Spencer Award Recipient exhibits "BUG"

Release date: February 19, 2008 |

 BUG an installation by Greg St. Pierre

The installation entitled "BUG" is an interactive environment. This interaction exists on multiple levels as participants inside and outside the gallery determine what each piece actually looks like. One of the features of the environment is a video game where two opposing players compete non-competitively. In doing this the two players collaborate with two moving, lifelike toys to create a single landscape between the four of them. The installation also features two collages that attempt to defy reality and exist in two places simultaneously. Each piece of each piece collage exists in a separate room that is inhabited by one person. The static images are broadcast live through web cams to the Internet where all the separate pieces interact. Each person's interaction with their private space, symbolized by the lighting on each piece, changes the positive and negative space of each collage.

The environment explores an interesting juxtaposition of interactions and relationships. This environment takes many of its roots from dualism. One example of this is the way it attempts to portray complex concepts in a simplistic and superficial dialect. (An example of this can be seen in a video that illustrates different scenarios based on a simple DVD screensaver). Such superficiality relates back to popular culture and the theme of voyeurism.

A prominent feature of the environment is the way in which it is always changing and adjusting in real time. Although controlled by other people, the environment questions it s own individual life state. Every aspect of the installation seems to question how it exists and whether it exists at all. The symbols used in the collage exist on their own but also comp;e,emt eacj ptjer / The entire collage itself questions its own identity as well, as it only exists on the Internet and takes up  no physical space. The environment has two collages that exist on oposite walls that attempt to exist as one. The exhibit does not attemplt to mimic reality but provide an appropriate reciprocation to it.

This exhibition was funded by the Eleanor Spencer and Innovation grants from Goucher College and can be seen the Corrin Galllery in the Meyerhoff Arts Center at Goucher College from February 7 - 27, 2008.