Man with Trophy and Friends
For the excellent Show and Tell series curated by Baltimore performance artist Lauren Bender, I did a piece that came to be called “Man with Trophy and Friends.”
For the piece, I brought an old viewmaster with a bunch of TV show reels, from Pee-Wee’s Playhouse to the 6 Million Dollar Man. I then invited audience members to watch a reel and describe what they saw. The results were both funny and disarming. The first audience member, a young girl, described a scene from the 6 Million Dollar man as “Man with Trophy and Friends,” which seemed like a perfect name.
Untitled (Portraits)
For the Brink and Boundary show at the Katzen Arts Center, I sampled and remixed statements from participatory artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Affixing them in minimalist geometrics grids that reference his Loverboy series, I created a space of fluid, recombinant meaning on the boundary between the museum and the outside space.
New Obsolescents
New Obsolescents display photographs that have never been seen before, and will never be seen elsewhere. The images are shown in iPods that have been hacked and de-programmed to serve just one function: display a single image. While on display in the gallery, they are connected to their power sources; when purchased, the devices are fully charged, and then their power ports (and the image’s fate) are literally sealed. The owner can view the image only until the battery dies and the device becomes a useless artifact. Turning the device on allows the owner to view the image, but slowly destroys it. Turning the device off preserves the image, but removes it from view.
The series toys with the planned obsolescence of our most cherished and ubiquitous technological marvels, and makes the owner a willing accomplice in the image’s disappearance, highlighting issues of control, access, and responsibility.The first three New Obsolescents feature work by Jade Doskow, Megan Cump, and Matthew Gamber. Each device displays one image by one artist.
