Installation (Mixed Media)
2002
Jennifer Marman & Daniel Borins
Rise and Fall is a mobile bar graph embedded in a self-illuminated laminate box on casters. Comprised of two pieces the sculptures mirror each other, yet they are opposites. The space in between them is a void of stasis completed by the viewer’s gaze. The Rise and Fall maps the history, social nature, and economic path of success and failure through the addressing of the bar graph. As a commentary on contemporary methodologies pertaining to the formulation of public opinion, the Rise and Fall indicates that mass media utilizes polling and statistics to formulate its opinions; yet, the mass media never reveals the role it is taking in formulating consent and thus bias. Furthermore, this culture of statistics removes the notion of debate and poses contemporary history as the outcome of only a statistical nature.