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Featured Artist |
| Jeff Shore and Jon Fisher |
| View Artist's Website |
| View Jeff Shore Biography |
| View Jon Fisher Biography |
| View Artadia Award Press Release |
| View Cliff Hanger Exhibition |
| View Sky Machine Exhibition |
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Cliff Hanger, 2009 |
| With this latest work, the Texas-based artist duo breaks new ground in the development of their sophisticated "story-telling machines". Cliff Hanger's narrative is assembled from five separate scene-generating contraptions that output timed segments of a choreographed black and white "movie". The atmosphere of their work is akin to Ansel Adams and Hiroshi Sugimoto photography imbued with early David Lynch film noir. The creation of these works is a collaborative process between the artists: Shore develops the mechanics and the set-scenes, while Fisher programs the microchips and composes the soundtracks using original compositions, digital audio samples and mechanically operated instruments. The combination of all these elements results in a poetic complexity that is both surreal and cinematic. |
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| Sky Machine 3, River, 2008 wood, plastic, metal, motors, sensors, surveillance camera, sand, computer, lcd monitors, speakers, wires, custom electronics Dimensions variable |
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| Sky Machine 3, River, 2008 (Detail) |
This installation based art work sets into motion a carefully controlled, real-time, live-action orchestration of light, computer controlled algorithms, and camera video equipment used to create an extraordinary landscape dominated by a moving cloud filled sky. Sky Machine's live-action image of a moving sky over a landscape, and the accompanying soundtrack, are generated by the sculpture itself and evolves without repetition. The action occurs in a constructed miniature diorama of a river canyon. The changing imagery of the sky is created by a vibrating pan and tilting plastic tray containing different sizes of sand particles that move freely in response to the vibration generated by the sculpture; this is all captured with a small video camera and transfered to a monitor for real-time viewing. Shore and Fisher combine numerous engineering elements all for the sake of recreating something as simple and elegant as clouds moving over a majestic river canyon. This sculptural installation alludes to the grand black and white nature photography of Ansel Adams and combines elements of the mysterious, atmospheric photography of Hiroshi Sugimoto. |