TRAP/bat

Video Installation by
John Sturgeon
Commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
for the MOMA Video Gallery - Curator: Barbara London
(September 17-November 9, 1993)
production funding, in part, by a Faculty Development Grant ,
Carnegie Mellon University

Basic Overview: * Detailed descriptions of the installation's sculptural and video elements follow -
TRAP/bat is a sculptural video installation, that utilizes 6 channels of pre-recorded video and one channel of live video for display on video projector, rear screen monitors and video monitors forming a conceptual cave-like space for the viewing experience. The entire gallery and entry way are black, with the exception of the sculptural and video elements.
The primary cave-like image is the projector screen, which is a large flat, designed as abstracted, cut-out shapes of closely situated stalactite and stalagmite forms. Seen through the negative spaces in the cave/screen's stalactite and stalagmite forms is a freeze frame, video image of the viewer. This image has been trapped by a surveillance camera in the entry hall and inverted, like a bat , on a large rear screen monitor in the midst of the cave. A second rear screen monitor within the cave displays a slightly delayed repeat or echo of the projector's video scenes.
Six video monitors hang from the ceiling and are on the floor, screen sideways, vertically elongated, displaying computer graphic images of stalactite and stalagmite shapes set in video black. These computer graphic shapes contain video and computer animation imagery that are keyed and stretched on to the surfaces, displaying symbols of various social/cultural crises and international scenes of camera verite.

TRAP/bat: artist's statement
In terms of my own iconography, this work is an extension of my years of work with metaphysical issues concerning self discovery and the human potential for change as well as the newer directions of working directly with more documentary, camera-verite style production and TV manipulated imagery.
TRAP/bat is a response to an implosion of world crises seen in our savage disassociation from self and from others, subjective from objective realities. Internally it manifests as a break down or fragmentation of our own psyche and externally manifesting as the litany of world disorder, abuse and injustice. As we are inundated by those details daily, the intent of this work is not to define or elucidate these crises specifically, rather referring to them as symbols or metaphors. My intent is to potentially point towards the direction of the heart of the matter and to promote a personal search for the metaphysical core of our dilemma.

TRAP/bat: Content Description
TRAP/bat's intent centers around creating a ritual space of initiation (a symbolic death and rebirth) for an experience of realization by the viewer. The content of the work is directed towards a symbolic healing or an enlightenment to the metaphysical core of the current world predicament. The core aspect primary to this piece is that proclivity of the human mind to project externally that which is denied or unintegrated internally, the consequences of which continually truncate and separate the self from a larger and more inclusive view of its self and its integration with the world. This projection process projects that which is perceived as not self on to the dreaded - OTHER . And it is this phenomena that in part creates or manifests as our physical & psychological sicknesses and social and cultural ills - racism, war, poverty, homelessness, social/sexual abuse, etc. The internal response extends even to the extent of rejecting our own body, our own emotional and sexual being.

TRAP/bat:*detailed video & installation elements

1. TRAP:
As the viewer enters the video gallery's outer hall, a video image of him/her (mid-range, torso and face) will be electronically transferred (trapped ) inside the installation prior to his/her entry into the main gallery. A small b&w surveillance camera* in the antechamber (mounted upside down to invert the image) feeds into a freeze frame devise that is triggered by motion detection sensors in the antechamber. The camera/freeze devise incorporates the viewer's inverted image inside the installation (a ritual, cave-like space) prior the viewers entry into the main installation gallery. The inverted torso/head is displayed on a large scale monitor situated deep within the cave-like space.
The viewer's image would remain in the trap, an incubation period for change, until replaced by a new freeze of an incoming viewer about to enter the space. In the case of multiple entry or a traffic flow the freeze-frame would update at a pre-determined grab-rate or a change every second or so. A simple logic circuit in conjunction with the sensor will restrict the freeze to only incoming motion.

*This surveillance camera would be situated face-on as the viewer enters the antechamber and turns left towards the gallery space. It would be incorporated as a hidden part of a bat/totem sculpture.

2. bat:
In a certain sense the bat in TRAP/bat becomes the viewer as his/her freeze frame, inverts and is suspended within the cave. Further, the bat refers to Meso-American tribal rituals of rebirth or reincarnation. Bat is a treasured medicine (energy) of the Aztec, Toltec, Tolucan, and Mayans that embraces the idea of shamanic death to the old ways and a rebirth into a new concept of self**. This process traditionally was hard, physically and psychologically - fraught with fear, dark of night, and emotional trauma. Survival through initiation in this process brought shamanic power and a new revelation to the structure of man to universe - bat is communal energy.
This inversion image is also refers to the 12th card of the Tarot, the Hanged Man , a symbol for that state of suspension in preparation for change. There is also strong identity with primal female energy - birth and the child born upside down from the womb.
** Medicine Cards, the discovery of power through the ways of animals / Sams & Carson

3. Cave:
The main installation gallery will house the large cave-shaped projection surface described in the basic overview section above. The flat white surfaces, emulating large stalactites and stalagmites shapes, will reflect the video from the projector mounted in the corner of gallery space diagonally opposite the screen (see gallery plan view ). Their construction will be similar to a theatrical flat, a light weight, single frame construction with the cut-out shapes from thin painted masonite with supports.
Sculpturally, the bold design qualities of Meso-American art will dominate the camera-bat/totem and to a degree the look of the cave, with a minor visual theme being influences of the iconography of the Tarot, particularly with regard to framing the Trap and the second, echo rear screen monitor. The cave-like feeling will be enhanced by the hanging and floor monitors which surround the screen and display the computer graphic stalactites and stalagmites with their imagery.

4. Projector Imagery (& 2nd rear screen Monitor):
The imagery on the projector, which is partially fragmented by the screen's configuration, is echoed with similar imagery on the 2nd rear screen monitor deep within the cave. This allows the projector screen to provide large scale motion and vista scenes to the installation, while the interior monitor view details of a complete image.
Some of the various themes of this imagery are scenes of Carlsbad Caverns and its various chambers in panorama and detail as well as bat imagery.

5. Stalactite and Stalagmite Imagery:
The edge-wise monitors will display 4 channels of interrelated computer graphic images of stalagmites and stalactites. These computer graphic stalagmites/stalactites will have video images keyed into them then stretched on a digital optical devise when the image is flipped vertically. These surfaces of video imagery and animation, symbolize the litany of world disorder, abuse and injustice as well as more mundane events and actions. These elements work in counterpoint to the projector's transformative/meditative space, as if the cave has the dual characteristic of spiritual, psychological, cultural - cage. Imagery such as, the Gulf War, the Berlin Wall, the L.A. Riots, prostitution, the homeless (from S. Amer., NYC and Wash. DC), etc. will all be highly digitally manipulated and edited so as to mix, metamorphosing one into the other. This confluence providing the very substance of the calcification of the cave.

6. Technical Structure - details:
a. live B&W surveillance camera, small CCD, with C-mount lens adapter
b. freeze frame devise (could be a variety of low end digitizing devises, ie. Pan. MX-12 or could be artist built black box digitizer)
c. motion sensing device, electric eye (X 2)
d. black box logic circuit for sequencing freeze one direction
e. video projector
f. 6 Trinitron monitors (20", 3 ceiling mounted, 3 floor mounted, all on edge for a long-wise image)
g. 6 video discplayers - these players need not be timed, rather the pre-recorded sections will be of varying lengths, so that the repeating aspects all mix randomly)

7. Audio:
The audio will be a combination of synthesized sampled sound compositions mixed with natural sounds from the production. Poetic text is utilized almost in an environmental way.