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Mind's Eye
installation

stretched canvas membrane / backlit flowchart that brightens and dims /
3 channels of video / 9 monitors / camera supplying live images of
motorized switching mechanism that controls the lights


Black canvas is stretched across the width and height of a room. It is back-lighted. A large glowing flow chart appears on the canvas. It slowly brightens and then slowly dims; sometimes it dominates and sometimes it is subordinate to the video images inside each shape of the flowchart. There are three different videos playing on the nine monitors. The same image may be visible on several monitors at once. Two old computer monitors have amber and one has a green screen meant to transmit only text and data. There is a black and white surveillance monitor and six color monitors.

The videos are each a sequence of a few seconds of archetypal images: a door opens, an eye blinks, feet descend a staircase.  Sometimes a screen goes black. There is a larger central video of a rotating model of DNA. One monitor shows the movements -- real time -- of the motorized mechanism that is making the lights brighten and dim; there is a live camera aimed at the mechanism.

"Mind's Eye" is about the activities of the brain -- as if we could see all the information that occupies our brain at one time.  Flowcharts are designed to illustrate relationships or processes, such as deliberating on our way to a conclusion.  We are hard wired in some of our brain processes and other input comes from our senses.  Sometimes a logical sequence leads to a conclusion, and sometimes there are diversions (serendipity) or dead ends. 

 

 

1999-2013  Adrienne Klein