c a r t a  n e r a

This same summer, bOb, a Lower East Side cafe/club/bar, housed c a r t a  n e r a. Focusing on the social dynamics of the public house, i.e. devised a neighborhood strategy map, a triptych in burlap - complete with colored flags for the bar flies to mark their favorite spots. Behind Tompkins Square Park - the scene of police vs. citizen riots since the nineteenth century - was a surveillance monitor. This was fed by two cameras, one over the club entrance, the other over an interactive kiosk - a computer in a large metal baking oven at an opposite corner of the space. The digital piece was made of five loops: three sequences of communicative flesh (eye, ear, mouth); one generator of conflicting definitions for ideological terms; and an intro-loop that allowed viewers to input temporary statements using the keyboard. Slides projected onto the triptych and macro photographs of human orifices tucked behind it completed the environment. Questions on the original military functions of the computer and of written language were only hinted at.

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S o h o   M o r g u e

S o h o   M o r g u e is meant only to change the environment behind the screen. A combination screen-saver and detective narrative, the piece was commissioned by Soho New Media in the fall of 1994. It is an investigation into the collapse of the art market as touted in the mainstream press and evidenced by the sidewalk disaster on the big gallery opening night of September 16, 1994. Our stated objective was no more than the presentation of the cathode ray tube as temporary art object.

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c u t i s i n t [ e ] r a c t i b i l i s

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modified 01: 30: 99