(photography, video, digital print, performance), 2014:

The photographs present to the viewer similar objects; but details in the photography itself and in the depicted objects suggest a cluster rather than a singularity: the mass-produced object, the image of that object as it is used for promotional purposes, the art-object, the commodity that is bought and sold, and containers, in which these objects themselves might contain many other objects. Upon reflection, the seemingly unitary thing breaks down not only into a series of fragmented surfaces (including the surface of the photograph itself), but also into a indeterminate series of discreet objects.

As part of the larger installation of the entire project, these photographs are presented in a darkened room, meant to be peered at with a small flashlight as if one were searching for the work or finding one’s way. The seeming blackness around the things initially functions to isolate, just as the viewer is isolated in the darkness; but similarly as light reflects upon the surface of these mundane things, sometimes revealing imperfections, irregularities, or dust, it also penetrates the black revealing it at times to be yet another surface rife with those same uneven qualities. Rather than an emptiness around the object, the entirety of the square frame is filled, and we are left then to contemplate what might lie within these objects.

The videos utilize as their subject matter the same sort of mass-produced objects, but take a different approach. Rather than attempting to preserve the integrity of the things themselves, they are intentionally fragmented. There is then a move to recombine the fragments, while keeping the perspective and nature of the video camera in mind. Duration, point-of-view, and the basic camera functions of panning, zooming, and focusing play a role in the construction of an altogether new object. The audio also provides an integral part together with the video to make present the artist, the operator of the camera. This already fragmented, already multiple object in flux, never stationary, never quite the same at any given moment presents a kind of counterpoint to the contained stasis of the photography. These videos represent a kind of reanimated Frankenstein’s monster as to the corpses of the photographs.

The Sorites images explore the Sorites “Paradox of the Heap” with regard to the properties of objects and the accumulation of hue, resolution, and scale.