Hi (Human Matter)

Hi (Human Matter), 1999, Iris print, h 30” x w 23”, destroyed

One of my responsibilities while interning at a morgue was to open specimen containers and separate the pathology samples from the reusable formalin preservative. Before incinerating the samples, I would often arrange the various parts into encouraging messages. The ambiguous characteristics of the samples, along with the color, cheerful greeting, and familiarity of the Polaroid format serve to camouflage the underlying nature of the image.

Air Bud: Golden Receiver

Air Bud: Golden Receiver, 1999, video, color, sound, total running time 4 minutes and 43 seconds

Air Bud: Golden Receiver is a series of short, absurd video loops generated from footage mined from a Disney film about a golden retriever who can play football. After a shocking first viewing it seemed that the film was 100% generically commercial and devoid of any notable footage whatsoever; nevertheless, after numerous additional and more painstaking examinations a substantial number of salvageable 1–2 second fragments were located scattered throughout the 90 minute cliche. One would not imagine that a Disney project with a G rating would contain such disturbing and lewd imagery, yet exceptionally distressing scenes are all latent in the formulaic original if the film is carefully scrutinized. This project is a collaboration with Tom Kehn.

Geegaw + Scientifikk = Logikkal Trifle?

Geegaw + Scientifikk = Logikkal Trifle?, 1999, video, black & white, silent, total running time 4 seconds, looped, assorted materials, l 20’ x w 80’ (top image: 8 photographs in sequence utilized for pinhole video. bottom image: installation view of Geegaw + Scientifikk = Logikkal Trifle? for Ruins in Reverse, CEPA Gallery, Buffalo, NY)

In this show the photographic act is paired down to its bare minimum with the entire show functioning as an exploded view of all the factors that come into play to make a single photographically generated, animated image. In December 1998, the two artists began a three-day trip to make a simple, animated loop of a yet unknown object in the State of New York Medical Examiners office in Buffalo. Over the next three days, the artists traveled from New York City’s Pennsylvania Station to Buffalo, NY, researched within the medical examiners office, and made the eight pinhole photographs that would comprise the final animation. The animation is comprised of 8 black & white images circling a ceiling mounted video camera in the room where autopsies take place. The video camera sends a live feed of the deceased from the autopsy room to a separate room where body identification takes place.

All objects that were utilized in the preparation and production of the animation were collected and stored into an ever-increasing number of trash bags. Weeks after the initial production of the images the bags were brought into the clinical workspace of the gallery, whereupon, employing subjective memory and pseudo-scientific cataloging practices, the artifacts – ranging from ticket stubs and food wrappers, to duct tape and clothing worn during production – were organized with the goal of reconstructing the original narrative. The resultant display takes on the logical form of a timeline, or wake of a ship leading up to the creation of the animation; however, branching out from this sequence are the tangents, digressions, and embellishments that occur when theory, memory, and history merge. This project is a collaboration with Brian McClave.

In the Jaws 3 of Poltergeist III

In the Jaws 3 of Poltergeist III, 1999, video, color, sound, total running time 2 minutes and 11 seconds

In the Jaws 3 of Poltergeist III collapses formulaic sequels from two lucrative movie franchises (Jaws 3 and Poltergeist III) into one hybrid creation containing all salvageable elements from the trivial originals. What was once bloated and collectively three hours and 17 minutes long becomes synopsized into a lean 2 minute and 11 second story concerning a young girl’s purging of a traumatic and watery past. A psychologist claustrophobically covers the child’s face with his large hand, repeatedly massaging out distressing memories – surveillance cameras panning across Florida lagoons and Chicago high rise lobbies, terrified people running through underwater tunnels and high rise hallways, as well as circumstantially more bizarre moments – a man dramatically tumbling out of an uncontrollable golf cart. Likewise, secondary characters continually cover their faces, as if in sympathy for the girl, or in desperation for the films in which they are acting to miraculously transform into cohesive and less ludicrous productions. The hypnotic repetition of the mumbled word “breathe,” by the psychologist seems to be equally applicable advice to the remainder of the B-list actors frantically scrambling about in the convoluted plots so typical for the third film of a dying series. Additionally, explosions of acrylic glass feature prominently in both movies, but were not utilized in In the Jaws 3 of Poltergeist III. This project is a collaboration with Tom Kehn.

The Pathos of JFKurosawa

The Pathos of JFKurosawa, 1999, video, color, sound, total running time 38 seconds

The Pathos of JFKurosawa merges together audio from the climactic finale of Akira Kurosawa’s 1949 film Stray Dog with a three second video clip from Oliver Stone’s 1991 film JFK; yet the result formed by the new combination is certainly at variance with the intention of either director. Through live recording of manually “scrubbing the time line” (rapidly scrolling forwards and backwards through the video footage) a pathologist is made to continuously and excitedly inspect one of John F. Kennedy’s bullet exit wounds with the tip of his gloved finger. Coupled with Stray Dog’s crescendo of uncontrolled sobbing – the apprehension of the killer after 122 minutes – the originally brief and clinical procedure is altered into something emotionally cathartic, torturously extended, and darkly erotic.