Thresholds is Dylan’s second solo exhibition. This series is an evolution from previous exhibitions featured with Ki Smith Gallery, as it embraces found natural materials such as leaves, cacti, and tree roots and puts them in conversation with physical computing -creating the space for unique interactions and experiencing non natural intelligences. This work underlines the nuances and quiet intricacies of the natural world that are often overlooked. It echos the multifaceted, and interconnected quality of understanding how nature tries to communicate with us, reframing that experience with both humor and curiosity.
Poplars are one of my favorite trees. They are abundant in the Hudson Valley, where I grew up and my family still lives. Named after the sound made when stirred by a breeze, when the leaves are turned over and collide into each other - they appear to shimmer and make a thousand little 'pops'.
A bit of weather folklore is that deciduous trees like poplars can predict a coming rain. They communicate this to us by turning over, and showing their lighter side. There is truth to the lore, in that the leaves are reacting to the sudden increase in humidity that often precedes a storm.
I wanted to borrow the poplars means of communication, and liken it to the human greeting of waving hello. In 'Hello' the piece is waving to us. In 'Lilt' to each other. In 'Wether, Weather' the piece is collecting local weather data over wifi, and if there is a storm approaching in the coming few hours the leaves turn over more quickly, a nod to the original forecasters.
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This body of work, is engaging with ideas of human and non-human interactions, specifically instances of encountering natural forms, and those relationships. Leveraging the unique position that art objects can hold, this series is considering both the interplay and interface between humans and naturalistic material objects. Additionally carving out a space for considering the piece’s perspective, seeing and being seen by it - and then the potential for shared experiences and reflecting on reciprocal relationships that we can have with these things that populate and make up our strange world.
The included artworks each have an interactive, and communicative quality, leaning on movement. By mining the preconceptions about certain plants and life adjacent beings, the technology interventions are aimed at highlighting and bolstering the emotional and knee jerk responses such as curiosity, playfulness, or even fear they might elicit. Thresholds can be boiled down to an exercise in empathy, while simultaneously creating a technology infused interactive, and playful ecosystem
The exhibition explores the potential for meaningful nuanced interactions with natural and art objects. How we might listen, communicate, and indulge our curiosity while considering the language of things.
This series of was made by fixating on imbuing each object with a sense of life. The evolution towards interaction began with my first solo show, where implied movement in sculptures were realized through a screen based animation. A basic interaction, but one that brought the viewer along and realized a shift in perspective after seeing out the looping video.
That kicked off my interest in creating compelling interactions, and the next step was feedback. Here, different pieces have different sensors, and considering their affordances, also different reactions to the various data. For instance ‘The Search / Wormstone’ react to internal gyroscope data from being tilted, assuming an investigation. The oysters each have light detecting resistors and open or close based on if they see a shadow, a looming presence. Participation is still being requested, but the installations are now more visceral and change in real time based on the presence and actions of a viewer.
Throughout this body of work I've been brushing against the idea of agency, and how an object could communicate a sense of self. Mostly this has come in the form of 'life adjacent' forms and putting them in motion like oyster's shells and plant skeletons. Here we have a rock.
This piece is inspired by the sailing stones at Death Valley National Park, which move across the desert floor (at speeds only captured through time lapse photography) and leave a scraped trail in their wake. Their movement a result of the perfect balance of ice, water, and wind.
My 'Sailing Stone' is less of a natural wonder, but achieves a similar action through hidden motors, and wheels. Every two to five minutes the stone moves about an inch in its chosen direction, occasionally bumping clumsily into walls or mooring itself on its pedestals edges. In its path leaving dusty streaks and scratches.
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These pieces rely on the innate abject unease that accompanies a wasp nest. 'Kind Regards' (left) is equipped with an ultrasonic range finder, and motorized analog sound element, reminiscent of the clicking of insect wings or mandibles that becomes more frenetic as one approaches, or completely quiet when directly in front. 'A Truce' attempts to find a formal balance between the the beautiful chaos of the wasp paper, and the soft wood form of driftwood. It too contains a battery powered sound element, changing its cadence based on randomness instead of sense data.
I had the surreal opportunity to canoe through a local forest. Due to an uncommon convergence of spring thaw and a hard rain a nearby pond had overflowed, blanketing. the nearby woods. There, I saw a slightly elevated tree with gnarled exposed roots that looked like it had sprouted from the water. Sunlight was bouncing off the waters surface up underneath the tree's roots, the whole thing looked and felt otherworldly.
There’s something novel about refracted light on the ceiling of an indoor pool, or the undulating patterns cast upward by a puddle drying out in the sun. Caustics are light rays which have been reflected by a curved surface, a phenomena often encountered as light passing through glass or water. The light-play is engaging partially because you can affect it, all be it one step removed, by stirring the water and watching the refractions bloom unpredictably.
Caustic Roots showcases that interplay of affecting the projected ripples on the wall, the piece responds to a viewers proximity. The closer you get to the trunk the waves become faster and more fervent, so the act of investigation and seeing alters how the piece looks, and behaves.
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I remember as a child going barefoot to the stream behind my family’s home and looking under rocks for bugs, worms, and things that wriggle. I think that almost everyone has experienced some version of this scenario. For me it acts almost like a stand in for unbridled curiosity.
With ‘Worm Stone’ and ‘The Search’ I am recreating a version of this formative memory. The bottom side of each stone has an inlaid screen with ‘bugs’ or ‘dust bunnies’ continually milling around, and when one side is lifted up to peek underneath, all of the code creatures flee to the lowest point and hide just off screen. When the stone is returned to its original flat face down position, the bugs go back to their routines of meandering around the screen.
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The Servo Oysters were the first project conceived when thinking about ambient animation and using physical computing for interactive art making. They are entirely self contained with a microcontroller, lifting gear mechanism, tiny servo motor, battery pack hidden in the bottom shell, and among the dappling of barnacles that encrust the outsides of the upper shells each one has a hidden photocell that detects light levels. The oysters can tell if a shadow, and thus presumable a person, is looming over it. In response to the incoming change in light data, they snap shut, recoiling and protecting themselves. Otherwise they typically open and close lazily, basking in their unobstructed light.
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At Indian Lakes is a large scale painting made years ago, but ties the show up thematically. Taken in context with the caustic roots projects it shows the different approaches one can have to naturalistic objects, and reframes painting as an immersive type of experience.
