Tall Ships (video installation)

Tall Ships (1992) is a multi-channel, silent video installation created by American new-media artist Gary Hill. The work was commissioned by curator Jan Hoet for Documenta 9 (1992), an edition of the international art exhibition held every five years in Kassel, Germany. It was selected for the Whitney Biennial in 1993 and has been exhibited at museums around the world.

The installation features a series of projected, soft-focus figures that seem to approach spectators as they move through an otherwise completely dark corridor. The behavior of visitors triggers the movements of the figures via a system of pressure-sensitive devices and computer software. Whitney Museum curator and critic Chrissie Iles describes the installation as effecting "an uncannily real exchange" in which "the unconscious reactions triggered by the apparently interactive figures make the viewers conscious of their own psychological mindset."