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Often works were entirely constructed
of the archeology of an incident. In 1972, I rented a
room in the Dante Hotel. The identity of a person who
could have occupied this space was defined and reflected
by the objects in this location. In painting, it might
be called negative space. Books, glasses, cosmetics and
clothing were selected to reflect the education, personality
and socioeconomic background of the provisional identities.
Pink and yellow light bulbs cast shadows and audiotapes
of breathing emitted a persistant counterpoint to the
local news playing on the radio. Visitors entered the
hotel, signed in at the desk, and received keys.
I originally intended to keep the
room permanently accessible, gathering dust and being
naturally changed through the shifting flow of viewers.
But "real life" intervened. Nine months later, a man named
Owen Moore came to see the room at 3 a.m. and phoned the
police. They came to the hotel, confiscated the elements
and took them to central headquarters where they are still
waiting to be claimed. It was an appropriate narrative
closure. In its tenuous and short lived existance, the
Dante Hotel marked my path towards interactivity.
I originally intended to keep the
room permanently accessable, gathering dust and being
naturally changed through the shifting flow of viewers.
But "real life" intervened. Nine months later, a man named
Owen Moore came to see the room at 3 a.m. and phoned the
police. They came to the hotel, confiscated the elements
and took them to central headquarters where they are still
waiting to be claimed. It was an appropriate narrative
closure.
Eventually other temporary works were
installed in such unlikely places as casinos of Las Vegas,
store windows in New York, even walls of San Quentin Prison.
In each the idea was the same; to transform what already
existed through an interactive negotiation of simulated
or "virtual" reality" as well as to define an"identity"
of each context in terms of the "other", or what was not
there -- to create a presence out of absence.
It seemed important to liberate the
essence of the person who might have lived in room 47
of the Dante Hotel; to flesh out experience through real
life.
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