Installation (Mixed Media)
2004
Jennifer Marman & Daniel Borins
Beyond Good and Bad features an eight-foot monolith attached to a two-foot square base. The black rectangular structure is finished in high gloss laminate. Above the structure hangs an "audio spotlight" that projects audio in a column-like manner when the viewer stands on the base of the sculpture. Only when standing on the base can the viewer both activate and hear a rendition of Eumir Deodato Almeida's "Also Sprach Zarathustra." The "audio spotlight" uses ultrasound technology to excite particles in the air and to charge them with sound; anyone who is outside of the invisible ultrasound column will not hear any music playing. Behind the audio speaker is placed a bright floodlight that creates the visual effect of an eclipse. A parabolic security mirror is placed to the left of the speaker and monolith. The mirror reflects the sculpture in a distorted tableau-like manner and reveals a depiction, through the use of small lights, of a structuralist constellation contained within the top of the sculpture. The depiction refers to Rosalind Krauss’ Piaget Group diagram from her essay Sculpture in the Expanded Field.
To the right of the monolith stands, The Dark Crystal, a highly finished prefabricated cube enclosure approximately seven and a half feet in height and width. At the back there exists an entrance allowing the viewer into the enclosure. When inside, the viewer encounters a large gemstone reminiscent of the ubiquitous children's "Ring Pop" candy. Fashioned out of translucent Plexiglas and standing on a green plastic column, the gemstone is brightly illuminated from within its base.