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or STUCK ON LOOP, FEBRUARY 2008
Small Solo Show for MICA's Pinkard Gallery Space - Annual Juried Selection

With a focus on feedback loops, error, and the bittersweetness of repetitive but spirited failure, this show was comprised of investigatory works that in many cases fell flat, fell apart, or became trapped in their own circular logic.

PIECES EXHIBITED:
HOLO-EYES
WHEN WILL YOU DIE?
NATURAL SELECTION
CD-R
DVD PLAYER
THIRD EYE BLIND, ADORNO
DISCUS
END to END
MINI DISC DEMOLITION
GRAVER

The result was a fragile and "unsuccessful" collection of raw, thin, and flimsy pieces combined with the lightest touch (skimming the surface of the problem, wrapping) and encased in a dry, institutionally open space that was continually updated by the artist; one could walk in and find her "in-progress" on many of the exhibition dates. Projected pieces changed, things were gently demolished and rebuilt, repaired daily, or encouraged to be handmade by participants and taken home. The overall tone was confrontational but in a see-through or even hoaky way - a soft challenge. The chintzy packaging and flimsy surfaces belied a much deeper unrest.

The show suggested that the real issues could not be directly addressed at the site in which it was installed, and offered itself as a temporary "lite" alternative. This "liteness" was also a response to the throwaway nature of the mediated world inhabited and explored by the work. Projections, cheap materials, default options, and the looseness of craft gave the show a fake sense of material resolve that provided space for failure and continual movement. These were not solutions, only a cross-section of concerns that had no hope of being solved in the given constraints.

Looping is a method employed by much of the current technology used to make and consume media. Spinning platters still serve information in machines that have yet to evolve toward a solid state. This constant spinning is an illusion of efficiency and progress. Videos are created as looping objects to be exhibited on equipment that replays them in repetition, turning the file into a recurring field of motion-as-object and providing an air of frozen permanence that moves in no linear direction. These circles could only be drawn around topics of investigation or used to mirror data back onto itself, from start to finish.



The show description was originally presented as a projected tag cloud and explored through performative presentations as part of a concurrent group show at MICA put together by friends called We Don't Know What We Don't Know, in which the prompt was loosely to teach eachother how to make our work. These presentations included the making of DreamCaptchas and Holo-Eyes.

HANDMADE DATA DISC as prop



HOLO-EYES, HOLO-IZE - Safety goggles with handmade holographic adhesive wrapping provide a glimpse of "the holographic future."
When worn the 80% opaque holographic film provides a mask more than a filter, separating the wearers from their own vision and showing that in order to enhance one's vision, you must also mask and obscure it.