In a show that should attract all the techno-art hackers out there, the University of Delaware faculty show themselves able to out-techno the technologists. Feats of tech derring-do abound in video and mechanical and electronic wizardry. Things growl and click at you in this show and the art doesn’t stand still. Neither do you as it surrounds you in some surprising ways.
Best of all is Lance Winn and Simone Jones’ murder mystery video Knock with a deadpan script by Hope Thompson and a surreal bare bones set of a door, a chair that never gets used, a 4-tier birthday cake on a plant stand props right out of Clue. This piece — projected on 3 walls and the floor with looping action where all the actors kill and get killed and magically appear again in what is a horror movie lowbrow farce.
What’s new about this projection is how the image moves via robotic arm and so do you trying to keep up with the action taking place all around you. It’s a refreshing change from standing statically in front of a screen or series of screens.
This is a great new direction for art video. It solves the problem of the static screen and the static viewer in the gallery space.
Other gizmos that we admired for their electronic chops as well as their aesthetics are Abby Donovan’s motorized assemblage using clay, string, mirrors and colored lights to suggest a cosmos connected by string, if not by string theory.
Ashley Pigford and Troy Richards’ Vanishing Point Rube Goldberg machine with a moving Lego car careens across a track causing a reaction, an explosion, a growl of sound and finally a juicy hyper-saturated explosion of color on a video screen that reminded us of an outtake from a Pippilotti Rist video. We had to wait too long for the roughly ten-second event to occur but we apparently the wait was dictated by techno-reasons.
Rene Marquez’s Home Again is a tricky projection piece using slide carousels and other projection devices to comment on old-school technology…and old-school life. It took us a while to figure it out and we’re sure not going to give away the trick here. Marquez uses material from his own past in the projections. The piece is loaded with emotion. Also in the show are Colette Gaiter and Amy Hicks.
More about another techno wonder at the Crane coming up in another post.
Information Translated UD/ART Selected University of Delaware Faculty October 21st – November 29th, 2009
