This sculptural piece brings together aspects of human and electronic machine, and it plays videos of moving environments, with a bulbous organic form in the middle of the display. Its as if it is looking out to the world to try and understand its place, and it is imitating life in its half human presence.
The components of the sculpture are made up of plaster for the bust, and old reclaimed electronics. Besides the video players, the reclaimed and vintage parts amalgamated to make the brain of this machine consists of car radios, speakers, wires, a meter and a light bulb. All of which can be related to tasks of seeking, seeing, experiencing, and gaining information.
The forms in the video seem to be the center of its attention, as if that which appears alive and is moving, is what it wants to understand the most. The videos themselves are 3d renders with moving environments projected as a texture into the visual box. These renders represent simulations of the outside world that the device is processing and trying to comprehend. Furthermore, the top screen is obscured by code and patterns overlaying everything, and the content itself is grainier. Its as if we are seeing the raw data being run through an algorithm, which is then cleaned up and displayed on the secondary larger screen. Also, the sounds of static as the videos play intensify processing/seeking aspect.
The plaster body of the sculpture, acts as another piece created in the pursuit of trying to understand and re-create humanity. It was made from a 3d modeled bust in the image of an academic classical form, modified to take the negative shape for a mold, 3d printed, and then casted with plaster.
From its used electronic components, to its plaster body, I imagine the object is something which was found from a different era and recreated in the current age.
Some may take a view on the social environmental aspects it is portraying, with the different environments in the videos, but I relate more to the individuality of this being. These feeling of needing to understand the world come from some of my own experiences. From not understanding people sometimes and from social anxiety, I become the quiet observer as well. Also, I often feel constrained in place with a lack of control – just like how this sculpture is stuck on a pedestal – wishing to go out of my comfort zone more, and into the world.
