T E T H E R

Tether is a two-pole sculptural installation consisting of two freestanding towers whose roughly textured surfaces contain illuminated compartments, miniature figures, and electronic devices. One tower projects a thin green leveling beam from an eye-like opening onto a human bust recessed near the top of the other. Below the projecting aperture, a blue illuminated cavity and a cross-section-like miniature environment reveal an assortment of tiny figures occupying different levels and recesses.

The receiving tower houses a baby-monitor camera and video display that transmit live images of the miniature environment in the opposite tower. The two structures thus maintain a continuous exchange: a beam of light directed toward a human likeness and an electronic gaze returning images of the other structure. Their physical separation is sustained by an otherwise intangible connection.

The installation explores the ambiguous forces that bind bodies to one another, from attachment and mutual dependence to surveillance and control. Such connections can offer protection or impose restraint, and their effects need not be reciprocal. Between the intimacy of a human face and the detached observation of a miniature population, Tether leaves the character of these relationships unresolved. However distinct or withdrawn a body may be, it remains susceptible to the thinnest pathway of influence from another.

Many forces bodies exert on each other are not always visible or readily sensible. They cut in both directions, as in the truism of a thin line between love and hate. Lines of influence can determine the orbit of satellites, just as points of attachment can unmoor lives. Some dependencies elicit unconditional love while surveillance systems can keep populations on a leash. Adversity can make the all-mighty feel as if they're hanging by a thread, while an embryo's link to the maternal placenta is like a diver's or astronaut's umbilical cord. The outcome may be unrelated, as when a spell is cast on a telepathic wavelength, but it is only a random catch that tugs the fishing line. Pleasure or punishment, protection or restraint, ostentatious or subliminal, the modes may vary, and volition may not always be mutual, yet the common factor is that a body, no matter how distinct or withdrawn, reserves such a direct and minimal pathway to another.

Wood; plaster; foam; concrete; paint; leveling beam tool; baby monitoring unit; PLA prints.

Two towers, each measuring approximately 12" x 12" x 49" high and placed 6 to 8 feet apart