FOR MANY YEARS MY WORK EMPLOYE...
For many years my work employed psychological mechanisms of sensation and perception to open a larger social role for the visual artist. This work inevitably directed me toward the integration of new technologies, sometimes joined with ancient content. Formally, my background entailed a study in the life sciences, physics and mathematics at Fordham University, and the visual arts at The State University of New York, College at Purchase. The nuts and bolts of computer programming, and video image processing was undertaken at the Center for Advanced Visual Study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.I believe my science background informed my work as an artist very early on. This became most apparent while constructing my Models for Large Sculpture in the seventies, exhibited at the Arnot Art Museum in Elmira, New York in 1976. These were based on arc segments of wood or aluminum and were tension generated forms, displaying a balance of compression and tension forces subject to the effects of gravity. The work of American artist, Kenneth Snelson and the German architect, Frei Otto inspired my investigation of these structures.
These concerns later evolved into sculpture activities, employing string figures taken from Inuit and Oceanic cultures. In this traditional context the figures possess a social facet, being employed in the communication of tribal beliefs and ritual. It was in this light that I chose to employ these works as mechanisms of dialogue with my audience. My approach found its first expression in two performances presented in the summer and fall of 1983. A String Form for Binding Nations, which consisted of the large-scale manipulation rope forms, and was presented at the United Nations, Conference on Communications Technology and Traditional Cultures. The second project springing from these interests, my New York State Council on the Arts funded performance, Zaroff's Tale presented at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York examined the role of the artist in non-western cultures in terms of spirituality, ritual and shamanism.
Michael Haerdter, director of Berlin's Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, described my work as "formulations of border situations and convergence-between nature and technology, heaven and earth, light and sound, Buddha and Einstein." This interest in moments of transition can be seen in several projects presented both in the U.S. and abroad.
The National Endowment for the Arts funded performances, Buddha Meets Einstein at the Great Wall presented at New York's Asia Society, and on a 1985 American tour, in collaboration with choreographer Mel Wong and The Mel Wong Dance Company, used dance and my computer/video installation to explore changing perceptions of time from both eastern and western viewpoints. It illustrated the convergence of eastern and western thought spurred by transformations in science and communications.
AndroMedia III an installation at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York was presented in collaboration with David Hykes and The Harmonic Choir and was funded by the New York State Council on the Arts. The 2000 year old tradition of Mongolian overtone chanting, practiced by these musicians, was used to control visual phenomena created by a system of scanning lasers, video displays and computers.
Focusing on the balance of power between the man-made and the natural environment, my Waterline Project was installed in Amsterdam, the Netherlands in 1989. Created for the Dutch foundation ArtGarden and produced with the joint support of The Netherland-America Foundation, Art Matters, The New York Foundation for the Arts and The Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, it comprised three outdoor sculptures set in a park-like environment. These works commented on the Dutch accomplishment of redefining natural boundaries between earth and sea by creating unique juxtapositions of sculpture with the natural surroundings.
In The Horizon is Nothing More than the Limit of Our Sight, my installation for the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York in 1990, the horizon like the transition of the artist to shaman, defined a perceptual boundary. This installation implied a new social awareness, of people holding interests of a greater human-ecological character. Traversing a maze of barriers and confronting the video landscape which comprise this work, the spectator explores the conceptual limits, which isolate us from nature.
Since 1990, I have undertaken several major European projects during residencies at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien and KunstFabrik in Berlin, Germany and Kunst & Complex in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. My interest in fusing technological advancements in visual phenomena and projection, with natural and traditional subject matter or environments has remained a strong element of my work in installation and sculpture. This installation, commissioned by the Stone Quarry House Art Park, is the most recent manifestation of this recurrent theme in my oeuvre.