Room 120

Santa Fe Biennial, NM

As part of the Third International Biennial of SITE Santa Fe in New Mexico, DS+R installed Room 120 at the Budget Inn Motel, located across the street from the Biennial. The installation utilized closed-circuit video cameras in the generic motel room space, recording “nonsites” in the room – inside the toilet tank, inside the bathtub, underneath the bed, between nightstand bibles, within a closet, on a lampshade and on the ceiling. The indecipherable images were transmitted images appeared on the television set in the room.

Critic Arden Reed commented, “Diller and Scofidio evoke the disturbing sensation of entering your room and finding its contents amiss. Why is the TV on? Who just flushed the toilet? Do the hangers still rattle because the criminal just grabbed his coat ? In the bathroom, you discover that the river’s source is a dripping IV…the anonymous motel room is both placeless and a way station to some place.”

Room 120 was on exhibition from July 10, 1999 through December 31, 1999.