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or STUCK ON LOOP, FEBRUARY 2008
Small Solo Show for MICA's Pinkard Gallery Space - Annual Juried Selection

With a focus on feedback loops, error, and the bittersweetness of repetitive but spirited failure, this show was comprised of investigatory works that in many cases fell flat, fell apart, or became trapped in their own circular logic.

PIECES EXHIBITED:
HOLO-EYES
WHEN WILL YOU DIE?
HOLO-LOGS
CD-R
DVD PLAYER
THIRD EYE BLIND, ADORNO
HANDMADE DATA DISC with STROBE
END to END
MINI DISC DEMOLITION
GRAVER

The result was a fragile and "unsuccessful" collection of raw, thin, and flimsy pieces combined with the lightest touch (skimming the surface of the problem, wrapping) and encased in a dry, institutionally open space that was continually updated by the artist: one could walk in and find her "in-progress" on many of the exhibition dates. Projected pieces changed, things were gently demolished and rebuilt, repaired daily, or encouraged to be handmade by participants and taken home. The overall tone was confrontational but in a see-through or even hoaky way - a soft challenge. The flimsy surface belied a much deeper unrest.

In a space meant to exhibit the monuments of a nominated artist's work at MICA, the show suggested that the real issues could not be directly addressed in this time and space, and offered itself as a temporary "lite" alternative. This "liteness" was also a response to the throwaway nature of the mediated world inhabited and explored by the work. Projections, cheap materials, default options, and the looseness of craft gave the show a fake sense of material resolve that provided space for failure and continual movement. These were not solutions, only a cross-section of concerns that had no hope of being solved in the given constraints.

The show description was originally presented as a projected tag cloud and explored through performative presentations as part of a concurrent group show at MICA put together by friends called "We Don't Know What We Don't Know" - in which the prompt was loosely to "teach eachother how to make our work." These presentations included the making of DreamCaptchas and Holo-Eyes.

HANDMADE DATA DISC as prop



HOLO-EYES, HOLO-IZE - Safety goggles with handmade holographic adhesive wrapping provide a glimpse of "the holographic future."
When worn the 80% opaque holographic film provides a mask more than a filter, separating the wearers from their own vision and showing that in order to enhance or fetishize something, you must also mask or remove it.

Three default eyeball options from Blingee.com are placed in a triangular sequence of exchanged contact to form a gaze that confronts nothing.