Mediums and Messages

Is the future predetermined? Can we maintain our humanity in this technological age? Has its short-sightedness and abject over-consumption doomed modern society to irremediable ruin? Jeremy Mende likes the big questions. In projects like 100 years from now, which he created while a fellow at the American Academy in Rome, Mende uses deceptively simple messages presented in strategic modes and settings, to provoke reflection on the bigger picture — of the meaning and implications of the larger systems in which we participate.

In his newest work, Untitled (narcissus), Mende’s invites viewers to reflect upon themselves — this time literally. In Mende’s words:

“The installation is essentially a reflecting pool, but one with an anxious undercurrent. The piece functions by sensing a viewer’s heart rate, and then translating that into a representation of the viewer as part of a larger organic system. The animation is bio-feedback that slowly reveals an abstract text questioning each user’s sense of self, community, consumption, and the environment. The projection surface is 26 gallons of spent petroleum. Each viewer’s journey through the installation is based on the signature of their individual heart rate, therefore each journey, and resulting text, is unique.”

Untitled (narcissus) is on view at Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin, CA. Visit his site for a video of the experience.