


Two large color projections stand opposite each other, filling the side walls of a small room. Viewers pass between the images on their way through the space. An image of a man alone in a shower room, naked, is seen on one wall as he slowly and methodically cleans his body with a white cloth and a bucket of water. A series of wild and violent images appears on the other wall, showing a figure struggling through fire and water intercut with scenes of the camera point of view aggressively pushing itself through folds of skin into the body's orifices.
The two sets of images represent not only opposing architectural surfaces, but embody opposing energies-peaceful / violent, passive / aggressive, calm / chaotic. Controlled by a computer programmed switcher, the images are never present on opposite walls simultaneously. Instead they appear sequentially, one at a time, displayed according to a mathematically programmed curve that alternates their duration in ever decreasing intervals of time. Starting at one minute, the images and sound switch slowly at first, then faster and faster, finally reaching the limit of the frame rate of the video signal at thirty times per second. This extreme peak condition is maintained for a few moments until both images abruptly end in black and silence and the cycle starts anew.
What begins as a simple slow succession of images gradually becomes a violent, roaring alternation, eventually reaching a blurred merger of the two as the peak switching frequency is reached, exceeding the ability of the human eye and ear to distinguish between distinct pictures and sounds and creating the impression that the two images are, for a brief moment, coexisting simultaneously.
ASU | Herberger College | ASU Art Museum | Internal Resources | Staff Directory
