ENERGY EXCHANGE

This is an photo document of an interactive project at Babson College's interfaith chapel from 2019.

​I've been making interactive artwork for the past couple of months (and about 18 years before that). Interactive artwork sounds a little highbrow, but in fact, it's just like a turnstyle, or a book, or a shoe: it's something you are meant to engage with in a physical or experiential way, rather than simply look at. 

My books are interactive art projects, in that you pick up, flip through, and experience the object to experience the work.  Which is the idea. 

I never set out to make this kind of work, but I like it because it's a playful way to attempt to embody an idea. It's different than installation art because an installation isn't necessarily something for you to touch (but something that can be a whole room or environment). It's not like sculptures or paintings I make either, because those are also not for touching. 

I sometimes make interactive projects, like some of the work in the upcoming show Energy Transfer at the Ann Arbor Art Center, because I like things to be activated, energized, and as simple in concept as I can make them. 

One project in this show invites you to place an object, in this case stickers, on a surface, as you have certain specific and familiar experiences, like seeing something pass by out the window.  Another project invites you to imbue a mundane activity, like putting away a dish, with a specific intention, like sending someone love. 

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In a way, all objects around us are there to be picked up, interacted with, related to in a particular way, much like all the objects in the video game Mindcraft are tools, or implements, for your use.  In another way, everything is a little like an icon on a screen, also there for you to engage, like a light-switch in a dream. 

I've been playing with 'things' in this way for about eighteen years, and slowly the methods get simpler. The only way I can really know if something is working is to try it out, and then refine it over time. By trying it out, I mean sharing it. Because unlike objects, you are more than an object, dynamic and mysterious, and by sharing my work with you, my work comes alive and yields insight. So you are the magic ingredient in my work, showing me where there's life in something, (even if you are not loving the work it might be so), and where I will keep digging. 

I studied art and philosophy (religious studies but same thing really) at Brown, and in a way the conceptual and interactive projects are a form of embodied philosophy. An experiential way to share, versus making you read a paper. But here you are reading so - hah! 

The exhibition has four artists and all of the work is interaction or installation.  There will be shimmying plants and spinning tip ties, helmets and a pile of things unearthed from the basement. It will be the first of many interesting shows at the center this year, and it is up until Feb 27. Come by and try some sacred dish shuffling, lift weights with bags of sugar, and see what it's like.

Further details on the show: 
Energy Transfer 
Up through Feb 27.  Talk at 11 am Sunday Feb 19. 
117 Main Street, Ann Arbor MI 48104 (734) 994-8004

Some related projects on my website:
Visual Traces of Groups at Work
Attendant
Empty Full
You Are Legend