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Selected wall labels. In TIMELAPSE, art exhibition catalog. Indiana University School of Fine Arts (SoFA)
Gallery. 2007 By Jennifer Eberbach
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Noel Anderson
Chipin' du Kwiet
Mixed-media installation, silk-screening,
performance
 In order to create Chipin' du Kwiet, printmaker Noel Anderson draws
inspiration from the people and objects that have previously occupied the SoFA Gallery. Viewing the gallery space itself as
a repository of memories, Anderson's month-long installation will incorporate a "ceremonial figure" named "Brer,"
who will alter the work over time, revealing the fragmentary nature of memories.
"It is my intention (with
this work) for people to acknowledge history, its importance physically and psychologically," Anderson says, "You
remember the small things and then conflate them together and form memories."
Anderson hopes his viewers will
reevaluate the importance of their own physical environments, asking what memories their own individual spaces have created,
and what memories the viewer has taken away. "All history is important," Anderson says, "from the systematic
destruction of a people, to the ring the oppressor wore to his/her children's christening. Absolute history affects absolutely."
Anthony Bowers & David Rastall Compages Inanima
Mixed-media installation, recycled computer components, robots
 The reanimated organisms that crawl across the ground and swing from the canopies in Anthony Bowers and David Rastall's Compages Inanima were created from discarded organic materials - bones, skin,
and branches - and technological debris salvaged from dumpsters. The piece explores "the power of life and the possibilities
of artificial intelligence," Bowers says.
Like a primordial soup, the new life created by the combination
of organic matter and robotic parts is similar to the original creation of life. "The very first organic life [was] awkward."
Rastall says. "An extra limb here, a bad heart there..." Over the course of the TIMELAPSE exhibition, the artists
anticipate that some of the robotic creatures will die, disintegrate, evolve, or be destroyed.
The process of death
and evolution in the work reflects the natural rhythms of life. "Those that thrived will pass on elements to new pieces
down the line," Rastall says. "Those that didn't will go extinct."
Jonathan Dankenbring
Iconostasis
Historic architecture, pre-manufactured shelving unit, wood, drywall, latex. High
Definition Video
 Our built environment - whether house, office building, or art gallery - has, over the course of time, been used by many different
people for many purposes. Behind the white wall of the SoFA Gallery, for instance, evidence of the previous uses of the building
exists. Jonathan Dankenbring's project Iconostasis uncovers the
evidence of these previous uses, and explores new uses of the space.
"We use our built environment differently
throughout time," Jonathan Dankenbring says, "Function is an issue of perspective and time."
The
project will be created in equal measures by the artists and by the space itself. "I have my own ideas about its history
and perspective," Dankenbring says, "whereas the space itself has been present and bears its scars."
Although
Dankenbring recognizes the site-specific nature of his work, Iconostasis does
not fall into the trap of much site-specific work, Dankenbring says, "Most site-specific labeled work diminishes the
space to a kind of four-dimensional open canvas," Dankenbring says. His work, by contrast, aims to be created by the
space, as much as it is created within the space. During the last week of the TIMELAPSE show, Dankenbring will display a series
of drawings and videos that document the installation's progress.
Riva Jewell-Vitale & Brad Wicklund
2007-06-11T23:30:00 UTC
Archival inkjet prints on ragpaper
 Twice a day this summer, at exactly 11:30 and 23:30 Coordinated Universal Time, artists Riva Jewell-Vitale and Brad Wicklund
took separate pictures of objects in their immediate surroundings. Jewell-Vitale spent the summer in Japan, and Wicklund lived
at home in Bloomington. After Jewell-Vitale returned home, the artists paired their photographs, creating a series of diptychs.
Taken as a whole, the series of diptychs show a remarkable
similarity of subjects, compositions, and color pallets. Neither of the artists invested much forethought into individual
shots. Each of the artists carried their cameras with them at all times, snapping images when the clock said that they should.
"I had my camera with me all the time and I was shooting anyway," Jewell-Vitale says. "I was caught
in the middle of what I was doing and would take an image."
The similarities between photographs are strictly
circumstantial, the artists say. But, they add, the project supplied them with "a kind of mental contact," "Because
we both knew that we were taking pictures at the same time" Wicklund says, "it decreased the mental distance. You
know what this person is doing, just as you know what someone else in the other room would be doing."
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