BLOOM, 1993


To occupy a place where one might look from a position of concealment is to recognize the implicit power in seeing while being unseen, to take on the role of the observer- even the hunter. To peer from the inside of a protective steel shell is to look out from a place where motives are hidden and shame is covered. This power disintegrates when watchful eyes look from outside in. Encircled and visible, one’s advantage is lost, and the steel hide becomes a prison.

The first Steel Hide/Confinement model was a single chambered structure built with seven identical sections. Attached with hinges and radially configured, they formed an interior chamber with an octagonal floor plan. A two-inch gap between the top and bottom half of each section formed narrow viewing slots, piercing the steel shell with sight lines that linked inside and outside.

Between Reason, another steel hide was a variation on Bloom. Each of the five sections of this radially constructed form was stretched to resemble probes extended form the center chamber. The end of each of these extensions were caped with a different shape to suggest a viewing apparatus.

Both Bloom and Between Reason were constructed with multiple folds in thin sheet steel held with hundreds of fasteners.

A single confinement unit reproduces itself, always mutating, to become a series of isolated fortifications.


Bloom, 1992
Confinements
UMBC, Baltimore, MD
steel

Bloom, 1993
Outdoor Projects
Sculpture Center, New York, NY
steel

Bloom

Bloom

Bloom