Secret Dreams Music and Arts Festival 2022 – Foam

“Biblically Accurate Surveillance Drones”

 
Was “God” really just the original police state monitoring system, and the angels his drones surveillance drones? Surveillance Services by Omniscient God™?

Are these the sentinels from the future, or the angels from the past? Are we certain they’re not the same things? These look both futuristic and also like something from an ancient myth. Are they here to protect us or do they have more sinister motives? They are either comforting or worrisome, depending on your perspective and headspace. Perhaps even a small sign on a post will read “please open your eyes fully for retinal eye scan” as people walk by.

Multiple pieces impose different striking forms which are created largely from foam pieces which are assembled together which will hang among the trees or over a path. Each is painted with both fluorescent and glow-in-the-dark paints (mostly orange, green, yellow and black) and each is built around a large eye as it’s central form. The piece uses mostly foam and paint but some bulky yarn is used to add texture and interest.

This installation is meant to hit the viewer in several ways. First, there’s the concept above which activates people in a cerebral way, making them think with their conscious mind about the pieces with comparisons to other similar forms. This can lead to many possible conclusions, depending on the viewer. Second, there’s the lizard-brain part of the piece’s experience which deals with the feeling of being watched. People may find themselves subconsciously positioning themselves to stand in a place where the piece cannot “see” them.

The effects seen on the video below are created completely by a pulsing blacklight and fluorescent and phosphorescent (glow in the dark) paint.

Size of stars (two total): appx. 5′ across by 5′ tall by 4′ deep
Size of triplet (one total): appx. 4.5′ tall by 2′ deep
Size of eyes (two total): appx. 1′ sphere

 

Build and Setup

Foam is always challenging to work with because of it’s instability, and building hanging forms like these required strength in the face of strong storms. For the stars, I created a wire skeleton which attached to specially-built wire attachments on each spike. The pieces were extremely stable despite a very strong thunderstorm on Saturday night and lots of rain.

Originally, I had hoped to disassemble the piece after the weekend, but due to timeframe limitations (doing two installations in the same weekend at the same festival) I ultimately chose to add too many final elements with a permanent attachment method to make disassembly possible.