That back story matters, because while “What Stands Between Us and the Sun’’ is hypnotically beautiful — a world unto itself — it also lays bare all the work that went into it.
The video projection is set up in a dark gallery lined with Mylar. The film begins with a man and a woman seated in the boat in a hushed, golden light that shimmers on the lake’s surface. We also clearly see that the “lake’’ is a platform, that there are tall windows in the distance, and pillars — no doubt the warehouse’s support beams — at intervals throughout the lake. The boat begins to move slowly. It’s captivating, so maybe you won’t notice the people over to the side working the pulley that moves it.
The boat stops, and the couple disembarks. They set up chairs to watch the sun. The crew, now in the foreground, works more pulleys to pull portions of the reflective platform up to form an open, mirrored box around the pair — just like the gallery in which the viewer stands.
The artists cleverly balance the spinning of illusion against what we perceive as real. When the video returns us to our own physical reality in the gallery, the McMillans close the circle; reality and illusion are no longer opposites, but elements that spiral into and feed one another.
The same can be said of performer and spectator, of projection and reflection. As I watched the McMillans fold up their chairs at the end of the scene, and heard the creak and crank of the pulleys lowering the platform back into place, a subway train rumbled to a stop in the Green Street MBTA station, just below the gallery. It felt almost scripted, as if now the mirrored walls around me would also drop, like magic, to reveal the real world beyond. Or maybe just another dream.
Parallel but unique
