ExhibitionsSolo
Group
|
In these images, Waite's heart, present in the set of scans in its entirety, is seen fragmented, sliced, "in pieces", physically "broken" apart - as it felt at the time these scans were made. The heart is combined and contrasted with X-rays of bones and a video loop of computer animated hearts, compulsively, hypnotically running through distorted icons of "love", heart always "center screen". A chaos of color and light, individual frames flash like memories. These hearts - hearts of stone, burning hearts, wooden hearts, "mutated" hearts, hearts that are only words - are punctuated throughout by medical images of the body's real heart - breathing, pumping, catching in its rhythm. Viewers can enter the space - the body - examining the incredibly fine details of the bones, searching for the break in the fragments of the heart. Traversing the layers of veil-like images, the viewers reach the video, a mesmerizing light. The crossing of the room is like a striptease to the soul. Finally, they become entranced by strobing color and light, by the symbols of romance - perhaps by the illusions of love and image? This poem uses the hardness, the rationality of electronic technology and its processes - the antithesis of emotion - as the language with which to express emotion. It is a modern vocabulary for a poetry of our age.
© C. Waite, 1993 |