The Constant World 2014

2014, sculpture with video, sound, and electronics

4' x 4' x 4'

This new version of 2007's Constant World, with nine live video cameras, presents a utopian world that acts as its own advertisement. This new sculpture, with sound and a slowly evolving video track with text and color is a ceiling mounted assemblage of metal spheres, models, and lights. It portrays a film noir melodrama set in an urban environment that is intercut with text elements. The result, seen on flat screen displays, beckons the viewers to inhabit the place seen onscreen. Drawing from influences as varied as Constant Nieuwenhuis’s models for the utopian New Babylon and the dystopian technological noir of Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville, the project forms a critique of labels. Specifically it questions the ways in which our culture uses language to falsely assign value.