Untitled (with Kite)

Untitled (with Kite), 2008, video, color, sound, total running time 1 minute and 54 seconds

After two weeks of unsuccessful attempts to fly home built kites made from garbage bags and sticks, we finally gave up and purchased an imported Chinese kite from a nearby store in Irbid, Jordan. The first flight was a tremendous success; however, the small video camera attached to the kite was mistakenly turned off just at launch and turned back on upon landing. There after followed four kites, all of which would fall apart in a relatively short span of time. This process of continued foundering was interspersed with days marked by a total absence of wind, which is highly unusual for the town of Shatana in the North of Jordan. The second successful flight was to be the last, as the kite string broke and the kite flew off on its own according to the wind. The video camera recorded the snapping of the kite string, the collaborators in pursuit of the renegade kite, and the kites’ journey across the landscape to its final resting spot. This project is a collaboration with Ben Washington.

A Very Slow Rhythm

A Very Slow Rhythm, December 8, 2007, 12:02 PM – January 12, 2008, 12:13 PM, printed balloons (watte kudasai - pop, sutte kudasai - inhale, atarashii fuusen ni iki wo haite kudasai - exhale into a new balloon), pin, locker, Tokyo Shimbashi Station Karasumori exit 4, underground level B1F

Off the Record, curated by Eric Van Hove, hijacks the X-CUBE© locker system which allows multiple users to exchange packages by using a touch screen and their cell phone numbers as digital keys. The curator places the artwork, invites the first person to the exhibition by registering their cell phone number, then the invited viewer uses their cell phone to unlock the locker and view the work. The next person is invited by registering a new cell phone and in this manner the exhibition travels out into the world.

For A Very Slow Rhythm a balloon was blown up with a single breath of air in New York City, mailed to Tokyo, and placed in a locker in Shimbashi Station along with 25 empty balloons and a pin. Once the international journey was complete, the focus of the project became the transference of the single breath of air from visitor to visitor. After popping the balloon, participants breathed in the previous donor’s breath, then filled a new balloon with their own exhalation. Used balloons slowly accumulated in the locker forming a record of the communal breathing – a simultaneously anonymous, yet intimate exchange. At the conclusion of this project, the last balloon was returned to New York and the original breath of air was reclaimed after being shared by numerous individuals.

Looking Southwest towards Midal al-Ataba from the Northeast corner of Shari Khulud and Shari al-Azhar...

Looking Southwest towards Midal al-Ataba from the Northeast corner of Shari Khulud and Shari al-Azhar, Seventy consecutive 30-second takes with a Cannon S70 point and shoot camera, 2007, video, color, sound, total running time 34 minutes and 55 seconds

Part performance, part traditional street photography, and part objective surveillance film – a domestic point and shoot digital camera was utilized to shoot seventy consecutive short films from a stationary position on a Cairo street corner. The camera was held at chest level pointed in the same southwest direction for each of the 70 takes with no regard to compositional framing, or subject. The camera focus and exposure were set before each take according to the distance and light on the artist’s feet. The camera’s maximum shooting time of 30 seconds and the size of the memory card dictated the length of individual takes, as well as the length of the film.

Anna – Léa Massari – Anna Maria Massetani

Anna – Léa Massari – Anna Maria Massetani, 2007, audio, total running time 4 minutes and 35 seconds, accessed through "On Call Audio" playback on demand at Bloomberg Headquarters, 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY. Presented as part of Art in General and Bloomberg L.P.'s Horizon, curated by Jan Van Woensel

Find Léa Massari, the actor who played the disappearing character Anna in Michelangelo Antonioni' s 1960 film L'Avventura, and almost have a conversation.

Extensions on the Dial HORIZON card:

• Ext 01: Dialogue 1 by Eric Van Hove
• Ext 02: Dialogue 2 by Eric Van Hove
• Ext 03: Dialogue 3 by Eric Van Hove
• Ext 04: Music by Sufjan Stevens: Flint (3:45)
• Ext 05: Music by Sufjan Stevens: Tahquamenon Falls (2:20)
• Ext 06: Music by Sufjan Stevens: Holland (3:28)
• Ext 07: Music by Sufjan Stevens: Romulus (4:43)
• Ext 08: Music by Sufjan Stevens: Vito's Ordination Song (7:06)
• Ext 09: Going Towards the Wrong Island and Going Towards the Right Island, 2003–2005 by Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock (2:29)
  
• Ext 10: Ritorno a Lisca Bianca, 2003–2005 by Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock (3:29)
• Ext 11: A Triangulation (Italy), 2003 – 2006 Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock (3:06)
• Ext 12: An Island, 2006 Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock (1:57)
• Ext 13: Anna – Léa Massari – Anna Maria Massetani, 2007 Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock (4:35)

Untitled-17: “Epson Perfection 2580 Photo” B by A, “Epson Perfection 2580 Photo” A by B, September 28, 2007, 3:48 PM

Untitled-17: “Epson Perfection 2580 Photo” B by A, “Epson Perfection 2580 Photo” A by B, September 28, 2007, 3:48 PM, 2007, C-print mounted to Plexiglas, h 11 1/2” x w 17”

Two “Epson Perfection 2580 Photo” flatbed scanners were placed with their glass scanning surfaces facing each other, oriented so that the recording mechanisms passed in opposite directions as they made their scans. The resultant left and right images that form this diptych are the raw scans generated according to the devices’ factory presets and are printed at one hundred percent original size with no retouching, adjustments of image density, color correction, or cropping. Although the settings were identical for both units and the scans initiated simultaneously, the two images have numerous distinct, if subtle, variations from one another.