Anat Pollack installation... interactive, real-time audio and video processing... physical computing... video...audio...

Living Words
2008-Present

"Living Words" is an installation and community art-work that reflects upon and works to transform the role of the elderly within our culture from the invisible to the wise. Resisting contemporary cultural amnesia, I will create a constellation of social and cultural histories through interviewing older people about community, the Great Depression, and WWII. The end result of this work will be a viral performance piece true to the nature of storytelling. In a gallery, museum, park, synagogue, I re-tell these stories gathered, and then will ask the listener to sit to tell the story.

This project is ongoing.

Lights on Tampa 2009 in Collaboration with Mark Koven
2009

Details

Design and construct a 20 foot Vertical Wind Power Turbine that will be installed atop a 35 foot tower to be utilized in generating the renewable energy to power an interactive / reactive lighting array pointed back onto its self. The visual or aesthetic effect will be of revolving double helix shaped shiny object shooting light across the city of Tampa as if it were a type of large whirling disco ball. This will give a dramatic night light show with the daylight hours filled with a sparkling shimmering light effect on the waters edge of Tampa Bay. Additionally the lights will be effected by the presence of people through use of sensors connected to micro-controllers. A website will be online to allow web surfers access to the visual effect created by the lights as well as the data on energy generated and usage by the lighting array.

This project has been cancelled due to budgetary problmes with the funders and Tampa City Arts Council.


The Artist, in Collaboration with Robb Fladry Lights on Tampa Satellite Project, 2009
" The Artist" This public art project will consist of a rear-video-projection onto a storefront window of hands rolling cigars. Simultaneously, there will be an audio element of the news and literature being read in Spanish by a single voice. The history of Tampa is long and varied, and includes the civil war, Spanish American war, and English colonial rule. One of the most defining moments in Tampaís history however was the cigar industry. With the fire of 1886 in Key West, Tampaís population almost doubled as the cigar industry took off. Rolling cigars by the ìtabaquerosî (tobacco rollers) was not simply a manual job. ìThe ëtorcedoresí who rolled the finished cigars, especially, thought of themselves as ìmore of an artist than a worker.î The tabaqueros brought from Cuba the tradition of ìEl Lector,î a highly intelligent and educated reader to break the monotony of the trade. El lectors read to the workers while perched on an elevated platform in the cigar factory. This public art-work harks back to this honorable trade. Showing a manual task on this scale, and repeated, highlights the means of production. In contemporary culture, manual labor is not respected as much as white-collar labor. Tabaqueros were artists, respected and educated. Sadly, during the Great Depression, the readers were removed from the workplace, stripping the workers of access to news, and thus their sense of agency. A larger than life projection of the hands honors this manual trade and expresses the strength and tactility of the task of rolling cigars. The voice as ìEl Lectorî reveals the curiosity, intelligence and engagement of the Cuban, Italian and American workers.


Riparian Habitats Current Research Project
This current research project is about combining art, ecology, hydrology, geology, geography and architecture. I am currently researching the way that artists have spearheaded projects towards greater ecological awareness and biodiversity specifically in regards to waterways and water systems. Looking at riparian habitats as complete ecological systems, how can damaged systems be restored while simultaneously bringing awareness to the public about the systems themselves. This project is in the infant stages while I consult with ecologists, geologist, geographers and archtects.


Shi.ko Ltd. 2007 V.2 2007	Details
ìShi.Ko Ltd. 2007î is an interactive installation where I explored the dynamic between human memory and machine information processing by using digitally processed sound as a means of contrasting machine and mind. This work exploited the abilities of computer algorithms to deconstruct and reconstruct sensory data extracted from the audience, forming new relationships between familiar images and sounds. The work is dormant until it is observed. This is a recursive system whereby continued participation is necessary for the functioning of the work. Likewise, this work has a wonderful exchanging of roles- in order to interact, the viewer must engage with a community of participants as they are put into the role of teacher. This work it is meant to question the role of mediated digital interfaces, and to reveal the unknown data that is gathered through our engagement with them.


Flower 2008	Details
"Flower" Digital Video Flower is also about communion, about community. Flower is both a video and a photographic work, 16î x 60î.

Foolish Beasts: Animals Look Back In Collaboration with Dr. Paula Lee
2007-Present

This collaboration between Anat Pollack and Dr. Paula Lee is an installation using video cameras and zoomorphic robots. This work is meant to offer a critical examination of anthropocentric assumptions that situate animals as the "always-observed" subject.

Television Commercial Series
2007, 2008

Details

In the TV Commercial Series, I have digitally processed images from television ads as a means of re/appropriating the imagery used by advertisers to sell us material goods. Too often, the imagery and sounds used in commercials have no reference point to the item being sold, but rather are used to target our innermost Desire, an effective advertising technique. This series of work is meant to refine and distill the imagery from these ads. Re/appropriating these images are a way for me to give these spaces back to the view, this offering a space for an experience with the Sublime.

SuperBowl Series: 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008
2004-Present

Details

This is a 4 wall projection installation. Four years of Superbowl games have been recorded, deconstructed and reconstructed. Although 4 years are represented, there is much similarity in the 4 projections. This work is meant to call attention to our habitual modes of perceiving information and the frenetic nature of mass media. The heavily layered aural and visual information loses its original meaning, becoming random noise, and causes our brains to seek out patterns in the chaos. As the media itself loses its original meaning, it creates an opening in the way that familiar information is experienced.

Peek-A-Boo
2006

Details

While a smile shows our canines, insinuating a sinister emotion, so too can a laugh possess a disturbing and menacing quality. In Peek-A-Boo, a simple and fun activity is dissected through repetition. Within the work, the complication of our contemporary life is reflected in the duplicity and layering of this single one game of Peek-A-Boo. Where a single clip would show a pure unabashed laughter sparked by the simplicity of peek-a-boo, once layered and complicated, the repetition takes on a manic and perhaps even sinister feel. As viewers, we know it to be playful yet feel their disturbing effects, due to this amplification of a child's manic behavior.

Bush by 537 in Collaboration with Mark Koven
2006

Details

ìBush by 537" An installation consisting of 537 live Butterflies located in a hotel room in West Palm Beach making reference to the 2000 election in which G.W. Bush won the election by this margin of votes. The controversy was not just over hanging chads, but also the Butterfly Ballot. More than 4000 People reportedly voted for the wrong candidate, and 19000 voted for at least 2 of the presidential candidates, negating their vote. Palm Beach has more than double the national average for wealth and income, while West Palm Beach is almost 20% below the national average. Walking inside the room, participants will experience the beauty of live butterflies along side the carnage of the dead and the dieing bringing into question their role as monitor versus co-conspirator. Upon completion of the show, any surviving butterflies will be liberated if individuals have not already interceded on behalf of the butterflies.

Breathe
2004

Details

ìBreatheî is sculptural object which functions as a vehicle for the experience of a singular focus and experience of the breath. For the viewer, the ancient dictum ìstay with your breathî bears repeating. It is impossible not to breathe with this piece. ìBreatheî utilizes simple technologies to draw air in and push air out of a rubber bellows. The sound of the air being inhaled and exhaled is meant to offer both an internal and external experience for the viewer. In this art piece, a machine simulates a human experience, forming a recursive relationship with the viewer as they experience their own internal rhythm. Itsí draw is irresistible, as irresistible as breath itself: viewers are drawn into a community defined by breathing. Awareness of the breath is an escape from and a returning to the present. This work presents the viewer with a gift, an engagement with self and others through ones own breath.

Television Commercial Series
2004-Present

Details

In the TV Commercial Series, I have digitally processed images from television ads as a means of re/appropriating the imagery used by advertisers to sell us material goods. Too often, the imagery and sounds used in commercials have no reference point to the item being sold, but rather are used to target our innermost Desire, an effective advertising technique. This series of work is meant to refine and distill the imagery from these ads. Re/appropriating these images are a way for me to give these spaces back to the view, this offering a space for an experience with the Sublime.

Echo & Narcissus
With Adam Goode 2003

Details

"Echo and Narcissus" is a real-time video installation. Within the installation exists a single piece of glass that acts as a mirror. Images projected on to the glass are revealed when the participant stands at a certain angle from the glass. As a mirror, the participants sees a reflection of themselves as well as a layering of images of others who have inhabited the space previously. Over time, their own image appears in the projection, mixed and morphed with the images of others who have been captured on video. The time delay is deliberate as I am trying to create a juncture in the experience of gazing at oneself in real-time, seeing others gazing into the mirror, seeing oneself in the past, and experiencing oneself in the present with the new knowledge of being recorded. This piece, like Desiderata was an exploration of cognition, a step toward simulating the experience of memory using an algorithmic process. In this piece, I am interested in the ghosts of the past. The way that a space can simultaneously feel empty, and full of all of the life that has inhabited it over time. I am also interested in the juncture between the subject and the object, and our desire to see ourselves. Watching this piece then becomes about watching oneself.

Desiderata
2002-2003

"Desiderata" was an attempt to represent the effects of trauma on memory. Using an algorithm to process video, I was attempting to simulate my experience of time as it relates to memory, and the way that we live our lives through the filters of our combined memories. Time as a unit of measurement is sequential, horizontal, one moment following the last. While this is useful for science and language, the "duration" of an experience is generally determined by the intensity of the experience, not by the amount of time which has passed. In trauma, this becomes accentuated: a single moment in time seems to stretch and reverberate ad infinitum, while the actual time passing while performing a mundane task, such as a drive to the store, can seem to disappear entirely from memory, thereby collapsing time. My goal for this project was to simulate the blurring of noise and crystallization of moments that we experience through memories. Just as our memories are stacked vertically within us yet continue to stack up over time, the video is composited vertically while continuing to run sequentially. As the video plays, images disintegrate while others (re)emerge. The effects are long moments of blur, and distinct moments that seem frozen in time.

Nomadika
2000

Details

"Nomadika" was a collaborative work created for the International Sculpture Competition in 2000. This work was part of a live tactical media work as well as existing as an online project. The idea was to query the public about their desires for new electronics as it is contrasted by their fears of losing their liberties.

Sculptural Installations
1997-2001

Audio

Composed Algorithmically Using CSound and Common LISP Music
Gam

Train

Pinwheel | Shi.ko Ltd., 2007 | SuperBowl Series | Flower | TV Commercial Series II | Breathe | Peek-A-Boo | Bush by 537 | Echo & Narcissus Ltd. | TV Commercial Series | Sculptural Installations | Nomadika | Curriculum Vitae | Artist Statement | Teaching Philosophy | Bio & Contact

Copyright 2008 by Anat Pollack
anat pollack at hotmail dot com


Foolish Beasts: Animals Look Back In Collaboration with Dr. Paula Lee 2007-Present
This collaboration between Anat Pollack and Dr. Paula Lee is an installation using video cameras and zoomorphic robots. This work is meant to offer a critical examination of anthropocentric assumptions that situate animals as the "always-observed" subject.


Television Commercial Series 2007, 2008	Details
In the TV Commercial Series, I have digitally processed images from television ads as a means of re/appropriating the imagery used by advertisers to sell us material goods. Too often, the imagery and sounds used in commercials have no reference point to the item being sold, but rather are used to target our innermost Desire, an effective advertising technique. This series of work is meant to refine and distill the imagery from these ads. Re/appropriating these images are a way for me to give these spaces back to the view, this offering a space for an experience with the Sublime.


SuperBowl Series: 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008 2004-Present	Details
This is a 4 wall projection installation. Four years of Superbowl games have been recorded, deconstructed and reconstructed. Although 4 years are represented, there is much similarity in the 4 projections. This work is meant to call attention to our habitual modes of perceiving information and the frenetic nature of mass media. The heavily layered aural and visual information loses its original meaning, becoming random noise, and causes our brains to seek out patterns in the chaos. As the media itself loses its original meaning, it creates an opening in the way that familiar information is experienced.


Peek-A-Boo 2006	Details
While a smile shows our canines, insinuating a sinister emotion, so too can a laugh possess a disturbing and menacing quality. In Peek-A-Boo, a simple and fun activity is dissected through repetition. Within the work, the complication of our contemporary life is reflected in the duplicity and layering of this single one game of Peek-A-Boo. Where a single clip would show a pure unabashed laughter sparked by the simplicity of peek-a-boo, once layered and complicated, the repetition takes on a manic and perhaps even sinister feel. As viewers, we know it to be playful yet feel their disturbing effects, due to this amplification of a child's manic behavior.


Breathe 2004	Details
ìBreatheî is sculptural object which functions as a vehicle for the experience of a singular focus and experience of the breath. For the viewer, the ancient dictum ìstay with your breathî bears repeating. It is impossible not to breathe with this piece. ìBreatheî utilizes simple technologies to draw air in and push air out of a rubber bellows. The sound of the air being inhaled and exhaled is meant to offer both an internal and external experience for the viewer. In this art piece, a machine simulates a human experience, forming a recursive relationship with the viewer as they experience their own internal rhythm. Itsí draw is irresistible, as irresistible as breath itself: viewers are drawn into a community defined by breathing. Awareness of the breath is an escape from and a returning to the present. This work presents the viewer with a gift, an engagement with self and others through ones own breath.


Television Commercial Series 2004-Present	Details
In the TV Commercial Series, I have digitally processed images from television ads as a means of re/appropriating the imagery used by advertisers to sell us material goods. Too often, the imagery and sounds used in commercials have no reference point to the item being sold, but rather are used to target our innermost Desire, an effective advertising technique. This series of work is meant to refine and distill the imagery from these ads. Re/appropriating these images are a way for me to give these spaces back to the view, this offering a space for an experience with the Sublime.


Echo & Narcissus With Adam Goode 2003	Details
"Echo and Narcissus" is a real-time video installation. Within the installation exists a single piece of glass that acts as a mirror. Images projected on to the glass are revealed when the participant stands at a certain angle from the glass. As a mirror, the participants sees a reflection of themselves as well as a layering of images of others who have inhabited the space previously. Over time, their own image appears in the projection, mixed and morphed with the images of others who have been captured on video. The time delay is deliberate as I am trying to create a juncture in the experience of gazing at oneself in real-time, seeing others gazing into the mirror, seeing oneself in the past, and experiencing oneself in the present with the new knowledge of being recorded. This piece, like Desiderata was an exploration of cognition, a step toward simulating the experience of memory using an algorithmic process. In this piece, I am interested in the ghosts of the past. The way that a space can simultaneously feel empty, and full of all of the life that has inhabited it over time. I am also interested in the juncture between the subject and the object, and our desire to see ourselves. Watching this piece then becomes about watching oneself.

Desiderata 2002-2003
"Desiderata" was an attempt to represent the effects of trauma on memory. Using an algorithm to process video, I was attempting to simulate my experience of time as it relates to memory, and the way that we live our lives through the filters of our combined memories. Time as a unit of measurement is sequential, horizontal, one moment following the last. While this is useful for science and language, the "duration" of an experience is generally determined by the intensity of the experience, not by the amount of time which has passed. In trauma, this becomes accentuated: a single moment in time seems to stretch and reverberate ad infinitum, while the actual time passing while performing a mundane task, such as a drive to the store, can seem to disappear entirely from memory, thereby collapsing time. My goal for this project was to simulate the blurring of noise and crystallization of moments that we experience through memories. Just as our memories are stacked vertically within us yet continue to stack up over time, the video is composited vertically while continuing to run sequentially. As the video plays, images disintegrate while others (re)emerge. The effects are long moments of blur, and distinct moments that seem frozen in time.


Nomadika 2000	Details
"Nomadika" was a collaborative work created for the International Sculpture Competition in 2000. This work was part of a live tactical media work as well as existing as an online project. The idea was to query the public about their desires for new electronics as it is contrasted by their fears of losing their liberties.

Sculptural Installations 1997-2001