Originally published in Out of Bounds, exhibition catalogue,Nexus Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, 1996, pp. 6-12.

CURATORIAL CONVERSATION (EXCERPTS)

Annette DiMeo Carlozzi and Julia A. Fenton

Editor's Note: After selecting the artists for this exhibition, thecurators met on several occasions to reflect on their approach, the influencesthat guided them in their journey, and the artists and work they had chosen.Following are issues they explored and excerpts of their conversations.

Can you elaborate on restrictions you imposed on your selectionsof the artists and any structure you defined for yourselves before youbegan the studio visits?

ADC: Even though we limited ourselves to the southeastern corner ofthe United States, location truly became irrelevant. Eduardo Kac, for instance,says that he lives everywhere by virtue of his electronic connections.It was important to us in organizing this show that we structure a processof discovery for ourselves. We set upon a very ambitious task, to lookat more work, visit more artists, have more conversations than had beendone for any other show in the region. We wanted to see the work that wasout there first for ourselves, to discover it anew, and come to conclusionsthat had not been influenced by anything other than our own working process.

Besides Bailey, Bui, and Duval-Carrié, which of the otherartists in this exhibition take on the role of shaman for their culture?

ADC: Well, I suppose the notion of shaman can also be applied to Kac,in the sense that he is involved in technological experimentation -- akind of wizardry! His innovations in holography, telecommunications events,and conceptual art that uses electronic media have created a new territorythat bridges the disciplines of literature, linguistics, and the visualarts.

JAF: We tend to look at the role of magician and shaman as belongingto past cultures. However, in our technological world, one who has thepower of information, who can command technology and thus command us, isa shaman, an intermediary between natural society and the supernaturalpowers of cyberspace. Those of us who are less than technically proficientconsider new technologies to be mysterious and magical. Kac performs theshaman's role. He uses this technology to express a personal psychology.His installation is a moving presentation about self-definition. Many artistswho deal with new technologies have difficulty making their soul shinethrough the circuit boards. Kac's work is a probing examination of whohe is. His parents are from Europe, he was raised in South America, andeducated in Chicago. He uses extraordinarily current technology to investigatenot only problems of semiotics and the structure of language, but alsoto investigate himself as a stranger in a strange land.

ADC: At the same time that Kac is trying to define himself, the essenceof his own experience and his own personal inquiry, he's also positioninghimself as everyman. In fact, many artists who deal with issues of identityare dealing with universally shared experiences and can speak as everyman.

How does this exploration of identity affect the observer's perceptionof the work?

JAF: Kac's work is beautiful in its simplicity, even in its use of advancedtechnology. His work has immediacy for a diverse audience, partly becauseof his use of humor and partly because his work is participatory. Kac workshard to make his message accessible without bastardizing what he's saying.Rara Avis, the work he create for Out of Bounds, is a portrait of everywomanor everyman that invites one to identify with it. By seeing what the personin the portrait sees, one becomes the portrait. It's a sophisticated installationabout the complexities of perception and of life.

What part does the exploration of technology play in the works inthe exhibition?

JAF: Elizaberth King's pieces are as much involved with technology asare Kac's works, but in a very different way. Both artists work with objectsthat are minutely scaled, and mechanically moved. Kac's works involve bothvirtual and actual reality. King's pieces are always poised to move; theyare just at the moment of coming into being. Looking at them, one feelslike a voyeur, watching the edge of animacy. One has a reverence towardsthese inanimate, cold, ceramic, metal, wooden objects. King balances allher work delicately on the cusp of life.

ADC: Despite the whiz-bang technology that Kac brings to bear in gettinghis message across, he employs a very under-stated use of technology. Evenin the robotics, which combine the most baroque elements, he creates avery self-contained presence. His work for Out of Bounds issues an invitationto the viewer to participate through interacting with elements and imagininghow one's world view changes as a result of taking on a role. It is anunderstated piece. One has to come prepared to let it unfold. It wouldseem, given his incredible expertise with any kind of technology, thatKac could have used more bells and whistles if he wanted to. But it's neverabout the bells and whistles. Technology is a tool in the service of theidea, the particular intersection between a thought, a phrase, and a meaningthat he's seeking.

JAF: Indeed, Kac's technology is not primary. He approaches technologywith the sensibility of a poet. In his work one begins to see technologyboth in terms of the limits it places on the human mind as well as theexpansive quality that it generates.

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