James Hartunian: TIMBER!

January 2 - 30, 2025 Opening: Thursday, January 2, 6:00 — 8:00pm James Hartunian investigates the human experience by blurring the boundary between reality and abstraction and offering a glimpse into a speculative world. TIMBER! is not a real forest in Washington state or anywhere else, but a recreation of such through robotic forms. Albert Einstein once asked physicist Abraham Pais, “Do you really believe the moon only exists if you look at it?” Hartunian invites us to reconsider the very fabric of reality. Just as the moon is a celestial body whose “moon-ness” is subjective to the observer, so too is the forest shaped by the eyes that look upon it. For some creatures, the forest is a habitat, for others, it’s a mythic landscape, and for the machines at the center of TIMBER!, it’s a disembodied series of signals, patterns, and data. TIMBER! reimagines nature through the lens of technology. Crafted with cyborgian machines, Hartunian stages an ambiguous setting, where the glow of man-made fireflies is powered by a synthetic light rather than the chemical reaction of luciferin in their abdomens. The “insects” cast eerie shadows as they whirl, driven by motors instead of wings. Meanwhile, a grassland grows beneath engineered suns, and a tree falls again and again, its impact never realized, a thud suspended in eternal anticipation. In this uncanny world, we may confront the paradox of perception: If no one is there to witness it, does this forest—strange and synthetic—still make a sound?

Event Links

Website: https://go.evvnt.com/2788156-0

Read More

View Less