Screengrab of installation center image, presented at Without Borders, August, 2009. (Left: Nicole Starosielski; Right: Erik Loyer)

Presently in production, Magic looks at the increasingly varied ways in which artists — or, perhaps more generally, makers — collaborate to bring disparate pieces of a project together to form a coherent whole. The project itself is also a product of these same collaborative forces.

Craig Dietrich, John Bell, and myself, in collaboration with Vectors staff, this summer’s NEH Vectors fellows, and many more have contributed to Magic.  As often happens, the nature of the partnership is dictated as much by the personalities and backgrounds of the collaborators as by the specific technical or production needs of the project. Magic is presently installed at “Without Borders VI: Conjunction“, a gallery show on the University of Maine campus, through September, 2009. The public opening is September 10th, at Lord Hall. We’ve placed up a Web-based version of the installation interface, and stay tuned for the release of the prototype Web-only project.

Accompanying Body Beasts is a six-minute film depicting used sweaters manipulated and sown into shapes of grotesquely enlarged bugs. The abject creatures traverse the landscape of the human body as well as domestic environments and provide jarring relationships through shifts of scale and contexts. We see them fly through the air, crash to the floor, analyzed in labs, vainly vacuumed, and given back massages. The video examines our instinctual repulsion for the millions of creatures that live, eat, and sleep with us in a continuously symbiotic relationship.

This project was very much inspired by my recent journey to Las Vegas where I saw a Cirque du Soleil show. This work is comprised of over 700 water-filled clear plastic bags, projectors, and mushroom-shaped lamps illuminating the ground, gave an otherworldly sense to the viewer. One was immersed in warmth and color reflections as the crystal-like drops, suspended from string, refracted light while slowly twirling around their fastened threads. During creation, the ritualistic activity of filling clear bags and binding them onto string gave way to repetition and focused precision. The recurring physical action located me in a serene state that was reflected by the installation’s peace and lightness.

Body Beasts was a multimedia investigation into the uncanny nature of dust mites. The research resulted in disjunctive relationships through shifts of scale and contexts. I explored dualities of sensual tactility and distrusting, fungal, and microscopic references, as I co-mingled disparate sentiments, such as repulsion and attraction, in single pieces. Because my work has a strong natural science overtone I explore viewer’s perception between inspecting vs. experiencing.