Twenty One Twelve

Oct. 20, 2012 - Dec. 16, 2012

Postmasters Gallery, New York, NY

Solo exhibition-Pioneering new media artists whose works explore both time-based and physical reality, the McCoys are perhaps best recognized for constructing subjective databases of film and television material and for creating miniature film sets with live video cameras. The integration of sculpture and video continues in their new exhibition. Pointing to a time 100 years from today Twenty One Twelve connects current trends with future failures and potential transformations. For this show the McCoys have created a series of ten sculptures which depict the landscapes of today and tomorrow. Corporate campuses, parking lots, man-made mountains, resort architecture, and factories all collide with a globalized media infrastructure. This framework exists to support utopian goals, even as it rests upon resource depletion, financial instabilities, and entropic decay. The problems of environmental and economic collapse persist in the face of the rhetoric of the assumed benefits of continued economic expansion and a technological future.


Works Shown

Near the Communications Tower

2012, Sculpture with electronics

Near the Communications Tower depicts a tar pit as a foreground to an embedded photo of an office building. The video, mounted flat to the base of the work where a fountain might be, contains a hyper-speed montage of scenes from contemporary life.

Near the New Villas

2012, Sculpture with electronics

Near the Villas explores the dichotomy between luxury construction on a depleted environment. The sculpture depicts a make-shift construction site that mixes scale model cranes, childhood building toys, and photos of middle eastern villas. These are embedded into unfinished sculptural forms, reflecting temporary and quickly built constructions. A small monitor contains footage of a childhood road trip through a much different landscape.

Next To the Parking Lot

2012, sculpture with electronics and sound

The sculptures in this series present liminal spaces, areas posited to be next to the desirable landmarks of contemporary life. Photographic backgrounds are embedded into eccentric land masses that extend and question the locations of the photograph's ostensible place. In Next to the Parking Lot, a photograph of a walled garden in the middle east is foregrounded with crashed luxury vehicles and a hastily disguised rocket launcher.

In Front of the Substation

2012, sculpture with electronics

In Front of the Substation depicts a utilitarian building perched on sand and debris. Safety orange fencing has been partially destroyed. The embedded video monitor shows images of acid colored rushing water.

Priest of the Temple

2012, installation with live cameras

In Priest of the Temple, an office building juts out of a Mt. Rushmore-style mountain. The embedded video is based on the actions of a Silicon Valley hotel spa. Behind the building, a portrait of Intel co-founder Gordon Moore looms like a Pyongyang mural. Gordon Moore's prophetic observation, Moore's Law, states that the computing power of a microchip will double every two years. Moore himself in a 2005 interview provided an amendment to this law when he added, "The law can't continue forever. The nature of exponentials is that you push them out and eventually disaster happens."

Along the Roadside

2012, sculpture with electronics

The sculptures in this series present liminal spaces, areas posited to be next to the desirable landmarks of contemporary life. In Along the Roadside, a photograph of a cement factory looms behind a farm as a video imagines the road trip to get there.

Chrysalis

2012, sculpture with electronics and sound

In Chrysalis, a blue tower rises, cracked open to reveal a fleshy pink interior structure. Scaffolding on the surface provides scale and suggests human presence, either within or without. The video projection and prog-rock inspired soundtrack deliver an image of future conditions.

At The Old Headquarters

2012, sculpture with electronics

In At the Old Headquarters, a cast plaster miniature of an office building sinks into roofing tar. Markings on the building are reminiscent of pixacao, Brazlian graffitti often found on multi story squat buildings. A roof mounted monitor shows a distorted and duplicated looping image of a parking lot.

Between the Resorts

2012, sculpture with electronics

Between the Resorts depicts a no mans land between a simulated ski slope and a simulated water park. Embedded video shows images of sand blowing across pavement.

Behind the Hillside

2012, electronic sculpture

In Behind the Hillside, miniature garbage covers the ostensible back side of a hill. The front of the hill is absent, posited to be the desirable site. Amongst the garbage, a small video monitor plays an interrupted image of wild grasslands.