March 31, 2001 - May 5, 2001
Postmasters
Gallery is pleased to announce the first New York solo exhibition of Kristin
Lucas, recognized as one of the most exciting of a new generation of artists
working in video, installation, performance, and the World Wide Web. ³alias²
will open on Saturday, March 31 and will remain on view through May 5.
Lucas¹ work addresses the complexity of our relationship toward electronic
dream, automation, and the psychological effects of rapid spread technology.
She rebels against paths that have been predetermined for us, exposes
the sense of social isolation and alienation from the computer/television/electronic
media that she posits as a surrogate for personal interaction. In computer
terminology "alias" is a shortcut to an original - something traceable;
in the physical world "alias" alludes to disembodiment, detachment, and
disguise. The notion of "alias" continues to change as we become further
integrated with networks. We can now inhabit and effect environments without
our physical bodies being present. "It seems counter-productive to draw
lines between fiction and reality now. I deal with the distance and involvement
by convincing myself that notions of reality are self-serving, and these
notions are subject to change." In this show Lucas will premiere her two-channel
video installation "Involuntary Reception", about a young woman whose
mind and body are inhabited by unusually large levels of electromagnetivity.
Also on view will be ³Mobile Units² - a group of kinetic sculptures, a
series of mousepad drawings, and a mural. Kristin Lucas was born in 1968.
She received a B.F.A. from The Cooper Union, New York. Her work has been
screened at Artists Space, New York, and at festivals in Bonn, London,
Mexico City, Montreal, Tokyo, and Utrecht. In 1998 Lucas launched a website
with Dia Center for the Arts in New York (http://www.diacenter.org/lucas).
Her work was included in the 1997 Biennial exhibition of the Whitney Museum
of American Art, New York and in exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art,
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Museum, LIC, and the New Museum of Contemporary
Art, New York; the 7e Semaine Internationale de Video, Geneva; Windows,
Brussels; Kunsthaus Glarus, Glarus, Switzerland; O.K Center for Contemporary
Arts Upper Austria, Linz, Austria; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia;
steirischer herbst 2000 "
She lives in Brooklyn. following are short descriptions of the artworks in the exhibition: ³Involuntary Reception², 2000 Two Channel DVD Video Installation, Color, Stereo Sound, 17 minutes The central character of this video is a young woman whose mind and body are inhabited by unusually large levels of electromagnetivity, performed by Lucas. The two-channel aspect of this video echoes her paradoxical relationship to technology. On the one hand her mutation has exiled her from popular electronic culture, on the other hand it has enabled her to self-broadcast without the aid of hardware. How does this position her in the eyes of society at large? She is a spectacle, to some a victim, to others a superhero, civilization's least known potential enemy, a spiritual leader, and an overgrown teenager adapting to the precipitation of technological standards. The formal appearance of the video is a diptych: two full-motion videos positioned side-by-side. The double image video format is treated in a variety of ways, employing a visual vocabulary of flips and flops, mirrors and Rorschach resembling moving images that add layers of meaning to the content of the monologue. The interplay between the visuals and the monologue bring current post human/body politic issues to the forefront. In particular references are made to surveillance, disembodiment through teleportation, and genetic cloning. This character's story is complex. She is not sure which team she is siding with. She is tired of making these decisions: left click or right click, heads or tails, zeros or ones. She is hungry but she is allergic to everything. She gets her power out of falling, crashing. "Still going strongŠ Nothing beats the Copper Top!" ³Mobile Units², 2000-2001 Pet rocks of the future, as Lucas nicknames them, are newly evolving species who gain their vitality by sucking up and integrating the discards of consumer culture. Mobile Units feature their low-level intelligence by communicating through a Magic 8 Ball, a push button with swirling light, or by adjustment of antennas for improved reception. The mobility of these lush, green, robot-like blobs-on-wheels are entirely dependent on human power; users may pull them around the gallery by their leashes. ³Mousepad Drawings² (series of 15), 1999 The artist filled her mouse with ink and performed routine tasks such as "Organizing Desktop" and "Netsearch: Bobby Fischer: 12 of 123,052 matches" and by playing computer games such as "Maximum Space" and "Pizza Rush". ³Mr. Potato Head (with Rash)² ,1996 An adaptation of this famous childhood toy, Mr. Potato Head is covered with blinking LEDs, resembling a rash. The sculpture is plugged into a wall socket and lies in a pool of resin, resembling a superhero cape or a puddle of vomit. ³Sunset², 2000 A muted and banded representation of the colors of a fading sunset from brown through yellow, painted as a wall mural.