"Night Hunter House" is a physical sculpture, but its multimedia aspect is what gives the display its meaning. The unique display is the companion piece to Steers' short film "Night Hunter" (2011), which was entered into the short film competition in the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Music professor Larry Polansky composed the score for the film.
The film is made in the "collage animation" technique in which each frame is created as a single, separate collage. With eight frames per second, the 16-minute film incorporates over 4,000 individual collages. Steers said that it took her four years to complete the film.
When she creates films, Steers said she works with a concept that interests her and lets ideas arise as she works instead of keeping a strict plot in mind and sticking to a traditional narrative. In the case of "Night Hunter," Steers followed the idea of a woman in a house slowly turning into a bird, and she cannot control the frightening and frustrating experience.
"She was just trying to examine her feelings about the experience as it kind of drew her along," Steers said. "She had little control over the outcome."
Steers said she developed the idea to create the house after screening her films in galleries and museums at which many artists attempt to create installation elements that incorporate the films, instead of having the films stand alone in the installation space.
"It occurred to me that because the film takes place in a house, it was kind of a natural step to start to think about creating the house that the film takes place in," Steers said.
Hood Assistant Director Juliette Bianco '94 is responsible for the Hood's acquisition of "Night Hunter House." Bianco originally heard about the film from Polansky, and she said she was so intrigued that she contacted Steers. As a part of the press pack, Steers sent images of "Night Hunter House" that blew Bianco away, according to Bianco.
"I had no idea that she had made this because she's known as a filmmaker," Bianco said. "You don't often see artists working in so many media together and who are thinking about pushing those limits between the object and the film and how they work together. It's very exciting when you see something that completely new, and you see someone approaching art making from a new perspective."
Steers said that she will make a total of four "Night Hunter House" exhibits. With the original house traveling with the film and the first copy being housed at the Denver Art Museum, the Hood Museum acquired the second. Since each of the houses is specially made upon commission, the final house is still unmade, according to Bianco.
The process of making each house begins with Michael Schliske of Steamboat Woodworks and architect Mark Sofield, who work with Steers to design and build the house.
"We improved on the original house quite a bit, just because we knew what we had done wrong," Steers said. "I changed some of the elements that I put into the house just because I had more time."
The house itself contains 10 internal rooms, which mimic the rooms seen in the film.
"This transformation of the house is really a metaphor for the transformation that's going on inside of her biologically," Bianco said. "If you look in each of these rooms, and over the course of the film, you can see that she's turning into a bird. She's undergoing this metamorphosis."
The house follows the main character's chronological journey, according to Bianco.
"She starts finding eggs in the house, and she realizes that she is laying these eggs," Bianco said. "It's about biological changes, it's about the world you can control and the world you can't control, and how the changes in our body are often outside of our control and how do we deal with that?"
Steers said that the main focus of the film and the house is biological changes, though it does not only speak to supernatural elements.
"It's honestly, as much as anything, about aging," Steers said. "Aging and also physical transitions, transitions in general. The fact that we don't really have control over biological transitions, that we have to build a relationship with our transitioning bodies."
In the exhibition, the house and the film work together, but the two components can also stand alone. Steers said that people have loved the "Night Hunter House" because it has helped them process their experience of seeing the film.
"It's like it embodies the film in a way that makes it easier to enter into," Steers said. "It's almost like the film and the house have a conversation with each other, and people can pull things away from the two viewing experiences that I think are mutually enriching."
By embedding the film in the house, Steers adds an additional level of reality.
"Of course, it's a dollhouse, and everything is in miniature," Bianco said. "What this work does best is it constantly makes us think about dreams, reality, how they affect each other."
The eerie feeling of the film and the house create a sense of disquiet that forces us to think about these kinds of issues, according to Bianco.
The museum also acquired "Night Hunter House" for its educational benefits. Because the Hood is a teaching museum, its staff are always thinking about how to connect with faculty and students, Bianco said.
"There are just so many ways to enter this piece and to think about it in relation to so many different disciplines," Bianco said. "When we see objects that we could acquire that really connect on that multidisciplinary level, it's another reason to think about that acquisition.
The exhibit is also an exciting opportunity for students to see possibilities for their own multimedia creation and learn from Steers' artwork, according to Bianco.
In addition to "Night Hunter House," the Hood's exhibition features several of Steer's original collages that she used to build the film. Steers said that the inclusion of the collages grounds the filmmaking in a very physical way.
As a part of the exhibition, the film "Night Hunter" will be shown continuously in the Hood Museum of Art Auditorium every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons.
Steers and Polansy will also team up today at 4:30 p.m. for a special showing of the film "Night Hunter" in the Hood Museum Auditorium, where they will discuss their processes in making the film.
"Night Hunter" and "Night Hunter House" will be featured until Dec. 16.
