Decimate Mesh









(8 images. alt tex included)
This series of altered videos and photogrammetric sculptures implicates post-internet spectatorship as a catalyst for mediated and gaslit iconoclasm. An ISIS propaganda video quickly disseminated by Twitter bots and global news outlets shows the hand and hammer destruction of Assyrian and Hatrene sculptures at the Mosul Museum in northern Iraq. The video presents ideological contradiction; professing iconoclasm while generating new images of a previously quiet collection of objects. The presumed and actualized audience for this spectacle simultaneously becomes aware of and ensnared in the sculptures’ demise.
I alter and re-present several shots from the video. In earlier works from the series, I digitally painted out the perpetrators of the destruction, leaving looped moments of reclaimed agency for the sculptures who now appear to be tearing tarps off themselves to reveal their faces. Later in the series I transitioned to removing the sculptures from the scenes of their destruction; highlighting the dramatic movements of the human actors while dismissing the decimated sculptures from the stunt. The 3d-printed sculptures are built using only the pixels supplied by the video through a photogrammetry process. The accuracy of each print is therefore dependent on its allotted screen time and the stability of the footage.
2000 year old sculpture alerts world to its demise. Altered Video. 2015. 2-second loop. Dimensions variable
Image Description: An appropriated video of a standing sculpture under a thick, semi-transparent plastic wrap that appears, through the aid of visual effects, to repeatedly fling the tarp off itself.
statue of Venus begins its disrobe. Altered Video. 2015. 5-second loop. Dimensions variable.
Image Description: An appropriated video of a monochrome sculpture of Venus under a thick, semi-transparent plastic wrap that appears, through the aid of visual effects, to push the tarp away from itself. The sculpture and main action takes place screen-left while other works of art, as well as a couple of mallets, can be seen amongst the smooth, off-white floors and walls.
Non-Manifold. 2016. 4-Channel video installation. Size variable.
Image Description: A handheld medium wide shot in a museum room showing a plain-clothed man in a white shirt and brown pants approach a stout, white pedestal with a red top. He pushes the air above the pedestal and quickly paces towards something else in the room.
Installation View. Non-Manifold. 2016. 4-Channel video installation. Size variable.
Image Description: A 360 degree panning shot from a tripod0mounted video camera documenting a four-channel video installation in a room where overhead projectors map each wall with a full-bleed video, creating an immersive panorama of moving images. Three of the walls show clips from an ISIS propaganda video detailing the destruction of artifacts at the Mosul Museum in Iraq. In this appropriated version the scenes have, through visual effects manipulation, been emptied of the targeted artifacts to highlight the theatricality of the perpetrators’ movements. The fourth wall shows the work 2000 year old sculpture alerts world to its demise projected through several clear tarps that refract and soften the image.