After a dinner party in Noe Valley, I was struck by something alive on the living room wall. It was a black and white image of the steps of the New York Public Library, superimposed with the moving shadows of pedestrians. In this simple projection, the artist-electrician had distilled the essence of the human form.
I scribbled down the name: Jim Campbell, and discovered his current exhibit, Home Movies at the Berkeley Art Museum. Entering an expansive, dimly lit level of the museum, I walked up close to a grid of light bulbs, and blinked as I staggered back across the barren floor to a bench at the other end of the room.
I watched the fuzzy projection of seemingly random trees, roads, and hills. It seemed anticlimactic — calm and melancholy.
The stranger beside me was stooped over his chin studying the Jim Campbell projection. “What do you think?” I asked.
“It’s strange,” he replied, “It’s like the memories I have.”
And then eeriness washed over me. “Yeah.” My eyes were hooked. “Me too,” I said. “They’re like my memories too.”
Jim Campbell has distilled the essence of human experience yet again.
