WARNING: POSSIBLY SENSITIVE CONTENT
SEE VIDEO DOCUMENTATION OF EXHIBITION AT BOSTON CYBERARTS FESTIVAL HERE:
https://vimeo.com/34270736
Target Audience: Point & Shoot (2003) is a piece that integrates (forgive the pun) very loaded content into an intimate gallery space to make extremely clear how scary and dangerous guns are, and that media and gaming interfaces in fact dull our senses regarding the reality of guns and gun violence, and this numbing directly impacts our children and youth.
Target Audience (2003) converts the virtual first person shooter computer gaming interface into a real active live interaction between the person holding the gun and the rest of the gallery goers. Within this very awkward moment, Target Audience welcomes the viewer to pick up, point, and pull the trigger of an actual (de-milled) antique Third Reich “Irma” Machine Pistola. The de-milled gun has been wired with trigger sensors and a video camera that feeds directly into a custom computer interface that responds by projecting real-time video taken from wherever the gun is pointed. When the person pointing the gun and shoots, the crosshairs align and whatever is projected on screen is then covered in a animated red animated wash, and sounds of war and the actual machine gun play through the speakers.
In some installations the projection is displayed on a two way screen so that spectators on either side can see where the gun is being pointed and who is being shot. At Studio 107 in Austin, the real-time video from inside the gallery was projected on the front window so that both the gallery visitors inside and the passers-by outside the gallery could watch what was going on inside the gallery from the scope of a gun simultaneously .
Exhibition Location:
South Shore Art Center, Cohasset, MA, “Tech Art II” and part of the Boston CyberArts Festival (National), [Received the “Award of Merit” Cash Prize], 04/15/05 – 05/29/05 (curated by Mary Flanagan)
Exhibition Location:
Studio 107 Gallery, Austin, TX – “Curious Comforts,” 06/15/04 – 08/10/04
Materials: variable dimensions, computer, 1940’s 3rd reich machine gun (Irma), subwoofer, speakers, touch sensor, digital video spy camera
Press: austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2004-06-25/arts_feature4.html (to read article)
Leave a Reply