 ERIC AND ERIC |
"tender, sad, haunting and beautiful"
— Karen D'Amico,
Fluid Thinking,
London, United Kingdom Artist Statement Eric and Eric is an interdisciplinary art project that explores how video and sculpture can work together to communicate a single concept. The sculptural component consists of a life-size plaster figure sleeping in a bed, made with real bed sheets and pillows, all of which is mounted on a wall. A video, of the same image and composition, is then projected onto the white sculpture. As the video image wraps around the sculptural form, the illusion of a three-dimensional hologram is created. As the video plays, a second figure enters the bed, which introduces a relationship between the two men seen. As the second man struggles to fall asleep, the first remains motionless, unaware of his lover's presence. Instead of a loving connection, notions of isolation and loneliness are felt. Like the relationship between the video and sculpture, the two men come together in hopes of a mutual bond, but they don't quite fit. Projecting video on sculpture shows how two art disciplines can be used together to communicate in ways that either discipline cannot do so on its own. In the case of video projection on sculpture, the mergence of the two is not perfect since the two disciplines never precisely line up. However, this imperfection becomes useful when discussing issues of human relationships, where two people have come together but things are not perfect between them, as in Eric and Eric. Artists like Tony Oursler have projected images on three-dimensional objects in their installation work, which bring two-dimensional image into three-dimensional space. I continue this practice by combining it with the plaster moulding and casting style of sculptor George Segal. Where Segal's live-size figures echo with a ghostly ambiance as moments in time are frozen in place, by projecting video of a figure on a white sculpture of a figure, movement is added to stagnant form. Still, because this is done along with sculpture, the motion is always in relation to the lack of motion, which creates a tension betwen the two as if the object that is moving is struggling to move.
listen to the artist talk about the project |
