Science and Progress-Tony Oursler- week 5

Tony Oursler received a BFA from the California Institute for the Arts in 1979. He has since participated in numerous international exhibitions including a mid-career survey, Introjections, which was on view from 1999 to 2001 at the Williams College Museum of Art in Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Des Moines Art Center. Primarily known for his innovative combination of video, sculpture, and performance, Oursler's work explores the relationship between the individual and mass media systems with humor, irony, and imagination. The artist's work is represented in a number of major museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Tate Gallery in London.

Tony Oursler’s 2006 show “Thought Forms” has three large sculptures

with background projections

to present the atmosphere in each galley. He use scripts which

are related to the elements: Water, Dust and Mercury and identify

them and combine it to the flux of humanity.

Oursler use tradition theatrical

techniques, grease paint and actors along with video editing, but

this new group of works include computer

animation. The group Eye Beam, Art and Technology worked closely

with him to make these images. He has also used a 5.1 surround

sound system in each room to highlight the three dimensionality

of the combination poetry, sound effects.

“Nix”, the water sculpture, has a melting

appearance while the background projection creates the impression

of light reflecting off water at night. Tony includes

mythological, environmental references in this personification of

the element that cover most of this planet; water. The title

“Nix” is the name of a water spirit that would lure people,

seducing them playfully into the water at night and drown them.

In this installation the myth is a departure point for

speculation: is water taking revenge on humanity due to the

stresses on the natural resource that we need but do not protect?

Water is a sad

salty teardrop and a vast oceanic expanse. As distasteful as it

may be for some to realize it is traveling from body

to body. The neutrality of water being odorless, tasteless,

colorless allows us to bend it to our will, personified it would

be vulnerable a push over with no personality. Yet it is capable

of causing enormous natural disasters. This duality is captured

in “Nix”

Mercury’s background is created of stars, which bringing

A question where exactly are we, on this planet or another?

The sculpture exaggerates

our obsession with self-image by highlighting the natural

reflective mirror-like aspect of the element. Rich in metaphor, it is

a volatile element that is easily broken yet highly poisonous and

often associated with madness. In brain chemistry, sometimes a few

molecules make all the difference in the world.

Dust is hanged from the ceiling with projections on the

two walls. The dust cloud is floating in a baron

landscape of suggestive rising smoke. As the sphere roils arms,

eyes, legs, and mouths appear and disappear in the cloud of dust

. It is in every breath we breathe.

All three installations share the state of flux, a point at which

formation of dispersions could take place.