the phenomenology of painting (Albers machine)
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This new body of work is an extension of my previous explorations, in which I created a series of interactive installations and sculptures featuring lifelike 3D animated forms. That work investigated empathy, and the way we come to identify with the objects of our gaze, be they living or technological. In this new work, which I am calling “unspecific objects” (in both parody of, and homage to Donald Judd’s famous essay, Specific Objects), my goal is to use projected 3D animation combined with material forms to create objects that have a strong physical, almost lifelike presence. Despite their simple formal constraints, they elicit an awareness of our process of perception, and the difference between perceiving and knowing. They also expose the anthropomorphism latent in our perception of even the most minimal of objects.
the phenomenology of painting (Albers machine) specifically explores the relationship of abstract painting to spatial illusion. Throughout the last 100 years there has been much discussion of the “nature” of painting, and the relative value of acknowledging the flatness of the picture plane vs. explicitly creating the illusion of depth. This piece both pokes fun at and investigates these stances by creating the illusion of depth in three wall-mounted objects that very closely resemble Joseph Albers' paintings from the series “Homage to the Square.”
