LANGUAGE WORKS
Eduardo Kac
Aldo Castillo Gallery
233 West Huron Chicago, Illinois 60610
Tel 312-337-2536
Fax 312-337-3627
artaldo@aol.com

IRIS PRINTS



Erratum 1
20 X 25 in
Iris print on Arches paper
1994




Erratum 2
20 X 25 in
Iris print on Arches paper
1994



Erratum 3
20 X 25 in
Iris print on Arches paper
1994


In "Erratum", pairs of words are seen in a field in which layers of colors embed and dissolve the verbal forms. The words are nearly homophonous and always suggest contrasting meanings. These images are hand-painted on a computer employing a whole repertoire of rips, blurs, scratches, warps, slashes, composites, scrawls, color manipulations, smears, gashes, filters, gougings, scaling, abrasions, transparencies, inscriptions and overpastings.
Letter
10 X 14 in
Iris print on Arches paper
1996
Collection George Hartogensis, Chicago

In "Letter" a diagonal cone made of words can be interpreted as both converging to or diverging from the spiral on the lower corner. Together they evoke an explosion at the core of a galaxy. The words in the spiral make reference to the birth of the artist's daughter. The words in the cone make reference to the death of the artist's grandmother.

VIDEO WORKS

Still of Reversed Mirror, 1997, a 7-minute, silent, single-channel video.

This work takes language into a domain of trance where the subtle dissolution and reconfiguration of verbal particles is charged with a feeling that is at once calm and tense.


UPC, 1994, installation detail.

In this looped and silent video installation letters are projected against the wall. They emerge out of focus on the right, move across diagonally into focus, and disappear again out of focus to the left. Literal and at the same time metaphorical, the verbal material evokes multiple analogies: "Nothing Above To Left Or Right Nothing Below".

HOLOGRAM

Amalgam
4 X 5 in
White light reflection hologram
1990


Amalgam is composed of two sets of two words each ("flower-void" and "vortex-flow"), and each set blends into the other as the viewer tries to read the text. The reader can see the visual transition between the sets as an attempt to produce a semantic transition as well, so that the in-between shapes indicate in-between meanings.

DIGITAL WORKS

Please click on the title to download the work to your desktop and use StuffitExpander to open compressed files.

Please note: with the exception of "Secret", which can be seen both on a Mac and on a PC, all digital works below can only be seen on a Mac.

OCO,1985/90 - Runtime looped animation (Macintosh only). Please use StuffIt Expander to uncompress it. OCO explores the three-dimensional architecture of the letters O, C, and I, and the multiple meanings (in Portuguese) that emerge when the letter I appears and disappears rhythmically in virtual space. These meanings emerge through the cognitive associations made by the viewer as well as the perceived spatial relationships between the letters.

Storms, 1993 - A hypertext piece based on the sefirotic tree of the Kabbalah. 65K compressed Hypercard stack (Macintosh only).

Accident, 1994 - Language is born and dies in this looped digital video. 1,1K compressed Runtime Macromedia Director (Macintosh only). File may appear in the System Folder after downloading.

Insect.Desperto, 1995 - Verbal fireflies vanish between Portuguese and English.. 664K compressed and archived (Macintosh only).

Secret, 1996 - This VRML navigational poem, the first of its kind, will be automatically downloaded to your desktop or it will be displayed inline on your web browser (Netscape 3 or higher or a recent version of Explorer). 8K uncompressed (Macintosh and PC). If you do not see the file inline, please look for a file entitled Secret.wrl. This is the VRML file. You may drag and drop the file on any VRML-enabled browser. Please note that you must have a VRML browser or a VRML plug-in to see it. If you are a Macintosh 68K or PowerMacintosh user, and don't have Live3D plug-in or a VRML browser yet, please download and install Live3D or go to the Virtus Voyager site and download a copy of the VRML browser Virtus Voyager before downloading "Secret". If you choose to download Voyager, please do not forget to configure Virtus Voyager as a helper application in Netscape. You may also use Voyager (or Netscape) to see Secret off-line. Another very good VRML browser, available both for the Mac and the PC, is WorldView. The words in "Secret" are dispersed in the semantic darkness of a potential space. The reader is invited to navigate this space and create verbal and visual links between immaterial presences, voids, and distant signs.

Wine, 1996 - A delicate and silent animation (Macintosh only). It suggests an inebriate mental state in which foreground and background blend in almost undifferentiated fashion. The poem articulates the fleeting apparitions of the words from within themselves, as if one word would write another. Words will momentarily manifest themselves in unexpected areas on the screen, often bordering the very edge. The piece communicates as much through the verbal apparitions as it does through their carefully orchestrated evanescence.

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