the ROM is a dialectical system of associations instigated here by the relationship of inside and outside


13 YRS. IN THE REGION OF MEASUREMENT-(nov.1980) Undialectics: with the intent to look at opposites and how they coincide and in order to articulate that place related to but "outside" the polarized, I look to the simplest diagram: the horizontal/vertical axes, and at the point where they are neither or both, I choose a set of opposites (INSIDE/OUTSIDE) and make a working model: THE REGION OF MEASUREMENT. I build a room outside and contiguous with the house at 457 1/2 38th. St., Oakland, CA., enclosing a window and circumscribing the outside. This is a sculpture/installation, usually incorporating video, made of fiberglass panels. Its only entrance is through the window it shares with the house. Through time, the piece goes through various transmorgrifications at different sites and finds its ultimate form in "Functional Prison Object That Fills Itself With The Life Of Others" (1993), a wood and fiberglass watchtower/treehouse. Afurther ramification can be found in "Landless Outpost" (1997) , a collaboration with Jesse Cooday.
e-mail Thurston

back to the
Region of Measurement