ART

Interactive sculpture where player/operator chooses 3 photographs from an archive of thousands, to be placed in the machine’s 3 frames to construct a triptych. Activated by switch, concealed motors behind the front panel will slowly rotate the frames, setting and activating the triptych in time. The design was inspired by computer mainframe interfaces from the 1960s. My intention was to rethink our relationship to vernacular photography with regard to expectations and assumptions of privacy. In the simplest of senses, when you take a photograph, you capture a private event while also creating an external object for a potential public.

This was shown in the juried exhibition “To Remain at a Distance” at Open Space in Victoria BC in the summer of 2000. Looking back 20 years later, this sculpture looks like someone organizing and planning their social media posts.

The formal discussion with artists and audience during the exhibition focused on feelings of isolation when living on Vancouver Island, hence the title of this annual juried show of artists based on the Island, “To Remain at a Distance”. As one of the younger participating artists, I recall feeling like the only one that did not feel isolated since I had already been adapting to online culture through email and BBS since the mid 90s, yet social networks were still years away. I had friends in other provinces. At least for me, online space had contracted the depth of physical space without flattening it’s substance. I felt connected in a way that was not inferior or superior to real life. It was just in another form.

The frames set to rotate.

Including the cardboard sketch here. This is how I worked out the scale and design before committing to cut the wood.