Venice Biennale 52

 

 

Curated by Bonnie Clearwater

 

2007

Eight flat screen TV-sets (15”) covered by a thin layer of sand, two DVD players, two DVD-s of random live programming

Dimensions variable

 

 

In the center of the room, there is a perfect circle of eight LCD TV-sets (15”) placed flat upon the floor. The eight TV-sets and the area around them are covered by a thin layer of sand, creating a landscape that both recalls and subverts the now iconic arte povera and land art movements. The buried TV-sets broadcast a DVD of random TV programming, the images from which illuminate the sand, which, in its turn, both veils and abstracts the same media images. Thus, the sand literally canvases the colors released by the monitors.

 

The sound of the piece does not reproduce that of the broadcasting, but randomly selects individual words or phrases, which suddenly erupt from the sandscape, abstracting from the content of the media Tower of Babel.

 

What is more, one of the sets partially protrudes from the sand, disrupting its surface to suggest an archaeological site of contemporary culture that exposes the historicity of modernism and unearths the shards of the contemporary psyche. Thus, the overall effect of the installation is an ever-changing abstract painting in the sandscape that not only naturalizes but also transforms the images and sounds of the media, therewith exploring the contemporary locus of nature, the agency of aesthetic creation, and the archeology of mind in our world of proliferating forms of simulacra.