Ivan Twohig

- Marshall McLuhan

Quote: “The essence of technology is by no means anything technological
Thus we shall never experience our relationship to technology so long as we
merely push forward the technological, put up with it, or evade it. Everywhere we
remain unfree and chained to technology, whether we passionately affirm or deny it. But
we are delivered over to it in the worst possible way when we regard it as something neutral;
for this conception of it, to which today we particularly like to do homage, makes us utterly blind to the essence of technology.”
- Martin Heidegger

My work is primarily concerned with modern technology’s affects on art and human perception in general.

On one level I like to give people unfamiliar situations. I like to present the audience with a certain level of familiarity but also to render it somewhat unfamiliar. My aim is to create responsive environments that engage the viewer in a reactive system where things we take for granted are reassigned roles that reveal their inherent peculiarity. As klee said arts intention should not be to “render the visible but to render visible.” So the opening and closing action of an umbrella for instance is for many people something that is of no consequence. But it is a very physical action that many of us will perform over and over throughout our lifetime, and we know this action very well. We are conditioned to it. It is also a very visible action and a simple mechanism that we understand without really any need to understanding it. Technology predates science. But what happens if this action becomes automated, if this very tangible cause and effect is reinterpreted? The Umbrella Installations render this technology obsolete as far as its original concept goes by having it close as the visitor approaches. A matrix of these objects forms a field and the visitor is able to move through this field creating a pathway by their motion.

My work is also very much informed by architecture, like to take the tools and language we use to construct space and measure it and give them a new context within the space. The Measuring Tape Clusters are an example of this. Taking a tool of measurement. I bring it into a virtual rendition of the space and arrange it in many different ways, play with it. Then bring these virtual arrangements back into the real space. The object takes on a different role within the space. It is a sculpture but it also is still doing its job. It is measuring its own place within the gallery.

The images below are sketches of structures designed in architectural programs with the intention of being constructed in materials such as old scavenged pieces of wood and galvanized metal. The make shift patchwork of wood is intended to contrast the digital precision of the angles in the structure. Powerful lights within the structure bleed out through the cracks and joints in the various pieces. These structures may also have motors installed within that either slowly move the different sections or stress the structure creating groaning sounds that are then amplified through loud speakers also contained within. The structures are paradoxical resemble modernist sculpture but also advanced architectural design.