TransporTransform
April 9 - 14, 2007
Gallery D300, CalArts, Valencia, CA
I work with the manipulation of scale, maps, color, and shape in order to exercise further control over an environment. Shipping containers are made of steel and are meant to be indestructible. By inverting their materiality, and making the containers out of paper, I essentially remove their strength as sturdy objects for the movement of goods. In turn, the containers become delicate formations of color and shape.
The structure of the sculpture is determined by a satellite photograph retrieved from the Internet. The containers are placed on the floor by color, size, and height based on the map created from this photograph. Like a photo interpreter, I am using the two-dimensional image ‘seen’ by a machine and re-processing it back into a three-dimensional space. I am using a system in which I determine the number of containers on the top layer, based on color and size, and then count the stacks based on shadow height. By using this system I am not only paralleling the relationship of a map to its physical site, but my process of counting doubles as a potential sampling of all the world’s containers used in trade from a specific site and moment.
download full statement
