An excerpt from POP DEAD PICTURES Tony Oursler 2002:

Antennas are ugly. All the connections form a disturbing web – roads, electricity, telephones, cables. They cut and claw the horizon into lines and spikes that I have come to appreciate. TV antenna, dishes, cell nodes and towers, this hardware reveals the true ugly nature of the system it supports in beautiful ways. The movement of waves is made evident in structure of antennas. They reach for something beyond their dull existence: signals. For example the untethered internet, operating at the unlicensed junk frequency, 2.4 gigahertz called Wi-Fi. Wireless implies freedom, the citizen is connected to the world by antenna but is isolated, mobile.

Signals are full of potential as they float in the air before they are received. I was trying to capture this floating moment. What ephemeral substance would become a lens to make visible the invisible? It became a material question. After lots of searching I arrived at transparent fluorescent plexiglass shaped into disks, sawteeth and waves to hold the video projections, as well as to let them spill onto the walls and ceiling. The effect was faux holographic, like the screens you see in sci-fi movies, transparent and hanging in mid air. Later I discovered a metal screen material.

The Antennas needed faces but they had to be wandering in their own atmosphere, lost in the ether, unstable. Moving lights were used while shooting to emphasize the shape and dimensions of the faces, like the way a person looks in a car driving at night. The faces are constantly being formed visually, chiaroscuro in waves of light. Then I needed the faces to move in a mechanical slide or loop, like a TV rolling. This was done with computer animation; they bend and distort as they travel over the surface of the sculpture. There is a lot of power, tension in the juxtaposition of the three kinds of movement human, light and mechanical.

These heads are flying through space in a trance state. Language emanates from them. Words orbit them, like space junk. What they say is inspired in part by technical jargon, manuals, text books on satellite, radar, TV transmission, reception. The words take on new meaning out of context, sexualized, personified, equations for interpersonal power, interorized revelations. They sound like a machine trying to fix itself, maybe fix you at the same time. That's the way the heads are talking, verbally downloading their own personal instruction manual. It's very intimate:E L F extremely low frequency avoid telephone get inside home stay away from open water avoid areas projecting above landscape go to low place valley isolated feel your hair stand on end drop off internet capture signals trap transmission avoid contact with the ground spherics: atmospheric interference admittance coordinator i get tired i get normalized lines candy candy candy constant resistance circles gray zone where? pulse under various conditions oh I see people walking up and down the street come on hurry up Doppler shift shadows listen to shadows...

These works were high up in the gallery installation, countered by works – the blobs or pods – which are down low, on the floor. These pod heads covered in glass slime or ectoplasm, like embryonic sacks. They are earthbound and a little sad about it. They wish they were able to wander the sky, disembodied but that's not their lot in life. They are in their own worlds, insulated, looking out, babbling to themselves, waiting. But there is something glowing inside them – rays of light flow away from them, like they have developed special powers through isolation. I particularly like the glowing effect which was achieved by working with blown glass and projecting through it. There is a point just on the edge where some very interesting optical effects, refraction takes place. After a long research project on optics, it felt like the physics of it had slipped into the work.

Technology embodies Science and Fiction literally. What seems like pure science is, in fact, steeped in fiction–the ghost in the machine. I wanted to go inside the machine for the next projects which involved computer circuit boards, cylindrical plexiglas forms and wire block antennas. Very cyberspace... I fell in love with computer boards, acid green, silver solder, patterns snaking through their systems are over overwhelmingly beautiful. The computer, motherboard, opened up and animated is like the old computer game Pong: heads bounce around inside an imaginary space box.

ALSO SEE

> Tony Oursler: Wavefront
> Artist's CV [84KB PDF]

EXTERNAL WEBSITES

> Tony Oursler

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