Marissa Lee Benedict and David Rueter: Metrica Vol. 3

Metrica is an installation that delves into the psychological breakdown of a building management system. As the room’s lights switch on and off at irregular intervals, a receipt printer emits transcripts of an ongoing dialogue, one that resembles a psychotherapy session mandated by the system’s employer. Referring to the contents of state archives—including the earliest recorded land ownership claims to the exhibition site—the system interprets its own lighting decisions, regurgitating and rationalizing fragments from these official histories as if they were its own memories. The surrounding reading room becomes an extension of this psychic, literary struggle, with a mise-en-scene that suggests states of deep storage: certain books are ceremonially sealed and packed, while others seem to have lost their sense of stability as the images on their dust jackets slide off at oblique angles.

Metrica Vol. 1 was exhibited in the library of Rupert (Lithuania) for the Earth Bonds symposium (2023). Metrica Vol. 2 was exhibited in the library of the Headlands Center for the Arts (2024).

Marissa Lee Benedict and David Rueter‘s (USA/NL) collaborative site-adapted videos, sculptures, installations, and drawings intercept infrastructural platforms and linguistic architectures from official worlds. They have exhibited work in the 34th Bienal de São Paulo (BR); 16th Venice Architecture Biennale (IT); Msheireb Museums (QT); The Renaissance Society (US); The Arts Club of Chicago (US); The Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago, US); Ditch Projects (US); and Contemporary Art Brussels (BE). Their work has been supported by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts (US), the National Endowment for the Arts (US), the Oregon Arts Commission and Ford Family Foundation (US), and the Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst (NL); they have participated in residences at Rupert (LT), the Banff Centre (CN), the Jan van Eyck Academie (NL), and the Headlands Center for the Arts (US); and their work has been reviewed by Artforum (US), Revista (BR), Agenda Magazine (BR), and Hyperallergic (US), and published with Mousse Publishing (IT).