Longshot

WORDS ON WORKS ABOUT WORDS ON WORKS Words on Works areshort,informal statements about newartworks in which art and technology coexist or merge. In the spirit of Leonardo, theinformation they contain is what theartiststhemselves have chosen tosay about theirown work. Words on Works arean open-forum. All submissions arepublishedin the F.A.S.T. database. In addition, selected submissions arepublishedin theonline journals FineArt Forum and Leonardo Electric News, as wellas in Leonardo. By introducing artistswhose work might not otherwise appearon thepagesof Leonardo, Words on Works operatein thesameway that alternativeart spaces operate in thegallery-museum milieu. The art described in this section may, like Stephen Moore's Seminal ChronoSchema , bean uncompleted, long-term project that is based on ideasand information .Like MaryJean KentonsEngineers' Notebooks and Geometry of Color, it may bedescribed in an unorthodoxway. Like Paul Sermons Earth Signals, it may focus on networkingactivityratherthan on a completed object. Words on Works may describe artworks that are 'lowtech' likeJimJohnson'sSkeletons. Like Lynn Hershman'sLongshot, it may have narrativecontentthat examinessociety. Or, likeAviva Rahmani's Ghost Nets, it may focus on our relationship to theenvironment in whichwelive. GtO-GENETIC Christiane Geoffroy, 6, rue d'Alma, 38000 Grenoble, France. My work is about genetics-reproduction and manipulation. Geo-Genetic©19921SAST Pergamon Press pic.Printed inGreat Britain. 0024-094X/92 $3.00+0.00 (1989) (Fig. 1) is a modular work that can be shown both by itself and as part of an installation. In the video module (6 min 30 sec), images of sperm and eggs, cropped and blown up, spill out in a seemingly endless stream, accompanied by texts appropriated from technical literature and the media, for example: "Many spermatozoae may fix themselves to the membrane of an unfertilized ovum of mouse. Some may penetrate this membrane but only one will fertilize the ovum". For an installation at L'Ecole de Nimes, I built a structure in which GeoGeneticwas installed. The video images were viewed through a 20-cm crack in the structure. I propose a larger installation comprised of a triangular structure 7 m on each side. Spectators would enter through a hole and come face to face with coital activity. LONGSHOT Lynn Hershman, Hotwire Productions , 545 Sutter St. #305, San Francisco , CA 94108, U.S.A. In my videotape Longshot(63 min, 1989), a troubled young girl, Lian, lives desperately on the streets, singing to escape from her 'reality'. She meets a videomaker, Dennis, who chronicles her adventures until he becomes obsessed with capturing and manipulating her 'image'. She finds a roommate to share her abandoned car in Zhu Zha, a Hungarian woman who thinks she is in touch with UFOs. Lian's fears that she is acting in a 'snufffilm' increase as the desire to capture her image mounts. The Fig. 1. Christiane Geoffroy, text from GetrGenetic, videotape, 1989. camera's surveillance of the subject is constant. An anonymous detective discretely reminds the audience of the links between guns and cameras. Longshotstars Lian Amber, Dennis Mathews, Zhuzsa Koszeggi, Velora Uhmeyer and Rinde Eckert. Shot in a verite style, this 'faux documentary' explores perspectives of illusion and truth, emphasized by 'real' therapists' ongoing analysis of the 'fictional character '. Though Longshotconstructs a portrait of Lian's alienation and selfdestruction , it gradually becomes clear that the piece is really about artifice and illusions of authenticity in the electronic world, the dangers of simulating artificial media images and the potential of losing identity through reliance on external electronic image enhancers. The end result is "a skillfully woven tapestry of storytelling that brings into question the viewer's ability to fully distinguish truth from fiction, as well as the capacity of the electronic medium to manipulate that perceptual ambiguity" [1]. 1. Valerie Soe, "Where Truth Intersects Illusion", Artuieek20, No. 19 (1989) p. 6. SONIC PASSjSOUNDSTAIR ChristopherJanney, 75 Kendall Rd., Lexington, MA 02173, U.S.A. SONIC PASS/de is an example of 'responsive architecture'. It is a permanent interactive sound environment located in an outdoor public passageway at Techworld Plaza, Washington, D.C. Using a series of electronic sensing devices, a computer and sampler/synthesizer , participants moving through the space trigger melodic notes, as well as natural sounds. Reacting to these movement patterns and to the...