Max
Dean
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A key characteristic of the work of Max Dean, extending from his performances in the late 1970s to his acclaimed robotics works of recent years, has been his emphasis on an interactive dimension in which the viewer is implicated in the action or function or effects of the piece. The viewer's actions create consequences, and in many instances, the work's success is contingent on this participatory engagement. Issues of trust, autonomy, control and responsibility are central. The interactivity advanced within his work is thus more than mere button-pushing or a selection from pre-set options. Rather, it operates on a complex psychological and metaphorical basis. This exhibition, featuring works produced over the past decade, lends particular emphasis to the aspect of choice that is brought to the fore in Max Dean's oeuvre. This exhibition features the inaugural presentation of BE ME, an interactive video installation in which Dean has adapted and extended leading-edge animation software. In BE ME, the participating viewer's expression and voice can be brought to animate that of the projected image of the artist, in a move which alters the artist's facial expression. Also on view is the award-winning, As Yet Untitled, a robotic work which, three times per minute, puts the choice of the archiving or shredding of a found family photograph in the hands and mind of the viewer. In the action of So, this is it!, the spectator's image is brought into the work, then wiped from view. The viewer's own level of participation determines the sequencing of Sneeze, while putting issues of control into play. The installation As Yet Unrealized suggests the potential of the robot as desiring figure in a prototype of self-assembling chairs in which the disparate elements seem to will themselves into coherent form. Utilizing and innovating upon technological materials and forms, yet pursuing aims that rework and extend their usage and implications, Max Dean's work pushes many edges. It is as of much interest and value to the fields of science and technology as to it is to those of art and culture. |
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