerland (1990, Drawing/Photography), and returned to the US to earn her second MFA at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York (1997, Electronic Art). Hunter has participated in video and sculpture art residencies at institutions such as the Banff Centre for the Arts in Calgary, Canada and the Hermit Center for Metamedia in Plasy, Czech Republic. Hunter’s installation project, IGNMAKERS (1998-2003), was commissioned by three European sculpture centers in Lithuania, Latvia, and Finland, and by the 2003 Kingston Sculpture Biennial in New York. Hunter’s photographs on industrial landscapes are collected the University Art Museum at SUNY, the Albany Institute of History and Art, and the Center for Photography at Woodstock. Her New Animals series is collected by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and has been shown in numerous exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe, including at the Kohler Center (Wisconsin), Project 304 (Bangkok), Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt). She has had solo exhibitions at the North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh), Women & Their Work (Austin), and DiverseWorks (Houston) featuring her Zoosphere video installation. Hunter has been a full-time faculty member as Humanities Artist-in-Residence in the Department of Visual and Dramatic Arts at Rice University since fall 2012. She lives and works in Houston, Texas.
17 Days Video Series 