GONE VIRAL 2010

  Formally, the obsessive construction of GONE VIRAL refers to haute couture fashion in that the objects are opulent—unwearable/ touchable, but imbued with tactily ornate and seductive surfaces. The sculptures’ contoured skins of broken mirrors introduce issues of vanity and warped self-perception—opulence turned back on itself. Conceptually, the three sharp, fragmented mirror-ball sculptures in GONE VIRAL allude to disease and its organic, haphazard and intricate growth patterns. These objects were constructed to appear as if they were formed (and potentially continue to form themselves) through a wild, organic logic. Thus, they might be more than objects…capable of spreading a kind of viral will. Crystals are embedded next to miniscule disco balls, next to jagged mirror fragments—each element absorbing/reflecting light differently to demonstrate a cancerous calidoscope of luminous bling.

  Largely, the installation GONE VIRAL and the video JEWEL SPEW are metaphors for overstimulation and visual overindulgence. GONE VIRAL operates as a kind of light battlefield. In order to demonstrate how something unchecked can develop out of control, these highly adorned objects spin endlessly on turn- tables, their reflected light breaking apart even further when it collides with oncoming light from the other objects in the group. They demonstrate a literal display of fragmented perception, like a disco ball with no true orbit and too many light sources. Here, reflected light becomes the symbolic catalyst for the spread of this ?dangerous? overload of reflection and refraction.