PETER SARKISIAN

Video Installation : DUSTED 1998 / HOVER 1999 (top)

We found the work ‘Dusted’ by Peter Sarkisan extremely visually stunning and evocative, prompting an instant response and interest. Sarkisian is an artist who had come to our attention whilst researching Tony Oursler.

Within a darkened space a 3ft cube is projected on from five angles, whilst peering into the box of murky images, which, has the eyes adjust show the figures of a male and female, giving the viewer an exploration into voyeurism, the predecessor to ‘Hover’. Sarkisian’s cubes are themes on the human life cycle.

From ‘Hover’ we get the suggestion of entrapment, much like the projected figures in ‘Dusted’, the young male and older female moving about the cube, pressing against the inner sides, testing their escape, whilst the illusion of the cube slowly rotates, picking up momentum as it progresses.

http://vivifyimages.blogspot.com/

Bruce Nauman's corridors

Corridor with Mirror and White Lights 1971

Wood and glassobject: 3048 x 178 x 12192 mm sculpture

In his corridor pieces, Nauman's sculpture assumes the dimensions of architecture. The spaces in these corridors are often claustrophobic yet they seem to extend infinitely, like a corridor seen in a dream. In this piece, the extension of space is achieved by the placement of a mirror set at an angle at the end of the corridor. Some of Nauman's corridors are areas in which he or the viewer performs by entering the space. This is impossible here; the width of the corridor has been narrowed to make entrance impossible, thereby heightening the sense of eerie isolation in the piece. (TATE: From the display caption August 2004)

JIM CAMPBELL COLOUR BY NUMBERS: Experiments In Touching Colour 1998-99

From the Colour Works series Experiments In Touching Colour, 1998-99Custom electronics, video camera, video projector, DVD playerIn a small dark room, the viewer touches a rear-projection video screen mounted horizontally on a pedestal. The touch of the viewer's finger triggers sound related to the image and turns the screen a solid colour based upon the location of the viewer's fingers, magnifiying the colour of the pixel being touched. The sound fades up when the image fades out.

Rubberized Box :By Joseph Beuys 1957 Pine wood rubber and tar. 43 x 91 x 77 cm Block Beuys at the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt Room 2 Photograph by Ute Klophaus

“The outward appearance of every object I make is the equivalent of some aspect of inner human life. This box came out of my period of crisis and expresses my inner condition. My feelings then had this special kind of darkness almost black like this mixture of rubber and tar. It is certainly an equivalent of the pathological state mentioned before and expresses the need to create a space in the mind from which all disturbances were removed, an empty insulated space.” Joseph Beuys

TONY OURSLER EYE IN THE SKY 1997

Eye in the Sky, features a fiberglass sphere onto which is projected a single eye watching television. Although the rest of the body is not visible, we can hear the sounds of compulsive channel surfing. Without the emotive clues of facial expressions or gestures, we focus on the eye as an orifice, twitching as it gulps weather forecasts, commercials, sitcoms and game shows.

MARCEL DUCHAMP: ROTORELIEFS.

Marcel Duchamp's puzzling over optical problems, various discs inscribed with puns. all hand made in ink and pencil. Rotoreliefs (Optical Disks)these disks were followed by Rotary Demisphere, a machine for producing sprial effects, mounted on a metal base and worked by motor. (1913-15)