May 3-7, 2005
Thesis Presentations
721 Broadway
at Waverly Place
4th Floor
South Elevators
New York, NY 10003
For additional
information email
itp.inquiries@nyu.edu
or call 212.998.1880
| Circulation | ||
|---|---|---|
| Author(s): | Elizabeth Burch | |
| Instructor: | Zurkow, Marina | |
| Class: | Final Project Seminar | |
| URL: | http://stage.itp.nyu.edu/~eb737/circulation.htm | |
| Keywords: | installation, quilting, sportsmanship, gaming, feminism, power structures, plastic | |
| Circulation is a responsive media installation, composed of ten cybernetic paintings and a three monitor video installation; the series investigates power structures by utilizing ethnography and gaming as devices of communication. | ||
| Through trauma we are able to witness the actuality of the real and explore the value of archiving our human experience. It is the lack of structure within the state of trauma that permits each event in our memory to be contextualized emotionally. This is reminiscent of the organization of power in western culture, which is consistently simulating the individual\'s two greatest traumas, birth and death. Western law\'s dependence on the polarization of the beginning and the end are reflective throughout numerous cultural relationships from religion to urban planning, yet gender roles appear to be one of the largest controlling biological and cultural divisions with in this system of power. The objectification of the public gaze and the unforeseen consequence of personal action, simulate a state of trauma which is a key motivator in the human desire to design structures of control. This series explores the deconstruction of biological form under the condition of trauma with the use of gendered games. The result is a series which presents viewers with questions about power structures, revealing their civic dependence within restrained public spaces by utilizing abstract personal narrative as a device of entertainment. | ||
| Personal Statement: | The paramount goal for my art is to help preserve the spirit of the individual through constructed encounters or installations. My art is the documentation of my interaction with our consumer-oriented and often anaesthetized culture. The last twenty or so years have seen the extreme commodification of social and personal values. With corporations creating need for possessions through the use of imagery, it is not uncommon for people to use these popular images outside themselves to know and define their identities. My art challenges this status quo by seeking to have the viewers call upon their backgrounds and knowledge in order to derive meaning from my work.
One way in which I see my work, is as a subtle and often humorous social critique. In utilizing two-dimensional, time-based and new media, I create installations that are not purely conceptual or medium specific but are hybrids of object making and audience performance. The ideas for my work are conceived by deconstructing common media and experiences; I then combine these deconstructions with my perception of the world. I further the personalization of the common by incorporating a unique or highly technical process during the creation of the work. My work personalizes the impersonal and allows viewers to see common images constructed in unconventional ways. In my current series-thesis entitled Circulation, I am researching the plight of the individual within civic power structures, using trauma as a condition within the study. The result of this research has been the construction of an ethnographic installation divided visually by gender roles, with the use of common games and crafts played in central Pennsylvania, where I grew up. I’m interested in the disconnection between the individual, the space and the object, within networks of communication. In the series Circulation, I started my research by considering my own history in two different ways, through the illusion of control and through forced participation. I was left with one key event in my life, a car accident. It is within the context of this accident that I have been able to examine a more emotional relationship to power structures within networks. The series consists of ten cybernetic paintings and a three monitor video installation. The “cybernetic” paintings are made of caste silicone sheets, tinted in flesh tones and stretched across an encasing engineered to hold sheets as they expand and contract in response to the detection of an audience member within 2feet. These paintings are presented as quilts inspired by traditional patterns, utilized as structural presentation for the surface of the silicone. The pieces become a self portrait, encased in white padded batting. The video installation reverses the dialogue occurring in the paintings and calls on the viewer to participate. It draws the viewer in to observe each work, with the use of formal design methodologies as a means to control each game presented in the videos. The unifying element is a circular light carrying the narrative through a multitude of unknown suspenseful gaming scenarios. | |
| Context: | Circulation in Context: Intro, Game Rules, Identity, Space
“We live in a world populated by structures-a complex mixture of geological, biological, social and linguistic constructions that are nothing but accumulations of materials shaped and hardened by history.” Manuel De Landa, One Thousand Years of Non-linear History Intro: opening to research In 1976, I was born. I have no conscious memory of that trauma. Yet, it will be the most noted and celebrated occurrence of my existence. Since birth, thankfully I have not encountered an interruption as significant as the trauma at the beginning of my life.1 It was at that point; I became integrated into the world, developing my pursuit of survival and my notion of time, headed toward the linear path we all walk to death. It is this pursuit of survival that shapes human intellect; modeled from preexisting geological structures on earth that define identity, notion of time and memory.2 Humans are controlled through their will to live. This is because the previously mentioned triad of recorded conditions, identity, notion of time and memory help to define our relationships with reason. They assist in the formulation of civic rules and power structures, which are nothing more than simulations of the individual’s biological relationship with existence. Rules and restrictions are needed for civic functioning. Yet, due to the unfortunate abuse of power, there is at times the opportunity to confuse the masses with rules. Making them believe that civic rules are the reality of existence, its meaning and value. This is often of course to secure and maintain the will of those in power. Deceiving the public to maintain power is the objectification of the public gaze. From this state of objectification, there are unforeseen consequences for an individual’s actions. It is this relationship, between objectification and consequence, which simulate a state of trauma. Is rebellion from civic rules, than a desire to recreate the same safe emotional state encountered at birth? Is it this unknown memory, which drives our desire to survive? Trauma is an interesting condition since it maintains civic power and frees the individual simultaneously. Caught in an emotional repeat loop, can time become defined by our relationships? Is it possible for the individual to be aware of power structures within networks and escape their seduction while maintaining individuality? “The exhibitionist assumes his stance before the curtain And Pimpronella tempts him with her petticoats of scarlet. Koko the green god claps loudly in the audience- And the hoariest of old goats are roused again to lust.” Hugo Ball Part A: game rules The laws of physics define the circulation between all things on Earth. These laws are properties, conditions. In order to imagine an alternative physical state, outside of these conditions, one must break the rules. They must destroy them. If it is not the language of math or English, but that of the visceral experience of memory, how does one escape rules and redefine them, without imposing their own bias on construction? In the early 1920’s, Dadaist’s played with the rules of everyday life as performance, to grasp, explore and understand humanity.3 Many of their explorations consisted of word games. In these word games, Dada and Surrealists used preexisting grammatical rules to find an escape from reality; this was mastered by redefining the actual use of rules and was apparent in such games as Automatic Writing.4A common Surrealist game where the player writes as fast as they can, without thinking about writing. The Surrealist’s were most interested in the free association, which developed from this exercise.5Another word game played by the Surrealist’s was the exquisite corpse. In this game there are a minimum of three players, each player has one sheet of paper on which they write a word of choice, cover it by folding the paper as to conceal the word. The sheet of paper is passed on to their neighbor and the same process is repeated.6 The exquisite corpse is a game of humor and automatism. It is the space and collective, which construct the formulated escape for each individual. In the Dadaist films of Hans Richter, we examine his search for a universal language. His use of compositions could be more commonly associated with De Stjil painting then, Dadaist film.7 This is because of the way in which his films simplified color, perspective and texture. De Stjil a movement started by architect Theo Van Doesburg, later was very associated with Mondrian’s theory of Neo-Plasticism. It was a movement that connected abstraction within physical motion and memory, to the restraint applied through a series of visual rules representative of current social conditions.8 The work therefore united the emotional experience of the individual to the physical reality of organized society. Mondrian’s visual language rejected diagonal lines, using only horizontal and vertical lines with a palette of bright colors. 9It is for these reasons that one might compare Hans Richter’s abstract films such as rhythmus 21 to the art of De Stjil.10 In the work Richter composes a screen divided visually with vertical and horizontal lines. He states, “…So I made my paper rectangles and squares grow and disappear, jump and slide in well articulated time-spaces and planned rhythms.”11He entitled his process contrast analogy.12 In this process he was very concerned with the figure ground relationship as a way of presenting reality to the viewer.This is different from DeStijl, due to the way it creates actual movement and desires the audience to complete its meaning. Richter’s work functions on the following premise: there is no meaning outside the meaning of individual interruption. DeStijl functions on the following premise: there is only meaning which is applied through the civic function or rhythm. Both movements recognize the same issue; however the response to the issue is much different. The question than becomes, was the public reaction to the work different? That answer would be yes, it was. Film by nature, consists of rules physically much different from the rules of painting. The preexisting structure is different, and our relationship with the media is different emotionally, but not conceptually. The depiction of rules in Hans Richter’s films, are the result of his desire to present the real to viewers. To help individuals see what is happing for themselves. Richter’s films are reflective of the modern world because they represent the individual’s choice within structure. Is there actual choice; is there choice and can it ever completely exist inside narrative structures? The Situationist’s also played with everyday rules as performative games. They believed as stated by Guy Debord, “the only possible basis for this world is to oppose it; and such opposition will be neither genuine, nor realistic unless it contests the totality.” 13 This belief is part of a much larger conceptual problem that the Situationist’s were examining. They felt that the user or “spectator” was faced with a multitude of wrong explanations and any understanding one might arrive at is only deciding on which construction to reject.14 Aside from the torment of believing there was no right answer… ever, the Situationist’s frequently re-contextualized media to describe their own reality; they appropriated everyday life to free themselves from its power. Many games played by the group consisted of ways of reorganizing everyday encounters. An example of this could be examined in their social maps. In which they redesigned maps based on the movement of people.15 In the seventies role-playing was a key component in Abjective Art. This is apparent in the works of Hannah Wilke. In her series, “So…help me Hannah!,” she confronts the viewer’s gaze, by performing in the nude with guns, jumping off furniture and demanding the attention of the “audience.” In this performance series, she transformed the gaze of the public, into the shaking finger of her mother.16 She played with the prejudice of the audience; imposed through socialized gender roles.17 She also further rejected the theory and ideals of Judy Chicago a dominant figure in feminist art at the time. Hannah Wilke’s work confronts the viewer with the rule. She presents it to her audience in such a forward way that it becomes poetic, because it is dependent on the gaze of the audience. It is up to viewer to make the art. She only sets forth recognition of the conditions. In the early to mid-nineties, the works of Corneila Parker’s series “Objects that fell off the White Cliffs of Dover,” explored what formal changes occurred to consumer valuables when they were thrown off the White Cliff’s of Dover. The comedy lies in the literal nature of the artist’s actions.18 She redefines the nature of earthwork by recognizing its mythic nature and exposing it. In her work Exhaled Cocaine she presents the viewer with a pile of gray dust, she has reversed the rules of our desire, as we become increasingly curious as to what exhaled cocaine looks like. Only to realize later that it has been incinerated.19 Parker’s works explore our understanding of physics. She touches on the viewer’s love of trauma, of chemical change in reality, through simulated performance. The performance is simulated because we only see the aftermath of the action, through the object. Rules are a representation of our understanding of existence and therefore they’re creation is drawn from everyday life. To free one’s self from the burden of bias. A rule-maker must present the system used for the creation of the construction. It then becomes a necessity to explore everyday rituals when examining the individual’s relationship to society. Everyday life is where the conflict between the individual and the whole occur, where the individual accepts the circumstance or not. Within every era this conflict and our understanding of it changes, as accepted linguistic constructions of power continually adapt to new modes of communication and cultural conditions. The next exploration then is what is everyday action and ritual as opposed to everything else and how is that relative to individual identity? “1. “All nonidentity is infinite, but this does not imply that all identity is finite.” Walter Benjamin Part B: Identity It is ultimately the image of us to others that stays within our memory. It is the individual’s rejection of other’s identities that creates a disruption in the dynamics of civic individuality and the abuse of power. This is very relative to the context of an event or record. It is also apparent, with in our natural human desire to create mirrors of ourselves; this can be recognized in our sense of design and choice of engineering developments. In Ellen Lupton’s catalog Skin, she explores contemporary design and its increasing likeness to flesh. A design presented in the review is an electronic printing calculator, designed by Mario Bellini in 1972 for Olivetti.20 This machine was the first of its kind to have a soft skin type casing. A question that comes to mind while examining the device is: are we asserting our ownership over our possession by making it more like us, or is the objective of the design to feel more comfortable around it? When using electronic devices, such as a computer, the user receives immediate feedback. The device is designed to mirror, physical actions with an equivalent electronic response. This is a delayed response and is one of flattery. As in human behavior, mirroring is a type of flirting. As a society we flirt with our technology so we know it is working. This is much different than our previous relationship with mechanical devices. There was a feedback, but it did not mirror our actions. Largely individuals these days assert their power over cell phones, computers and pda’s. How does this change the order of civic function? Does this change our need in society to assert power within the class system? If so what does the system become and how do community demographics change with increased use of networks? Within the study of individual it is necessary to research each contributing identifying factor. The study of cybernetics is credited to Norbert Weiner21, he states in his book The Human Use of Human Beings, “As we have said, nature’s statistical tendency to disorder, the tendency for entropy to increase in isolated systems, is expressed by the second law of thermodynamics. We as human beings are not isolated systems.” 22 This statement and the study of Cybernetics in particular is of foremost importance in the study of contemporary intelligence and communication networks. This is because there is a direct conflict occurring between the digital device and the individual or user. This conflict stems from a little conceptual design problem in artificial intelligence itself. 23Artificial Intelligence promotes the use of information as a commodity. This is not necessarily supportive of the individual within networks. Artificial Intelligence or AI supports the abuse of information by designing and valuing more information as the objective, rather than focusing on the interaction between the user and the object. The objectives of AI ultimately assist in the creation of more information which saturates our networks rather than the solidification of the actual distribution of information which is apparent in the study of structuralism and Cybernetics.24 Cybernetics is concerned with the interaction occurring within the network, the flow of information between man and machine. This is a focus on the individual’s use of information rather than the objectives of the group dynamic. By recognizing the civic use of information, one can design and improve the use of information. “On the eve of the 1990’s, in the midst of some unexpected events and with an eye to others just as unpredictable there formed, among a number of friends, the idea of an agency which would itself be invisible, anonymous and clandestine: the Stealth Agency” Baudrillard , The Illusion of the End Part C: in Real Space It is the context of the network that helps to define its corresponding meaning; therefore structures of hierarchy such as those apparent in physical space must be recognized. Far too often, the physical construction of the actual space is not revealed. This is not because there is no actual space in the construction, but rather the story will no longer exist if the actual space is unveiled. By unveiling or revealing a stories dependence on actual space and inevitably time, we are able deconstruct it, by putting it in context. If the context of actual physical space returned to popular culture a certain amount of civic control would be compromised. The showcase or store is an example of a physical space which is not real. It is not actual because you are seduced by fictional constructions designed to make you want an object. This is not actual desire but rather a desire of fantasy. Within Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project, he presents to readers Haussman’s Arcades. He brings us to a fabricated world designed and controlled by hiding the actual or the real.25 The point being the transcendence of architecture into the realm of virtual, is not new. Far from it! It is as old as capitalism itself. One could say the first marketing ever was completed with the use of Architecture and the ultimate illusion within that marketing was that of false agency disguised as interactivity. Does this sound familiar? It should it has its roots in religion; the basic idea is to free yourself by believing in what your told. In 2003, the independent curators Association organized a traveling art exhibition entitled Unnaturally. The exhibition was concerned with the relationship between nature, simulation and space. 26In her statement curator Mary Kay-Lombino, expresses to the viewers a conflict occurring between culture and nature. She states, “ambiguity has developed between what we consider to be real or artificial, along with a debate about which is superior.27 Within the exhibit a work by Nicoletta Munroe draws particular interest. In her piece entitled Cherry Blossoms II, one can see the artificial presented as the real with in the context of film.28 Munroe draws our interest with a gestalt of perfect blossoms on a tree, contrasting a very blue sky. She presents us with images of set design made for daytime television; her shoots take place during non-functioning hours. This reveals the civic dependence the construction has on the story. It would be in the words of Hans Richter the figure, ground relationship or the contrast analogy.29 Munroe’s photographs are primarily concerned with artificial plants and gardens used within the set itself. She shoot’s images of plastic treetops and paper leaves. The images are quite impressive and contain much beauty. One is swept away in the stunning spectrum of perfect color and light. It is the fairy tale of the picturesque outdoors. 30The viewer’s response to the illusion of nature and beauty is the driving conflict within the work, the realization of fabrication occurs later after one has accepted the circumstance as real. In the work of Yayoi Kusama, the viewer sees pattern contextualized as the whole. Each physical form is connected to a larger node or visual point of texture.31 This texture and/or node is organic in nature, it anthropomorphizes the physical form, which other wise without physical connection would be non-existent or “dead”, this draws our attention to its relationship to the larger structure. Kusama breathes life into objects of the mundane.32 This is particularly apparent in her installation works, Ceremony for Suicide created in 1975-76 presents viewers with a sofa, chair and tea tables all covered in phallic organic objects protruding from their surface. Behind the living room set, is clothing hanging on the wall.33 The absence of the human for is apparent and life appears to be growing from the fiber its self. It is as though these organic phallic creatures have reclaimed the objects and proclaimed dominance on all living forms. These phallic molecules of displaced and disembodied objects unite in the domination of the networks context. As viewers we are left with this new context one of horror, play and sexuality. The concept of independent parts functioning separately from the whole is the key premise of synergy. The word synergy was popularized by Buckminster Fuller. He states, “Synergy means the behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the behavior of their parts taken separately.”34 In his work Buckminster Fuller defined synergy in three stages, which he describes as three stages of enlightenment. He presents the viewer with world view dependent on physical structure through the hybrid study of math and architecture and human factors, Fuller proposes a sustainable way of living based on the relationship humans have to the organic world.35 Physical space and the human use of it, is dependent on one’s perception of their role with in it. Meaning individual’s can only live sustainably when they are connected to each other and the world they live in. If this is misrepresented to the individual, their choices and actions demonstrate confusion and are not an accurate depiction of that individual’s beliefs or ethics. 1Arthur Janov. The Biology of Love.(Amherst,NY:PromethusBooks,2000)25. 2Manuel DeLanda. (A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History. NewYork:ZoneBooks,1997) 3Hans Richter.(Dada.London:Thames Hudson,1964) 4Alastair Brotchie.(Surealist Games.London:Redstone Press,1991) 5 Brotchie 6 Brotchie 7 Stephen C. Foster ed.(Hans Richter:Activism, Modernism and the Advant-Garde.Cambridge,MA:MIT Press,1998)78. 8 Gugenheim Museum (“Piet Mondrian” April 27, 2005 10Foster 79 11Foster 80 12Foster81 13 Anselm Jappe.(Guy Debord.Berkely:University of CA Press,1993)22 14Jappe 23 15 Simon Ungar.(” Env4 - Environmental Perception, Cognition and Appraisal 11:” May 02,2005 16Moore College of Art.( “Hannah Wilke, So Help Me Hannah! by Hannah Wilke.” May 02, 2005http://thegalleriesatmoore.org/gloria/wilke.html) 17Amelia Jones.( Body Art.Minneapolis:Univof Minn.Press,1998)154 18 Corneila Parker(.Torina,Italy:GAM Galleria Civica d`Arte Moderna e,2001)53 19Parker 19 20Ellen Lupton.( Skin.NewYork: Laurence King Publishing,2002) 40 21Norbert Weiner.( The Human Use of Human Beings. GardenCity,NY:DoubleDay,1954)27 22 Weiner28 23 Cybernetics Society. (“Cybernetics.” April 22, 2005http://www.hfr.org.uk/cybernetics-pages/origins.htm#wiener) 24 Cybernetics Society. (“Cybernetics.” April 22, 2005http://www.hfr.org.uk/cybernetics-pages/origins.htm#wiener) 25 Walter Benjamin.(ArcadesCambridge:Harvard,1999)4 26 (UnNaturally.curator Mary-Kay Lombino.NewYork:Independent Curators Association,2003)17 27Lombino 24 28Lombino 25 29Foster 79 30Lombino 25 31Yayoi Kusama (A Retrospective.ed.Karia,Bhupendra.New York:Center for International Arts,1989)20 32Kusama 32 33Kusama 33 34 Buckminster R. Fuller( Critical Path. NewYork:St.Martin’sPress,1981)251 35 Fuller 251 | |
| Audience: | This iteration of Circulation is an installation of objects designed for an urban storefront window in Lower Manhattan. The work draws from the transient community of consumers and workers which cohabitate the area. | |
| User Scenario: | walk through of three viewer scenarios. | |
| Methodology: | Circulation
Methodologies: A Manuel for Installation Direction: Make the network visible in real space. Introduction: Recognizing the issue It has always been apparent that the future of media belongs to those who use it. For sometime now those users have been hidden, undefined and even lost, within demographics created for the use of marketers. The purpose of which served in the interest of maintaining corporate power, rather than enhanced creativity and intellectual social progress. The challenge than becomes, how to reverse the contextual abuse of user agency within communication networks? Overview: An introduction to a whole that responds in unrelated twos. Robot vs. Cybernetics Circulation is one installation. It is composed of two types of media, cybernetic painting and a game installation with an interactive sound and video component; these media are visually divided by gender. The series as a whole addresses the issue of civic power structures with in user-centric communication networks; its use of physical installation draws attention to the actual transmission of information, between the object, the individual and the network. The communication occurring between each element in the installation is its network of logistics, or the way the information travels between each participant (individual, object or architecture.) Since, the series comments on atomic theory’s dependence on binary systems and due to the polarity, which exists with in western cultural fabric, the physical installation of the series becomes necessary in order to demystify it. As a whole, the installation calls attention to the viewer’s individual negotiation with society. It accomplishes this by calling attention to the emotional value of simulated biological rules, which are used for the construction of suspense. The desired result is a series that presents viewers with questions about power structures within restrained public spaces by utilizing abstract personal narrative and ethnography as devices of entertainment; does the audience recognize the network during the state emersion? The whole: … wait a minute what is all this stuff together? Circulation uses the polarity within western power as a metaphor; this polarity is the result of the west’s atomic worldview, meaning it is dependent on the beginning and end, or birth and death. This metaphor simulates the actual transaction occurring between the receiver and transmitter, or the audience and the object and is presented as a gendered action within the physical object itself, this is a way of conveying the sex of the object to the viewer, and it is also used as a technique for further manipulation of the network. As a whole the installation reads as a gestalt, relying heavily on pattern and repetition to tell a whole story. The components of the installation together in combination read as “nice” design, comfortable, simple and functional. It is upon closer examination of the meaning of its parts, that the apparent shallowness of the work becomes haunting. Beauty becomes a deceptive deterrent from realization. The connection to formalism and abstraction is one of horror as the viewer realizes the subsequent reaction of their presence is needed but not required, they are fuel for the machine or the network, their moment of interaction has been lost in the context. The archive or document of the moment belongs to the event or the location. This is one reason why a storefront location has been selected. The store will be well equipped with lost surveillance footage, in addition to external documentation of all transactions relaying back to the space. A store is a physical construction of virtual reality for that reason. This serves as an interesting metaphor for the larger virtual network of information. An analogy could be that the participant is not a landowner and is on someone else’s property where they are permitted to place their ideas. The point of all this is to say “Current use of free and accessible media are often a deterrent, they are a type of machine that is feeding off our willingness to hand over our claims of the new frontier. As long as information and simulation is capital, there will always be a feudal network that finds value through the colonialism of physical energy exerted into the cycle. XX: What the hell is cybernetic painting? Cybernetic painting is a movement in art inspired by Norbert Weiner’s research in the field of Cybernetics. In addition, to this influence cybernetic painting has been heavily influenced by linguistics and word constructions. It can be described as an anthropomorphized object of two dimensions that maintains a controlled response according to conditions set forth by the audience. It is dependent on a physical input from its viewer, without any input to change the conditions the object appears to be only one of two dimensions. This type of painting allows the artist to adapt to all social climates, even after death. It is in opposition to the ideologies of Artificial Intelligence, AI. A.I. values information as a commodity. In the case of the Circulation exhibition, the object is used as an input of forced participation. Its surface appears as a flesh tone quilt made of silicone. Its outer shell is padded in white quilted batting. The object’s appearance and crafted aesthetic are an essential part of its meaning. It is the skeleton by which the work is made. The framework conveys its comfort, safety and objectness. The object has no value, because we can purchase it. It is worthless when compared to its virtual relative. The object is nothing more than the demonstration of skill and labor. These are human qualities, qualities of the working class, which are of no popular recognized value in the feudal network. In order to maintain wealth within systems of networked power, the skill of the real must not be admitted. It is only the reproduction, which actually exists. Since meaning is dependent on recognition from the network. The appreciation for the actual becomes lost. What is determined value with in this capitalist construct of network is that the actual does not matter. This is what the system needs. Not what necessarily exists! This is the system of power. This is what “they” want you to believe. The use of “They” being a reference to the totality of the system or the power construct, where we are forced to control our neighbors without knowing or realizing it, however upon recognition power can be maintained. XY: What do you mean, it’s a game installation? Within the context of circulation, the game installation consists of three video projections. Each work is projected onto one of three screens. The screens appear as semi circles made of quilted batting. The relationship between the three monitors is one of conversation; they have been edited in a way that makes it apparent to the viewer that they are responding to one another. This not withstanding, outside the context of the conversation the works are able to convey a separate message. One that is of personal searching and almost poetic. Each work calls the viewer into participate with the use of its interface and formal structure. Active competition is encouraged between each work and is made apparent to the audience through the viewer’s control of the volume with the use of a large joystick inspired steering wheel; this is the illusion of agency. The audience actually has no control over the larger event. This installation functions as a criticism of popular constructions of interactivity where the user only affects predetermined outcomes, not actual outcomes. Audience: So, how and why is your audience relative to the space? This iteration of Circulation is an installation of objects designed for an urban storefront window in Lower Manhattan. The work draws from the transient community of consumers and workers which cohabitate the area to visit the installation, rather than typical art goers. The goal is to make art which is reflective of current cultural conditions concerning the power of information networks, in hopes that individuals will recognize the network’s role in their own life. This is very relative to my personal understanding and commitment to art which is socially effective. I reveal my bias by presenting metaphors which are highly personal without loosing the larger context of the construction and message at hand. The goal in all of my work is the empowerment of my viewers. For this reason, I design all iterations of my projects specific to the space and the people who reside in them. please visit the url posted above for the complete methhodolgies sections. | |
| Sources: | Bibliography :
ArtNet. “John Chamberlin.” Monday, May 02, 2005 Baudrillard,Jean.The Illusion of the End.Stanford,CA:StanfordUniv.Press,1992. Baudrillard,Jean.Simulacra and Simulation.AnnArbor:TheUnivMichiganPress,1994. Benjamin,Walter. Selected Writings volume 3, 1993-1938. Cambridge:Harvard,2002. Brotchie,Alastair.Surealist Games.London:Redstone Press,1991. Byrne,David.The New Sins.New York:Self Published/Independent,2000. Corneila Parker.Torina,Italy:GAM Galleria Civica d`Arte Moderna e,2001. Cybernetics Society. “Cybernetics.” April 22, 2005 DeLanda, Manuel. A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History. NewYork:ZoneBooks,1997. Delueze,Gilles. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.Minneapolis:UnivMinnesotaPress,1987. Double Vision:Stan Douglas and Douglas Gordon.Lynne Cook,Karen Kelly eds. NewYork:DiaCenter for the Arts,2000. Foster,Hal.Prosthetic Gods.Cambridge,MA:MITPress,2004. Foster, Hal.The Return of the Real.Cambridge,MA:MITPress,1996. Foster,Stephen ed.Hans Richter:Activism, Modernism and the Advant-Garde.Cambridge,MA:MIT Press,1998. Foucault,Michel. Essential Works of Foucault,Vol.1,1954-1984.NewYork:TheNewPress,1994. Fuller,Buckminster R.Critical Path. NewYork:St.Martin’sPress,1981. Gray, Chris.Cyborg Handbook.NewYork: Routledge,1995. Greer,Germaine.The Female Eunuch.London:Bantam,1970. Inflatable Moment.Marc Dessauce ed.NewYork:Princeton Arch.Press,1999. Jappe,Anselm.Guy Debord.Berkely:University of CA Press,1993. Janov, Arthur.TheBiologyofLove.Amherst,NY:PromethusBooks,2000. Jones, Amelia.Body Art.Minneapolis:Univof Minn.Press,1998. Kohler,Wolfgang.Gestalt Psychology.Canada:Mentor,1985. Kroker,Arthur&Marilouise.ed.Digital Delirum.NewYork:St.Martin’sPress,1997 Laqueur,Thomas W.Solitary Sex.New York:Zone Books,2004. Lewis,Maria.”Joseph Cornell.” May 02, 2005 Lupton,Ellen.Skin.NewYork: Laurence King Publishing,2002. Mann Steve.Cyborg.Canada:Doubleday,2001. Mary Lucier.ed.Barlow,Melinda.Baltimore:JohnHopkin’s Press,2000. Moore College of Art. “Hannah Wilke, So Help Me Hannah by Hannah Wilke.” May 02, 2005 O’Doherty,Brian.Inside the White Cube.Berkley:Univ.of CA Press,1976. O’Sullivan, Dan and Tom Igoe. Physical Computing. Boston:Thomson,2004. Philadelphia Museum of Art. “Mellon Archive” May 02, 2005http://www.philamuseum.org/resources/mellon-archives/collections.shtml> Ricter,Hans.Dada.London:ThamesandHudson,1964. Stock,Gregory.Metaman.NewYork:Simon&Schuster,1993. UnNaturally.curator Mary-Kay Lombino.NewYork:Independent Curators Association,2003. Ungar, Simon.” Env4 - Environmental Perception, Cognition and Appraisal 11:” May 02, 2005< http://www.surrey.ac.uk/~pss1su/lecturenotes/sun/LectureNotes/Env4_EnvCog/environmental10.html> Weiner,Norbert.The Human Use of Human Beings. GardenCity,NY:DoubleDay,1954. Wood,Frascina,Harris,Harrison.Modernism in Dispute.New Haven:Yale Press,1993. Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective.ed.Karia,Bhupendra.New York:Center for International Arts,1989. Yayoi Kusama.“Yayoi Kusama,Peep Show” November 08, 2003. | |
| Conclusions: | The conclusion will reiterate the problem and connect it further to the installation. It will relate physical and actual locations to the work, as well as provide documentation of viewer feedback.(six pages)
| |