Imaginal Expression 2004-2005 two computers, two ATI Radeon 9700 Pro cards, computer visioning system, four video projectors, router, four video extenders, cables

In this work, I continue to explore issues surrounding technology’s reconfiguration of the human body. Technoscience involves forms of disembodiment in which the body is conceptualized as data rather than physical presence. I use three-dimensional images of protein molecules to implicate the body in a complex interplay between representations of embodiment and assumptions underlying visualization technology. These protein molecules are the basic units of living cells, direct all biological processes, and are responsible for alterations in the genetic makeup of all living organisms. The visual representation of these molecules exists through software that converts biotic code into three-dimensional visual images. This codification enables the reduction of the body to a digital archive in which the body and its experience are conceptualized as data rather than physical presence. In order to reconnect these extreme abstractions to their original human physical sources, three dimensional protein molecules were constructed and then wrapped with scanned imagery that references the living body—flesh, hair, blood vessels, bruising, and scarring. My intention is to implicate the body in a complex interplay between representations of embodiment and ideologies underlying visualization technology

When the visitor enters the gallery space, a large, constantly moving “soup” of molecular components is seen projected on the wall. Real time animation based on inverse kinematic physics causes this motion to constantly change with no repetition. As the visitor is sensed in the gallery space some of the components begin to coalesce into a complete molecule that follows the movement of the visitor. A computer visioning system that was developed as part of the software initiates this response. In addition to responding to the movement of a viewer, a molecule also has the capability to exchange its fleshy covering with another molecule when the motion of more than one viewer brings them into proximity with each other. When a visitor leaves the space, that molecule will degenerate over time. As a result, the visitor participates in a continuous cycle of generation, mutation and dissolution.