Eternity at the Niagara Artists Centre

Eternity (2010) is currently on view in the Plate Glass Gallery at the Niagara Artists Centre in St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada. The exhibition runs 30 June – 31 August, 2012.

A new, and hopefully improved, artist statement

I am an interdisciplinary artist whose work commonly takes the form of kinetic, interactive, and time-based sculpture. I often use language and time as sculptural materials. The inventor Charles Babbage once said, “Machines have been taught arithmetic instead of poetry.” In a way, I teach machines poetry. I also teach them to stop making sense.

Like found objects, written language appeals to my desire to provide my audience with a very basic level of accessibility. Any literate person can hardly avoid reading, and thus understanding, any text placed before them. The words and phrases that intrigue me most are found in our everyday vocabulary, simple words that have many definitions and thereby allow for multiple layers of meaning. If such a word or phrase is constructed in three dimensions, it can be broken down into its most fundamental parts, and assembled and disassembled over time or as a result of viewer interaction. Words can appear and disappear, allowing the work’s meaning to remain in flux and illustrating how language is constantly being reshaped by our interactions.

“Eternity” (2010) is a wall-mounted sculpture that was made in collaboration with Mike Fleming. It consists of 30 electric clocks rear-mounted to a large sheet of white acrylic whose hands collectively spell the word ETERNITY once every twelve hours. Like most of my work, “Eternity” investigates the close relationship between language, image and time. The incessant birth, death and rebirth of that word is a metaphor for the fleeting nature of our own existence, and for our desire to live forever. Time, by definition, is “the indefinite continued progress of existence, and events in the past, present and future regarded as a whole.” As we mark, measure and keep time, so too should we contemplate and evaluate the ways we spend it. Time is the ultimate currency.

Making art is like speaking in tongues. I am compelled to speak without knowing exactly what I’m saying. My work requires an interpreter – someone willing to step forward (sometimes literally), to investigate, to decipher, and to translate the work’s message. Because my art practice is driven by concept as opposed to process, my most successful work is made in collaboration. Ideas are always better when they’re bounced around a bit. Many artists enjoy working alone in their studios, but I prefer making work in conversation. It allows me to share the experience, the excitement, the responsibility and the success with another person. The final product is essentially also a collaboration, this time between the artists and the audience. In the end, the work is yours as much as it is mine.

Keeping Time - A solo exhibition at COOP Gallery

I recently got back from a two-week road trip through the south, during which I installed a solo exhibition at COOP Gallery in Nashville, Tennessee. Here are some images of the work on view (click on titles for more images and info):

 Keeping Time
framed archival inkjet print

NOW
kinetic sculpture that spells the word now once every second

Pulse Machine 
electromechanical sculpture with a human lifespan, made in collaboration with Alexander Reben

Half as Long as Yesterday

twelve foot line drawing, drawn over the course of twelve hours

All the Time
a clock with twelve functioning hour hands

Equation
neon

And here is the info from the press release:

Keeping Time
by Alicia Eggert
June 2nd – 30th, 2012

Opening reception June 2nd, 6-9pm

"Time is connected to language. One needs to be able to describe an event to recall it to another person. A clock maker is called a horologist, a Greek term derived from their word for time and speech. Our conception of time and being able to recount events is a grounding mechanism. From seconds to decades we add markers to our personal timeline. Time can conflict itself. Real time fights with our memory as the actual accounts of events shift into concise fragments. Alicia Eggert’s work asks the question how much should we trust the instruments of time we have come to rely on.

For the month of June COOP Gallery will be presenting “Keeping Time”, by Alicia Eggert. “Keeping Time” will present different ways of seeing and understanding time. The exhibition will include drawing, photography and kinetic sculpture. One kinetic sculpture repeatedly creates and destroys NOW; another reveals the hidden mathematics of life. Cyclical, linear, finite and infinite representations of time are juxtaposed. Change is the only constant.

The opening reception will feature the birth of Pulse Machine, an electromechanical sculpture with a human lifespan that was made in collaboration with Boston-based artist and engineer, Alexander Reben."

NOW, 2012

DC motor, Arduino microcontroller, acrylic, plywood, mixed media

The red acrylic line segments align to spell the word ‘NOW’ approximately once every second. Made with help from Alexander Reben.

Pulse Machine, 2012

kick drum, solenoid, flip digit numerals, Arduino microcontroller, mixed media

This electromechanical sculpture was 'born' in Nashville, Tennessee on 2 June 2012, at 6:18 PM. It has been programmed to have the average lifespan of babies born in Tennessee on that same day: approximately 78 years. The kick drum beats its heartbeat (at 60 beats per minute), and the mechanical counter displays the number of heartbeats remaining in its lifetime. An internal, battery-operated clock keeps track of the passing time when the sculpture is unplugged. The sculpture will die once the counter reaches zero. Made in collaboration with Alexander Reben.

Clock Hand Drawings

For my upcoming show at Coop Gallery in Nashville, I am making a series of circle drawings that are inspired by Daniel Eatock's One Hour Circles. I am drawing 60 sixty-second circles (titled "Second Hands"), 12 one-hour circles (titled "Minute Hands") and 1 twelve-hour circle (titled "Hour Hand"). The drawings are done with permanent marker on paper. I'm also making a series of three drawings that take advantage of the fact that the marker bleeds through the paper, by placing a piece of paper behind each series (titled "Second Hand Bleed", "Minute Hand Bleed", and "Hour Hand Bleed"). It's a really fun project. More photos soon!

All the time.

This is something silly I made today... it's a clock with 12 hour hands. So it's always all the time.

I am on fire.

Make Time, Take Time

This semester I am teaching a class called Art & Time at Bowdoin College. My first assignment was inspired by “The Clock” (2011) by Christian Marclay, and “Real Time: Sweepers Clock” (2009) by Maarten Baas. Each student was asked to film themselves “performing the time” for one hour. Each of their videos functions as a clock, accurately depicting the passing minutes in either analog or digital form. The video documentation of their performances have been sequenced to create a 24-hour-long “YouTube clock,” which can be viewed on the website maketimetaketime.com. Philadelphia-based artist Ryan Hinkel has designed the website so that it synchronizes the videos with the local time on a visitor’s computer. The site is ultimately a functioning clock, literally “playing the time” from the moment you arrive.

Please visit the site to see the project in action on your personal computer. To view each video individually, visit our “ArtandTime” Channel on YouTube.

(The video above is one that I made with Mike Fleming for 3:00-4:00 AM, sped up to be one minute long).

A work in progress...

Imagine this indecipherable string of numbers/letters in white neon, wrapping around the walls of a gallery. When some of the neon turns off, a decipherable statement is revealed...
Click on the images to view them larger, and advance back and forth between them to see what it says.

Promise Land, 2012

88” x 128” x 84”

laser cut plywood letters, 2x4’s, milk paint

Mike Fleming and I will be erecting and photographing this sign in different landscapes around the country this summer. 

You are (on) an island, 2012

Mike Fleming and I recently reinstalled this sculpture with a new wood base. We're hoping to show it in New York this summer, and in Sydney this fall. Keep your fingers crossed!

New work in progress

Bowdoin College takes a two-week spring break, so I am getting busy and making new work. I have two solo shows this year - one at Coop Gallery in Nashville, TN in June, and another at the Coleman Burke Gallery in Brunswick, ME in October.

This sign is going to be erected and photographed on "unattractive" vacant properties in Maine. I'm not sure if I will show it or the photographs in either of the shows, but it feels good to finish cooking something I've let simmer on the back burner since last summer.

Blue Collar

I am really inspired by Ed Ruscha's "Blue Collar" Series right now (painted in 1992).

The construction of time.

I am really inspired by the work of Mark Formanek (above) and Maarten Baas (below). Both of these videos were featured alongside Eternity in the O'clock exhibition at the Triennale Design Museum in Milan. They both feature performances of people literally constructing the time in real time. Genius!

You think of all the other ways that your life could have been, but will you marvel at the way that it has gone?

Woody Guthrie's New Years Resolutions from 1942 (from here)

(title is a quote from Cloud Atlas)

Now, 2008

This is quick sculpture I made back in 2008. An oldie but a goodie, so to speak. It was made by cutting the word 'now' out of cardboard in cursive, and then cutting the letters apart and attaching them to hands on three separate clocks. The N is attached to a second hand, the O is attached to an hour hand, and the W is attached to a minute hand, and all the other clock hands are removed. The letters were intended to align once every twelve hours, but the mechanism that controlled the second hand was not reliable.

You are (on) an island (at Bowdoin College).

Mike Fleming just made this beautiful rendering. We're proposing to temporarily install this neon sign on an island in a roundabout on Bowdoin's campus. Let's just hope the real thing will look half as good as this... and that Bowdoin's Campus Planning and Design Committee approves it!

Rendering by Mike Fleming

You are (on) an island. (Animated Gif)