Host is the title of an interactive sculptural media project that has been the anchor for several exhibitions. It was part of the exhibition: Connectivity: Technology and the Natural World” at the Eric Dean Gallery in Crawfordsville, Indiana in 2014 and in a solo show at the Peeler Visual Arts Gallery at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, and at the Gund Gallery, Gambier, Ohio in 2015.
The project uses 4” pixels of Polymer Dispersed Liquid Crystal film to obscure and reveal a human-made landscape. Glass panels that hold the film lie horizontally on a structure that mimics an observation station for natural wonders. The gridded landscape below is made of copper, a diminishing resource, topographically embossed to reference the miniaturization of geography observed when flying over land. It is only seen when the pixels become clear. Host calls into question how much control humanity can exert on this vastness while simultaneously using its assets. Railings remind viewers of our status as outsiders, observers. Standing above, yet apart, we observe and attempt to tame by division and containment. Our view is limited by our tools, which can obscure or clarify. Rather than direct experience, our understanding is often molded by visual and intellectual mediators, presented with increasing believability by enhanced technology. As the experience through media becomes more refined, the absence of a tactile, personal experience of the physical world can be more easily excused. How does this choice mold our perceptions and decisions? Through a mediator of our own making we gather, frame, focus or delete our perceptions.This structure provides a metaphor for our fragmented experience of our environment.
It is my hope that this custom electronic media will help us to interpret our relationship to the natural world. How do current technologies redefine this relationship? How do our inventions impact our survival?
Host exhibits a random on/off pattern with the four inch pixels until a visitor walks around the structure. A motion sensor triggers a rough moving image that visualizes the origin of the universe, as cosmic bubbles erupt clearing the PDLC film. The video is a simulation from Tom Giblin’s research. Host also embodies the aural experience of a composition by Ross Feller. The audio track changes as the viewer triggers the visual changes, getting more pointed and surreal.
It is my hope that this custom electronic media will help us to interpret our relationship to the natural world. How do current technologies redefine this relationship? How do our inventions impact our survival?
Host exhibits a random on/off pattern with the four inch pixels until a visitor walks around the structure. A motion sensor triggers a rough moving image that visualizes the origin of the universe, as cosmic bubbles erupt clearing the PDLC film. The video is a simulation from Tom Giblin’s research. Host also embodies the aural experience of a composition by Ross Feller. The audio track changes as the viewer triggers the visual changes, getting more pointed and surreal.