Taking the Leap

[JHoughton]

I was curious to see how many forum readers were utilizing the newer mediums in their sculptural works. I am interested I seeing how other artists are using/presenting video, sound, illumination, projection, etc... either in, along with, or as their scupture. How is it working out, and what types of snags are you running into??? Just curious

[obseq]

Thanks for posting this Jarrod,

This topic has been tossed around briefly but became lost in the fray--Hopefully, we can get a greater amount of feedback.

My background is in interactive digital media production. I ended up jumping head first into sculpture without looking back about two years ago.... I discovered that the the types of questions I needed to ask about my work, specifically, for it to progress conceptually and intellectually, brought me directly to sculpture.

I am constantly reminded by one of Georges' posts desciribing his background in 3-D modeling and programming yet how he came to describe himself as a scuptor.

My initial focus began in filmmaking....I was never inetrested in story telling but the diegetic of the screen itself. In a nutshell, I was somewhat baffled regarding why the collective spectatorship commits to a seemingly 'finite' diegesis while viewing both moving and fixed images. Rarely is the dynamic questioned and if it is, it is entirely insufficient limited to *implications* beyond the diegetic............................This is what brought me to sculpture.

I have utilized various types of programming, audio, film/video, infared senors, CCD imaging within sculpture and installation. The main problem, in my opinion, is not to let the technology take anything away from the artwork. I have seen far too many installation/sculptures that really disregard the spectator's ability to look beyond an arbitrary flashing light or sound/video cue to ultimately discover that such things are tertiary distractions to the fact that nothing substantial ins 'going on' in the piece. This is especially important when you face the possibilty of working with technologies that might compete against each other in a piece. There is an unspoken consensus that inundating the spectorship with technology constitutes for interactivty and substance.