EXPERIENCES
Experience rather than representation is explored via different interactive pieces. |
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The Real Cindy Sherman- A video documentary on Cindy Sherman in the style of Cindy Sherman. Clips from an interview with the world renown photographer as she works on her current portrait series. Always her own model, Cindy's photographs play with issues of identity. Created collaboratively by: Dane Benko, Catherine Rose, Tina Tahir |
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Labyrinth- A labyrinth is not to be confused with a maze. The complexity of a labyrinth lies in ones' ambiguous position... but one is not lost. There are no choices in a labyrinth, as there are in mazes. Instead, the labyrinth walker is merely unclear how far he/she is from the end/start once the walk through the labrinth has begun. This conundrum keeps the labyrinth walker in the present, rather then looking ahead or behind to track either the future or the past. The first in a series of labrinth redesigns, this new design pushes the natural labyrinth concept one step further. Labyrinths are generally drawn, tiled or somehow laid out flat on the ground. This labyrinth design proposes a journey into looking at things from a distant perspective as well as feeling immersed within the labyrinth. The design allows one to symbolically meditate on inner and outer perspectives by the addition of a vertical dimension. |
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Back to Contact- I am currently working on an interactive bench piece. In reality it is a series of chairs with a high canvas back. On the other side of the high back is another series of chairs. If you were to sit down at one of these chairs you would see a projection of yourself on a head sized dome approximately 5 feet in front of you. The video of yourself on the 12" dome is projected from behind the dome (so you are neither disturbed nor distracted by a beam of light). If a person sat down behind you your backs would make contact because the back of the bench is made of canvas. Once contact is made the video projection you had been watching would change. You would now be watching a video of the person sitting behind you. The person behind you watches a similar projection, only it's of you. While you might begin to be curious about the person whose back you can feel, you can't easily look at each other over the back of the bench due to the height of the bench's back (6'). This piece sculpts your contact and interaction. |
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Studio- I began building this 1200 square foot studio in 2003 in order to learn how to build, assuming that by the end of the building process I would have a space to construct sculpture as well as a thorough education in building that I would be able to apply to my work.
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Umbrella Fountain- This proposal is for an interactive fountain made up of a grid of umbrellas and designed with the space outside of NYCs central mac store in mind. The fountain would be activated by a person's presence under the umbrella. The outside line of umbrellas would protect tables and create a private, walled by water, space for people at a table. The concept is to make a private, meditative space in a public sphere. The programming for the rough sculpture is done (during my time in a physical computing class at NYU) and a rough version was constructed. I deconstructed it to bring it back to NM. |
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Dinner in the Dark- I heard about a restaurant that served dinner completely in the dark aided by a blind serving staff. It intrigued me because it is exactly the type of structured experience that interests me. I decided to create a similar experience as a study. I invited a group of friends over and served dinner in complete darkness. I covered all the windows and set out the food ahead of time. I even requested that people close their eyes as they entered. This was a study on what happened with different individuals under these dark circumstances. |
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Locked Gaze-Two 6'6" boxes on wheels were on separate sides of the gallery. The floor within each box could be adjusted for the gallery visitor's height so that s/he could see out of a narrow slit in each box. The door to the box was then closed and the gallery goer was wheeled around loosing a sense of perspective (due to the dark gallery lit by black lights). Finally the two boxes with different visitors were brought together and attached so that the two windows were directly opposite each other. The boxes were latched together and rolled around the gallery. This project created a private space in a public environment and sculpted an extended eye to eye gaze interaction between strangers that would not normally be maintained at a gallery. This has helped me establish and articulate my artistic direction. |
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Horizontal Planes Platform- This is a 7' platform with many layers of horizontal sheets below it. There is a ladder going to the top of the platform and a hammock that hangs below the platform and sinks through several layers of horizontally hung sheets. A hole in the platform with another ladder allows you to descend into a space within the horizontal sheets. The floor is covered with sand and there is a drum and symbol that can be played in the sandy strange alcove. This piece stemmed from an observation of how most objects are composed to be seen on a vertical plane rather than across a horizontal plane. This piece creates an environment created from horizontal planes. |
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Music Externalized-Behind each of the large boxes is a dancer whose movements are seen through different sized windows on each box. Each dancer is listening to a different type of music on headphones. The gallery goer sits on the couch and can watch the different movements that the music makes each dancer express. The viewer hears the music only when he/she puts on one of the two sets of headphones on the table in front of the couch. This piece explores different expressions stemming from different experiences. The unique language and movement inherent in different tastes and choices. By eliminating the sound behind the movement the viewer is first struck by the similarities and differences between gestures expressed by each dancer. As the gallery goer seeks to understand the source of each dancers movement he/she will notice the headphones that allow access to the music guiding each dancer's movement. View more imgs (no pictures of the dancers are available) >>
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Video Couch-This piece moves away from my exploration of experience vs. representation. None the less it fits into the living room part of the installation and creates a surreal space within the living room atmosphere. The video couch is striped and those stripes are extended beyond the couch by similarly colored yarn hanging from the wall. I then projected a video of me coming and sitting/moving around on the couch on top of the couch/strings. The visual effect of so many vertical lines with movement from the projected video gave the normally static vertical lines of both the couch and yarn a dynamic, moving feeling. |