NIGHT HOURS     | 2011

Exhibition: “The Architecture of Devotion”
Location: Gowanus Ballroom: a Space Dedicated to Art, Architecture and Engineering, 55 9th Street, Brooklyn, NY
Dates: 24 June to 3 July 2011
Media:  Digital Animation    |    0:05:29:00, 25.00 fps, 1280 x 720, continual loop

NIGHT HOURS premiered at the Gowanus Ballroom: a Space Dedicated to Art, Architecture and Engineering in “The Architecture of Devotion” Exhibition. It explores turn-of-the-century family mausoleums in Milan’s Monumental Cemetery (Cimitero Monumentale de Milano) as architecture of devotion.

In the Catholic Church, Night Hours are fixed times of prayer in the Roman Catholic Church that take place during the hours of darkness. The work is in three short movements represented by Psalms selected from the Night Hours: Vespers (Psalms 1-8), Compline (Psalms 4, 90, and 133), and Lauds (Psalms 94, 83, and 95). The work begins at the moment of sunset and ends upon the edge of dawn. The texts of the Psalms appear as rain (tears) transforming into architecture – bringing life to the memorials, cleansing them, and then washing them from our memory once more. The music by Mark K. Johnson, titled “Into the Light”, is a devotional hymn, intended to mark the observance of the passing of a loved one from this world into the next.

NIGHT HOURS © 2011 Daniel K. Brown
Music “Into the Light” © 2010 Mark K. Johnson
Digital animation assistance: Johann Nortje

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