Artist Emily Scott Beck examines ordinary life

In some parts of the world, submerging one’s head in water is considered torture. To graduate student Emily Scott Beck, it’s art.

Beck’s work is featured in the “New Currents in Contemporary Art” exhibition with the work of three other graduate students in the Ackland Art Museum.

Despite working with metals, jewelry and sculpting as an undergraduate, Beck decided to use audio and video for all her graduate work. She said it helped her better express what she was trying to say.

“Building these large sculptures all of a sudden felt kind of silly,” Beck said. “I was making these big grandiose sculptures to say something, but I wasn’t really saying it. I was just making a sculpture to hide what I was saying.”

One of her new works, “Churn,” features video of several women speaking their hidden thoughts while submerged in water.

“I was actually working on another piece that was about being a woman, and it just felt so hard to talk about. Every time I was speaking about that piece, I just felt like I was choking on my words,” Beck said.

This gave Beck the idea of speaking under water and observing how water can choke and limit people’s hearing.

“It’s very fresh. It’s very creative. It’s very honest. It has a sense of humor to it with a very strong underlying message,” said Jim Hirschfield, her graduate adviser and a UNC art professor for 22 years.

Beck said she wasn’t afraid to be part of her art. She is featured in several pieces, including “Churn” and a phone call audio piece.

“It’s more just my curiosity about life and what we go through and how we feel about certain things. Having people being willing to share that with me is awesome, and I’ll often share that with the viewer,” she said.

On a pedestal in the exhibition is a sticky note with the phone number 1-800-704-3596. Beck said most people are not sure what to do with it, but the intention is to have viewers call the number and listen to an audio piece of phone conversation excerpts from her life.

“It shows the monotony of daily conversation but also the way we comfort each other and talk about issues in life,” Beck said.

When the number is dialed, Beck greets the caller as if she were engaged in a conversation. It progresses into clips of different phone conversations, with repetition of words like “wow,” “yeah” and “right” to give the sense of everyday speech.

All of Beck’s pieces revolve around the idea of human interaction and how people conduct it in different ways.

“I’ve been thinking about the concept of communication and how we shield certain aspects of our identity because we’re scared of being too vulnerable. On the other hand, how we sort of project a certain façade while sometimes feeling something differently on the inside,” she said.

In another piece, four men in their 30s individually share experiences on video, and Beck manipulates the footage to show the similarities of their conversations and actions, such as scratching their noses.

“I like how she manipulates conversation and language. It shows how people are different but at the same time similar and connected,” freshman Chad Rappleyea said while perusing the exhibit.

Next year, Beck wants to focus on making art and getting into museums. Hirschfield said he thought she would succeed post-graduation.

“When Emily has an idea, she pursues it and pursues it to its conclusion. She’s not just satisfied with ‘It’s OK.’ For her, it has to be excellent. There’s no step along the way where she takes a shortcut. That’s pretty amazing,” he said.



Contact the Arts Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu.