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  • The Uncanny World of Tony Oursler

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Dialogue A: “You wait. . . . I’ll send a message over. . . . You wait. . . . I do feel guilt. I do. I really do feel guilt. . . .”


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Via Regia, 2010 Projector and video projection, found objects, model magic, acrylic, and epoxy putty mounted on steel armature. 61.25 x 8 x 19 inches (155.6 x 20.3 x 48.3 cm) Courtesy Lehmann Maupin Gallery.

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Peak is the title of an exhibition of new works by Tony Oursler that were on view at Lehmann Maupin on New York City’s Lower East Side, from October 7 through December 4, 2010. Peak addressed ways in which technology affects the human psyche, in microcosmic scenes that reflect obsession, escapism, isolation, and sexual fetish. “There’s a kind of rhyming and riffing on physical space and machine language juxtaposed against artificial intelligence,” says Oursler. The installations refer to dynamic systems and models, such as flowcharts, Rube Goldberg machines, and astronomical orreries in projections that combine glass, clay, steel, and raw materials with performed texts by the artist and other performers.

“These are the smallest video installations ever made, I think, probably,” Oursler explains. “I made a list of about ten different subjects that I wanted to hit with the show, and very tangentially went about writing it and working my way into it. So it’s almost like you just peeled someone’s head back and you can see a thought happening.”

In Peak Oursler explored Masahiro Mori’s uncanny valley, which theorizes that as inanimate objects become closer in appearance to the human form and face, mankind will find them increasingly disturbing and therefore cast into the realm of the uncanny. The Lehmann Maupin Gallery installation was timed with Oursler’s Valley, the inaugural exhibition of the Adobe Museum of Digital Media, a virtual space that showcases innovative digital work. According to Oursler, “Peak is a kind of analog to the digital footprint of the show.” [End Page 37]


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Dialogue B: “Right. . . . Rr- . . . That’s not me. No. That’s not me. . . . Spectacular. I know I saw something. You can’t convince me. … Y-y-you c-can’t convince me. … Ah. . . . Ah. . . . Hey. . . . Hey. . . . Hey I can’t see you. . . . I can’t see you. . . .”

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Mirror Return, 2010 Projector and video projection, chromed steel, and dichroic plexi mounted on steel armature. 64.25 x 8 x 18.5 inches (163.2 x 20.3 x 47 cm) Courtesy Lehmann Maupin Gallery.

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Black Box, 2010 Projector and video projection, tinted resin, mounted on steel armature. 60 x 6 x 18 inches (152.4 x 15.2 x 47 cm) Courtesy Lehmann Maupin Gallery.


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Dialogue C: “Hey. Leave them alone. . . . I can’t recognize that. . . . It looks like something I know. . . .”

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Castouts, 2010 Projector and video projection, found objects, ink jet prints, epoxy putty, model magic, and acrylic mounted on steel armature. 63 x 8 x 19 inches (160 x 20.3 x 48.3 cm) Courtesy Lehmann Maupin Gallery.

Dialogue D: “Why does that excite you? . . . I can’t get you out of my head. Truth table, motor primitives . . . .”

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PAJ mourns the loss of Ellen Stewart, a great woman of the theatre 1919–2011

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Tony Oursler works in numerous mediums, including video, sculpture, installation, performance, and painting. His recent immersive exhibition, LOCK 2, 4, 6, at the Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria, was spread over three floors of the museum. Other solo exhibitions in the last year included Oi Futuro in Brasil and Number Seven, Plus or Minus 2 in China. Oursler’s retrospective exhibition Dispositifs traveled from the Jeu de Paume in Paris to the DA2 Domus Atrium in Salamanca and the Kunstforeningen in Copenhagen. In a response to Courbet’s The Artist’s Studio...

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