Anat Pollack

Pinwheel | Shi.ko Ltd., 2007 | SuperBowl Series | Breathe | Peek-A-Boo | Echo & Narcissus Ltd. | Bush by 537 | TV Commercial Series | Sculptural Installations | Nomadika | Curriculum Vitae | Artist Statement | Teaching Philosophy | Bio & Contact

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Lights on Tampa 2009 in Collaboration with Mark Koven 2009	Details
Design and construct a 20 foot Vertical Wind Power Turbine that will be installed atop a 35 foot tower to be utilized in generating the renewable energy to power an interactive / reactive lighting array pointed back onto its self. The visual or aesthetic effect will be of revolving double helix shaped shiny object shooting light across the city of Tampa as if it were a type of large whirling disco ball. This will give a dramatic night light show with the daylight hours filled with a sparkling shimmering light effect on the waters edge of Tampa Bay. Additionally the lights will be effected by the presence of people through use of sensors connected to micro-controllers. A website will be online to allow web surfers access to the visual effect created by the lights as well as the data on energy generated and usage by the lighting array. This project will be completed for the Hillsburrough Public Arts Council and the City of Tampa for the Bienial Lights on Tampa in January of 2009.
Foolish Beasts: Animals Look Back In Collaboration with Dr. Paula Lee 2008
This collaboration between Anat Pollack and Dr. Paula Lee is an installation using video cameras and zoomorphic robots. This work is meant to offer a critical examination of anthropocentric assumptions that situate animals as the "always-observed" subject.
Peek-A-Boo 2006	Details
While a smile shows our canines, insinuating a sinister emotion, so too can a laugh possess a disturbing and menacing quality. In Peek-A-Boo, a simple and fun activity is dissected through repetition. Within the work, the complication of our contemporary life is reflected in the duplicity and layering of this single one game of Peek-A-Boo. Where a single clip would show a pure unabashed laughter sparked by the simplicity of peek-a-boo, once layered and complicated, the repetition takes on a manic and perhaps even sinister feel. As viewers, we know it to be playful yet feel their disturbing effects, due to this amplification of a child's manic behavior.
Breathe 2004	Details
I am continuously working to bridge the gap between the body and the mind. In Breathe, I utilize simple technologies to draw air in and push air out of a rubber bellows. The sound of the air being inhaled and exhaled is meant to offer both an internal and external experience for the viewer. The cycling of the sound is reminiscent of the breath, the sound itself reminiscent of the ocean. In this art piece, a pure machine simulates an interior human experience, forming a recursive relationship with the viewer as they experience their own internal rhythm.
SuperBowl: 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008 2004-Present	Details
This is a 4 wall projection installation. Four years of Superbowl games have been recorded, deconstructed and reconstructed. Although 4 years are represented, there is much similarity in the 4 projections. This work is meant to call attention to our habitual modes of perceiving information and the frenetic nature of mass media. The heavily layered aural and visual information loses its original meaning, becoming random noise, and causes our brains to seek out patterns in the chaos. As the media itself loses its original meaning, it creates an opening in the way that familiar information is experienced.

Shi.ko Ltd., 2003, Shi.ko Ltd. 2007 V.2 2003, 2007	Details
"Shi.ko Ltd." is an exploration of human-computer interaction using an audio interface. The audience participants are invited to enter a small human-sized container alone- in order to teach the "beings" within how to speak. Upon entering the space, the participant notices the 5 small constructed "beings" withwhom they now share the space. Each one of these beings, the Shi.ko's, has an (LED) heartbeat and fiber optic sprouts of hair. Each of the 5 Shi.kos has a distinct voice and mode of interpreting data. In the first interactions, the "beings" act like obedient children, mimicking what the participant has said. Over time, the interaction becomes more complex as the "Shi.ko's" learn and begin to retain what they have learned. The more that they learn, the ruder they become to the participant. In the end, they are conducting a rapid fire dialogue using/exploiting everything you have said plus what every other person who has been in the space has said. The participant is no longer useful. In "Shi.ko Ltd.," I am interested in the idea of interface -- what lies behind that which is visible, by what is masked by that interface, and the gap in the interface between human and machine. Computer interface masks the underlying technology and structure -- the means and the end for those developing the software. I am interested in our expectations when faced with certain codified signs, and the way that changing their meaning has the power to disrupt conditioned responses.

Television Commercial Series 2004-Present	Details
In the TV Commercial Series, I have digitally processed images from television ads as a means of re/appropriating the imagery used by advertisers to sell us material goods. Too often, the imagery and sounds used in commercials have no reference point to the item being sold, but rather are used to target our innermost Desire, an effective advertising technique. This series of work is meant to refine and distill the imagery from these ads. Re/appropriating these images are a way for me to give these spaces back to the view, this offering a space for an experience with the Sublime.

Echo & Narcissus With Adam Goode 2003	Details
"Echo and Narcissus" is a real-time video installation. Within the installation exists a single piece of glass that acts as a mirror. Images projected on to the glass are revealed when the participant stands at a certain angle from the glass. As a mirror, the participants sees a reflection of themselves as well as a layering of images of others who have inhabited the space previously. Over time, their own image appears in the projection, mixed and morphed with the images of others who have been captured on video. The time delay is deliberate as I am trying to create a juncture in the experience of gazing at oneself in real-time, seeing others gazing into the mirror, seeing oneself in the past, and experiencing oneself in the present with the new knowledge of being recorded. This piece, like Desiderata was an exploration of cognition, a step toward simulating the experience of memory using an algorithmic process. In this piece, I am interested in the ghosts of the past. The way that a space can simultaneously feel empty, and full of all of the life that has inhabited it over time. I am also interested in the juncture between the subject and the object, and our desire to see ourselves. Watching this piece then becomes about watching oneself.
Desiderata 2002-2003
"Desiderata" was an attempt to represent the effects of trauma on memory. Using an algorithm to process video, I was attempting to simulate my experience of time as it relates to memory, and the way that we live our lives through the filters of our combined memories. Time as a unit of measurement is sequential, horizontal, one moment following the last. While this is useful for science and language, the "duration" of an experience is generally determined by the intensity of the experience, not by the amount of time which has passed. In trauma, this becomes accentuated: a single moment in time seems to stretch and reverberate ad infinitum, while the actual time passing while performing a mundane task, such as a drive to the store, can seem to disappear entirely from memory, thereby collapsing time. My goal for this project was to simulate the blurring of noise and crystallization of moments that we experience through memories. Just as our memories are stacked vertically within us yet continue to stack up over time, the video is composited vertically while continuing to run sequentially. As the video plays, images disintegrate while others (re)emerge. The effects are long moments of blur, and distinct moments that seem frozen in time.

Nomadika 2000	Details
"Nomadika" was a collaborative work created for the International Sculpture Competition in 2000. This work was part of a live tactical media work as well as existing as an online project. The idea was to query the public about their desires for new electronics as it is contrasted by their fears of losing their liberties.
Sculptural Installations 1997-2001

Audio

Composed Algorithmically Using CSound and Common LISP Music Gam Train

 

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Pinwheel | Shi.ko Ltd., 2007 | SuperBowl Series | Breathe | Peek-A-Boo | Echo & Narcissus Ltd. | Bush by 537 | TV Commercial Series | Sculptural Installations | Nomadika | Curriculum Vitae | Artist Statement | Teaching Philosophy | Bio & Contact

Copyright 2008 by Anat Pollack

anat pollack at hotmail dot com