Measuring Angst

A mechanical reproduction of the act of throwing a beer bottle against a wall.

Birth and death are only a rewind button away. This is a world where meaning is found in video imagery. That video can be both rewound and fast-forwarded, endlessly replaying the best events again and again. Will the physical world eventually be subject to the same rules?

This sculpture is made possible via a system of armatures similar to those one might find within the prehistoric animal exhibits in a natural history museum. They will differ in that they will be mechanically driven and allow for varying positions of the broken glass pieces. A system of electronic drives, stepper motors, ballscrews, linear shafts, and computer software similar to what one might find in a high-tech assembly plant provides the movement.  

We have become accustomed to the ability to rewind a video to find the perfect moment. In a similar fashion, this sculpture can endlessly repeat a specific moment in three physical dimensions.

Within the world of mathematics, it is just as easy to go back as it is forward. It is only within human experience that going backward poses such a problem. We and our perceived physical surroundings are locked into a series of moments where the future is possible and varied but the past is locked and cannot be revisited. Humanity has been slowly eroding the power of time to hide the past. This happened first with language, then with the written word, and now, after progressing through mathematics, to the media, modern technologies, and sciences. We now have tools that allow us to go back and re-understand, reinterpret, and re-imagine what has happened. These tools have always been flawed by subjective perspectives and the limits of mechanical reproduction. Nonetheless, we tend to accept these tools and we live in a world where the past is more alive than ever. We have lost our hold on the specific moments in which we live and spend much of our time watching media. Live events are now viewed as if they have already transpired. Will we continue to live more and more within manifested media worlds?

Art is traditionally seen as a creative discipline but it is and always will be just as much a destructive one.  This sculpture combines both the practice of creation and destruction keeping the center of the piece right on the edge between the two.

Science actively seeks the demise of death often ignoring the fact that death is necessary for life. How will we look in a hundred years when science, technology, and medicine have extended our lives, re-created our bodies, and changed our environment? Will this be beautiful?

Construction