Phantom/Fountain

Phantom/Fountain, 2004, c-print mounted to Plexiglas and Sintra, h 54" x w 36 1/2”

Phantom/Fountain is a mouthful of water spat at a camera held at arms length in a morgue. The liquid is suspended midair on a dark field, taking on a glowing and ambiguous form. The large scale and highly reflective surface of the piece generates a merger of viewer reflection and image, harkening back in a playful way to the double-exposure trick photographs of ghosts, auras, and ectoplasm found in the mid-19th century genre of spirit photography.

The Mummy Project

The Mummy Project, 2004, offset printed magazine, h 4” x w 6”
Images: 3 pages published in the April issue of Flyer

Unspecified Non-Bizarre Delusion

Unspecified Non-Bizarre Delusion (249 Facts), 2003, LightJet print mounted to Sintra and Plexiglas, h 24” x w 36”, destroyed. Image: double page spread in Flyer, magazine, h 4” x w 6”

In Unspecified Non-Bizarre Delusion, the artist traveled 2,790 miles from NJ to CA as part of a fictional fact-finding mission called “The Redondo Beach Fact Finding Mission” (RBFFM). In late December of 2002, the RBFFM representative began at his childhood home in Maplewood, NJ and traveled approximately 11 miles on skateboard to Newark Airport. An aircraft was boarded and the representative was transported to Long Beach Airport in Long Beach, CA, whereupon he traveled on skateboard approximately 25 miles to Redondo Beach, CA and delivered a vintage copy of Black Flag’s 1983 release My War. Total distance traveled: 2790.96 miles. All 249 images made are presented, unedited, and in chronological order. The entire project with images, maps, and notes was published in Flyer, a miniature magazine measuring only h 4” x w 6”.

The RBFFM examined a number of East Coast teenage projections of an idealized punk rock/skateboarding utopia onto the ordinary location of Redondo Beach, CA. The RBFFM studied the ability of an individual to retrieve information of past events and experiences learned from secondhand sources and contrast it with the present reality. Essentially, a thorough autopsy of a dream was performed.

Outdoor Area

Outdoor Area, 2003, 2 humidifiers, seawater, 1 CD player, audio: total running time 4 minutes and 33 second, looped (installation views)

Outdoor Area consists of two humidifiers filled with seawater from an inlet immediately outside and visible through the gallery windows. Additionally, a CD player on a continuous loops an audio recording of the exhibition curators – a Norwegian collective – standing as silently as possible in the gallery for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. This project is a collaboration with Christopher Ho.

Fresh Meat

Fresh Meat curated by Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock
September 19 – December 20, 2003
Opening reception September 19 from 5:30 – midnight
CEPA Gallery
617 Main Street, Suite 201
Buffalo, NY 14203

Including:
Matt Bakkom, Michael Bell-Smith, Beth Campbell, Dylan Chandler, Irvin Coffee, Jennifer Dalton, Peter Eide, Michelle Elzay, Eteam, Christopher Frederick, Mattias Geiger, Susan Graham, Kira Lynn Harris, Tina Hejtmanek, Adam Henry, Christopher Ho, Sigrid Jakob, Tom Kehn, Kaitlin Kehnemuyi, Dina Kelberman, Megan Lang, Daniel Lefcourt, Kristin Lucas, Dora Malech, Alicia Marin, Felicia McCoy, Glynnis McDaris, Joe McKay, Saul Metnick, Mario M. Muller, Laurel Nakadate, Christian Nugyen, Danica Phelps, Eileen Quinlan, Walid Ra'ad, Douglas Ross, Casey Ruble, Adina Segal, Shelter Serra, James Sheehan, Penelope Umbrico, Elizabeth Valdez, Sue Wrbican, Brennen Wysong

CEPA Gallery is pleased to present Fresh Meat, featuring 44 New York City based artists that were invited to participate in an exhibition with no overt theme or preset guidelines. As a result, each artist simultaneously constructed the exhibition context as well as contributed the content itself. Artists were selected for their ability to develop a solution to this Rorschach-like problem. Rather than compiling passive objects under a fixed curatorial vision, Fresh Meat emphasizes that artworks can actively imply their own context of display.

The exhibition highlights the fluid nature of the curatorial process in that the curator occupies the same position as the prospective audience. Neither are privileged with prior knowledge of the final form of the exhibition; both are asked to perform a function similar to a forensic pathologist, retroactively constructing a narrative cause (the exhibition’s parameters) from a set of given clues (the artwork).

As the coupled words in the show title hint, the exhibition stands at the end of one arc – with a sense of finality – and at the beginning of a new one that remains open. By bringing together artists in an adaptable and investigational manner, Fresh Meat affirms CEPA’s long-standing commitment to the promise of the photographic arts.

Suggestions: some samplers come with a sensible guide printed on the reverse of the closure, while other assortments incorporate an elaborate brochure into their informational scheme. Whether you are given one as a token of appreciation for your virtuous deeds, slipped one by a clandestine admirer, or you formulate a bold resolution to procure one for yourself, boxes of chocolates, although enchanting, remain a mystery to the majority of people.

Randomly choose a piece, or rely upon your memory of your last experience in guiding your decision (I recall that round or oblong shapes are soft-centered creams; square or rectilinear shapes are chewy caramel or nougat; and bumps indicate nuts of some sort, perhaps even coconut). Sniff it first and then deftly nibble the bottom off to peek inside. Is it butter crème? Yellowish, milky, cloyingly sweet, and so stinging the teeth so that you can’t even swallow it? Take a handkerchief and wipe your tongue clean of the gummy sweetness. It might not be the one for you. It might leave a slick glaze that would continue to objectionably loiter in your mouth for the remainder of the day. Take the upper portion of the chocolate – the uneaten section – and drop it back into the fancy box, chewed side down. Start again with another until you are satisfied.

Live Act

Live Act, 2003, fog machine, industrial lamp, dimensions variable, location: Tou Scene, Stavanger, Norway

In Live Act, a fog machine in a recess of a factory’s wall intermittently produces a dense fog. The fog gradually dissipates and is dramatically lit from within at night. Part of NuArt, an annual arts and music festival in Stavanger, Norway, Live Act references the site’s history as a factory, as well as the theatrically of the bands performing inside. This project is a collaboration with Christopher Ho.

As the World Turns (Brutally)

As the World Turns (Brutally), 2001, audio, total running time 2 minutes and 41 seconds, installed as part of Art in General’s Audio in the Elevator program

As the World Turns (Brutally) is an audio piece constructed for Art in General’s elevator in which all sounds point to the fact that humanity, despite being able to harness various elements of technology, will ultimately fall prey to its own viciousness. The soundtrack calls into question the human need for excessive brutality by isolating certain horrific moments in the Steven Spielberg film Saving Private Ryan. Screaming, crying, grunting, struggling, punching, explosions, and every gunshot in the movie are layered upon each other to a point of emotional excess and preposterousness. This frenzied and vicious collection is complimented with an amalgam of whimsical, although emotionally saccharine John Williams’ scores from earlier Spielberg films Close Encounters and E.T., thereby propelling the absurdity component even further.

Falling Between Positions

Falling Between Positions, 2002, stereoscopic 3-d video projection, color, silent, total running time 7 seconds, looped

In Falling Between Positions, the seemingly simple action of walking is broken down into a series of small, planned increments for examination. Three paces were executed over the period of one hour. Each pace was broken down into 25 stages of body movement, where each of the 25 phases making up a single pace had to be held for 60 seconds. In the final stereoscopic 3D projection, the three paces are sped up approximately 4000% so that they appear at normal speed. This project is a collaboration with Brian McClave.

Microviews

Microviews, 2002, 600 photographic images each in tabbed hanging files, 5 modified file cabinets, 6 chairs, monitor, video, color, silent, total running time 30 minutes, looped, l 24’ x w 1’6” x h 3’. Installed at: The Municipal Art Society, Urban Center Galleries, New York NY and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, One Wall Street Court, Second Floor, New York, NY

Microviews collects photographs and other documentation of the World Trade Center made by over 70 artists participating from 1997 – 2001 in a studio residency program located in Tower number one. The materials are individually filed, systematically categorized by formal characteristics, and cross-referenced. The file drawers rest on a base of five vertical file cabinets that lie on their sides. Additionally, a wall-mounted video silently flips through the images in the cabinets, which remain on screen for approximately 3 seconds each. Microviews provides no single way to navigate the archive. Rather, its system of cross references allows for an infinite number of approaches to each image, which in turn acquire different shades of significance depending on the particular sequence of images leading up to and following it. This project is a curatorial collaboration with Erin Donnelly, Christopher Ho, and Moukhtar Kocache.

Part Trap

Part Trap, 2002, cedar, stainless steel screws, h 20’ x w 15' x d 20’, destroyed (recycled). Installed at: Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY.

The design of Part Trap, an open-air pavilion, is based on a 2” x 2” roach trap. The structure serves as a resting spot for visitors to Socrates Sculpture Park, as well as a framing device for viewing nearby Roosevelt Island and the island of Manhattan from Queens. Part Trap is positioned so as to utilize the view of the two islands as a borrowed landscape, creating a linkage between the near and distant and extending the border of Socrates Sculpture Park westward beyond its actual margins. Aromatic cedar slats replace the roach trap’s industrial black plastic creating an airy, multi-purpose environment marked by shifting qualities of light and shadow throughout the day. Additionally, Part Trap has a low table integrated into its design, encouraging sitting, relaxing, and the formation of a temporary community by visitors.

Special thanks to Eric Zeszotarski of Solid Studio.

Towards a Low End Theory

Towards a Low End Theory: New York City 2002 – Emerging Photographic Practice

Curated by Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock and Matthew Bakkom
January 25 – March 2, 2002
The Minnesota Center for Photography
711 West Lake Street, Minneapolis, MN 55408

Including:
Irvin Coffee, Ejlat Feuer, Lilah Freedland, Mattias Geiger, Adam Henry, Sigrid Jakob, Tom Kehn, Daniel Lefcourt, Kristin Lucas, Felicia McCoy, Evie Mckenna, Saul Metnick, Adia Millet, Laurel Nakadate, Panoptic, Craig Smith, Wherebouts

It is the belief of many that the cataclysmic events of the recent past have altered our cultural, physical, and emotional landscape. Whether it is a shift in human consciousness sparked by the psychological, a change in human conditions created by the economic, or a reconsideration of architectural assumptions as a result of new physical threats, the current situation is extremely fluid and rich with the possibility of change.

Frequently in the past, extraordinary events have served as the catalyst for the emergence of new cultural paradigms, styles of tool use, and shifting of societal attitudes; nevertheless, it is important to consider that these archetypal moments and attitudes, as well as our ability to perceive them, come into view only gradually. In an attempt to identify these currents, their complex expression and simultaneous, or even competitive existence, we propose Towards a Low End Theory, a selection of new work by emerging artists from New York City representing a snapshot from within.

The concept of “Low End Theory” is marked most significantly by localized, individually oriented points of emergence. This “theory” may be also be considered as the descriptive term for a time period during the initial stages of a building arc, a qualifier for describing a method of do-it-yourself fabrication, as well as the ripple effect of an event or work of art beyond its immediate or surface meaning. The resultant shock waves from 9/11 traveled from the mass societal level to reach each constituent point of this metaphorical spectrum, quickly becoming concrete in the form of discrete thought and the productions presented.

Architecture, both in the strictest sense of the definition, as well as including architecture as the design, structure, and behavior of systems, is the predominant theme in this exhibition. The photographs and films included in Towards a Low End Theory often relate to this subject tentatively and tangentially, as the aforementioned varied points of emergence have the tendency to avoid cohesion and quietly navigate their way into existence rather than boldly proclaim themselves with certainty and a false sense of bravado.

The artists in Towards a Low End Theory present a variety of calculated and intuitive responses to buildings and spaces – from Kristin Lucas’ video Five Minute Break considering the subterranean basements of the World Trade Center by means of an animated tour guide, to Felicia McCoy’s concentration on framing subway conductors within the claustrophobic immediacy of their underground workplace, to Saul Metnick’s taxonomic approach to documenting the fixed spaces of (previously mobile) burned out cars found in his surrounding Brooklyn neighborhood. 2002 is the period represented in Towards a Low End Theory in which we begin to see the initial effects that alterations of our landscape have had on the artistic concerns and work of seventeen artists.

Allez Cusine (Go Kitchen)

Allez Cusine (Go Kitchen), 2002, video, color, sound, total running time 2 minutes and 31 seconds, (image: 16 video stills)

Allez Cusine is a hallucinatory montage of fifty commercials in which artfully arranged portions of dog food are endlessly presented on spotless porcelain dishes and elegant crystal plates with decorative trim. For 2 minutes and 31 seconds various combinations of commercial strategies attempt to seduce the viewer with their pitch of visual plentitude.

Manicured hands courteously present and slide fine china across the screen, plates slowly revolve cutlets, silver forks rotate juicy morsels, wooden cooking utensils tumble nuggets and mix in slow motion, and spoons dance modest servings up towards your mouth. Gleaming knives abound – slow pans across luminous knives cutting and displaying, as if pâté, close-up shots of glowing chef’s knives precisely cutting, as if fine fillet mignon. Medallions are delicately divided, then glistening portions are gently slid apart to reveal their perfectly cooked and tender insides. The gliding camera dollies closer towards and across the immaculately plated food – harmonious in color scheme, formally arranged, and attractively garnished with hints of color. One dish is even served with a rice pilaf.

The emotionally soaring soundtrack for Allez Cusine is Fighting 17th, part of Hans Zimmer’s score for the 1991 Ron Howard film Backdraft, and later used as the introductory theme music for the Japanese television cooking show Iron Chef. The music, described as “driving,” “heroic,” “brassy,” and “triumphant,” serves as a proper counterpart to the visual imagery, both sophisticated and complimentary; yet always informed by the knowledge that the culinary delicacies presented are for the eventual consumption by animals, not humans. This project is a collaboration with Tom Kehn.

White Almond

White Almond (3 views), 2001. Wood, melamine, Plexiglas, handles, hinges, wheels, w 35” x d 35” x h 86”, destroyed

White Almond is a framing device not unlike a camera. It is a catalyst, an exploratory probe, a gauge, and, at times, something akin to Ikea furniture. Upon first inspection, it may lack a certain immediate specificity of function, yet indistinctness is in fact one of its engineered traits. It is approachable at its core, having intentionally absolved its fixed command of space and strict clinical nature to become a non-threatening, mobile, and simultaneously stylish addition to a space. The primary usage is, but not limited to, the formation of a dialog between an individual and the space of a wall or closet. It has less in common with a litmus test, in which a single factor determines the outcome, than the projective Rorschach test and its stress on series and cumulative interpretations.

Special thanks to Eric Zeszotarski of Solid Studio

Tools

Tools, 2001, c-print, h 10” x w 24”

I have been photographing in a Medical Examiner office and a morgue over the past ten years. After witnessing my first autopsy, I realized that nothing in these places was going to help prepare me for the inevitability of death. Nevertheless, from that first moment on, every time I went to the morgue I found new and compelling reasons to keep returning.

The scholar Philippe Aries said “...death has become unnameable. Everything henceforth goes on as if neither I nor those who are dear to me are any longer mortal. Technically we admit we might die... but really at heart we feel we are non–mortals. And surprise! Our life is not as a result gladdened!” In a way my inoculation has worked. Through direct experience I have introduced something into my life that will not make anyone exempt from death, yet it has made the prospect of its occurrence incredibly more natural and acceptable.

Device

Device (Mütter Museum), 2001, gelatin silver print, h 20” x w 16”

This device was found in a back storage room of the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, PA. It was most likely utilized to measure skull sizes in support of 19th century theories regarding skull shape and intelligence; however, at some point it became divorced from its informative labeling. Accordingly, it cannot be identified with absolute certainty.

The Swimmer

The Swimmer, 2001, video, color, sound, total running time 24 minutes and 37 seconds (three stills from film comprised of 401 images)

The Swimmer is a layering of inaccessible performance, automatically formatted video, and exceptionally thorough documentation. Ten Hours from now I will begin a seventy-five mile, three day, walking expedition from my apartment in Brooklyn to upstate New York to participate in an event called the Brewster Project. This will be my very own hallucinatory trip upriver into the heart of darkness, during which I will be continually broadcasting to the world – at maximum volume from speakers attached to my body – the entirety of Martin Sheen's hypnotic interior monologue extracted from Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now. Digital images will be produced systematically throughout the trip. Then, upon completion of the journey, these stills will be coupled with Sheen’s monologue to serve as a new and unexpected accompaniment for a well-worn audio track.

The piece is called The Swimmer, in honor of Burt Lancaster's itinerant character in the 1968 film of the same title. The Swimmer is one of the most effectively appalling of all quest films, perhaps even more so than Apocalypse Now, because its calamities are sited in an innocuous suburban landscape during the height of the Vietnam War.

Heroes

Heroes, 2001, video, color, sound, total running time 7 minutes and 11 seconds

In 1989 the film Mac and Me was released to absolutely no critical acclaim, without doubt because it is an exercise in patent fakery. Mac and Me is a scene-by-scene rip-off of Steven Spielberg’s film E.T. the Extraterrestrial. Mac and Me is not a very good film by any standard, which makes it a perfect candidate for filmic resuscitation and shock therapy. The goal: to exhaustively look through the film to find and subsequently celebrate one small kernel of possibility from within a seemingly endless progression of commonplace scenes.

Heroes extracts and contextually modifies a generic sequence in which FBI agents are engaged in a frenetic foot chase up to and through a mall. By slowing down the sequence to 12% of the original speed the awkward and exaggerated actions of these hack actors are transformed into motions ethereal and balletic. Aside from slowing the speed of the footage, a significant liberty has been taken with the original narrative flow of Mac and Me. The chase sequence has been re-cut so that what the FBI agents are pursuing is conspicuously absent. Viewed unaltered the plot is turgid and the action predictable, yet edited and slowed the significance of their quest becomes cryptic and their movements are marked by unusual delicacy and refinement. Furthermore, the audio component of Heroes assists in transmuting the original footage into something remarkable. The soundtrack, once slowed down to 12% of the original speed, has more in common with ambient experimental music than maudlin film scores. Time elongation converts the music from something stale to something unusually changing and airy.

Ultimately, a heroic action is something done in response to a desperate situation. The purpose of Heroes is to scrounge through another filmmaker’s cinematic detritus until something worth honoring is found. This project is a collaboration with Tom Kehn.

Orphan

Orphan, 2001, total running time 44 minutes and 17 seconds

Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless. – Thomas Edison

Orphan is a 44 minute, 17 second sound piece that took one year to create. For the first six months of the project, every week samples were randomly extracted from the New York region airwaves. The material gathered, which ran the gamut from rash cream commercials to "blazin’ hip hop," was the raw material upon which a series of experiments were to be conducted. The intention of the research was to ascertain if the authoritative language and tone of voice utilized on commercial radio could be broken down and distilled into an essence. Once the soon to be obsolete products were edited out and the remaining absences filled, it only remained to organize the residue into a presentable form.

Could the new hybrid function in an assertive manner like the parental source promotions, however with the end goal of selling absolutely nothing? The answer we have found, after much trial and error, is a swaggering and secure yes – the poised language of marketing can be mined and forced to function on new terms, yet with a certain number new and unpleasant side effects coming to the forefront.

Genetic tampering, even with seemingly simple Am/Fm radio source material, is messy business with unpredictable results. Your engineered product may look fine now, only to dissolve before your eyes moments later. Instability becomes the norm and that’s the risk of advancing evolution. It might seem difficult at first listening to our alpha voice die – it’s always hard to loose a leader – however, there are few pleasures greater for a victim of commercial over–saturation than witnessing power itself stuttering and spurting, untethered by sales objectives, eventually degenerating into nonsensical tongues. Think of Orphan as something reclaiming territory by generating a waste of time. This project is a collaboration with Tom Kehn.

The Swimmer

The Swimmer, 2001, c-print mounted to Sintra and Plexiglas, h 48.403” x w 36.4” (bottom image: film still of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz from Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film Apocalypse Now)

Core Samples (for Smack Mellon Gallery, Brooklyn, NY)

Core Samples, 2000, C-print mounted to wood, melamine edging, h 16’ x w .5", destroyed, bottom image: detailed enlargement. Installed at Smack Mellon Gallery, Brooklyn, NY for White Hot curated by Regine Basha and Moukhtar Kocache.

Core Samples catalogs the entirety of my high school cassette collection in miniature and presents it, in the spirit of the sixteenth and seventeenth century Wunderkammer, with less an emphasis on categorization and a greater focus on unexpected juxtapositions.1 Similar cassette collections of several key high school era friends are included to indicate the collective musical findings of a time period. I am interested in paying homage to obsolete technology and taste.

For this sculptural manifestation of Core Samples, verticality, as well as references to archaeological measuring devices, and geologic stratification, are enhanced by compressing the piece to the width of one cassette stack (from the width of fourteen in Core Samples for Cabinet Magazine), proportionally yielding a slender, sixteen foot tall sculpture. The piece is installed discretely amongst the gallery plumbing and electrical conduits in Smack Mellon Gallery in Brooklyn, NY.

1 Adalgisa Lugli, a contemporary Italian art historian, writing on Inquiry as Collection notes wryly how the seventeenth century museum “was still conceived as a place where... one could move about without having to solve or face the problem of continuity.” – Lawrence Weschler, Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder: Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology, New York: Vintage Books, 1995; p. 83

Training: the Basic Question

Training: the Basic Question, 2000, video, color, sound, total running time 1 minutes and 46 seconds

Training: the Basic Question is a distillation of an entire informational video series created by the McDonald's corporation to regiment proper workplace etiquette and maximize production. The series has been edited, compressed, and restructured so that the logical points and authority from the original message have been transformed into an incoherent, rambling series of half completed sentences and uncomfortable silences. The video, whose purpose was to describe efficient communication techniques, is now ultimately incapable of following through on its own suggestions. Directives have been meticulously excised from the video leaving behind a pervading sense of confusion, including a number of workers who seem to have developed an uneasy relationship with their primary product, meat. Numerous images of individuals obsessively attending to and handling meat in Training: the Basic Question generate a connection between employee and product that borders on fetishistic. This project is a collaboration with Tom Kehn.

An Anchor

An Anchor, 2000, 16 drawings, ink & white-out on paper, hardbound book with newspaper cover, h 8.5 x w 5.5

I think it is all a matter of love: the more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it is. – Vladimir Nabokov

At some point in 2000 I accidentally came across a copy of The New York Times dated Wednesday, April 21, 1999 that lodged itself in my memory for months to come. This particular copy of the Times was remarkable for the reason that it contained an article about a man named Terrance Johnson, a reporter with a camera hidden in his eyeglasses. Although a licensed social worker, he took a low paying job at a mental hospital in order to expose rampant patient mistreatment. I felt that Terrance’s humanitarian actions needed to be observed; nevertheless, I must admit that my interest in Terrance was not entirely benign. Being an image-maker myself, I felt an intense envy of his omnivorous recording.

It seems that Terrance was also aware of the awesome power that his camera eyeglasses endowed him with – just look at his expression, or more accurately, his lack of expression. I find the quirky blankness of his stare compelling because it subtly hints at a confidence imparted by the righteousness of his cause, and perhaps more significantly, by the fact that nothing can elude his observations. The fixity of his stare, as well as his emptiness, became a fascination for me.

It stood to reason that a method mirroring the intensity of Terrance’s techniques would be an appropriate starting point for an experiment. I might begin to get at something beyond the surface of the cryptic, half–toned image by staring intensely at the newspaper clipping for approximately one minute, then recreating the image from recollection. This extended method would allow a complex portrait to emerge that would both describe my subject and honor him through repetition. This would be my tribute to Terrance the undercover reporter.

The framework of serial repetition seemed simple enough; however, in short order comprehensiveness and verisimilitude gave way to an interest in scrutinizing emerging peculiarities and following their tangents. The focus became less about accumulating details into a whole than a decoding of a preexisting and surprisingly complete portrait. By increasingly relying on my recollections rather than my one-minute of actual observation, the image unlocked and allowed something unfamiliar, yet compelling to emerge.

16 drawings later I still don’t know any more about Terrance Johnson the reporter with a camera hidden in his eyeglasses, but I am very familiar with the way that his right lapel almost touches the edge of the frame, the similarity of the inverted angle of the bridge of his glasses and the open collar of his shirt, as well as the way that his eyes seem to be looking at two slightly different points. Lastly, and inexplicably, an anchor began to feature prominently in the drawings.

Core Samples (project for Cabinet Magazine, issue #2, Spring 2001)

Core Samples (project for Cabinet Magazine, issue #2, Spring 2001), 2000, c-print, h 9.75” x w 15.75”

Core Samples catalogs the entirety of my high school cassette collection in miniature and presents it, in the spirit of the sixteenth and seventeenth century Wunderkammer, with less an emphasis on categorization and a greater focus on unexpected juxtapositions. Similar cassette collections of several high school era friends are included to indicate the collective musical findings of a time period. I am interested in paying homage to obsolete technology and taste. This form of Core Samples was presented as a double page spread, or “sexy centerfold” for Cabinet magazine’s second issue.

Somewhat Corrupt = Computer Art Show

Somewhat Corrupt = Computer Art Show

Curated by Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock
Poster and card design by Dan Ellis

Including: Inez Van Lamsweerde, Sarah Sweeney, Carol Selter, Jason Salavon, Olivia Parker, Panoptic, Brian McClave, Daniel Lefcourt, Shannon Kennedy, Keith Cottingham, Amy Carr, Bill Burke, Bob Bowen, Chris Bailey, Aziz & Cucher, Romeo Alaeff

Fordham University’s Plaza Gallery
Lincoln Center Campus
113 West 60th Street at Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023
On view December 7, 2000 – January 31, 2001
Opening Reception: Thursday, December 7, 2000, 6 – 8 pm
The Plaza Gallery is open from 8 am – 8 pm

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.