CLIFF EVANS

• Opening: Saturday, 6:00-8:00PM, Creative Research Laboratory
• Installation runs through Sunday

Recently, I have been working with image constructs of the military/industrial/entertainment complex and how such constructs normalize the perceptions of those involved. However, instead of creating works with defined didactic statements, I have opted for the construction of emotional spaces where the beauty borders confusion (or ugliness) instilling an anxiety similar to what is produced forcefully by "main media." In my work, this anxiety skews itself from what is normally internalized, creating a greater breadth in which to think in a familiar/alien environment or experience. The hopeful benefits of such spaces are to allow the viewer an opportunity to see a fraction beneath what is considered "normal," and, therefore, to reconstruct an assumed acceptance of what they are seeing as reality.

"Five Days on the Line" was culled and constructed from over a thousand jpegs and soundfiles downloaded off of numerous Internet sites (many from www.defenselink.mil). Recreating the space of the science-fiction film, the work becomes a work of no-space. The frozen landscape of bits and detritus is navigated with help of a techno-Virgil, following her as the video screen forces the still image to move. "5Days" is an abstracted environment intended to instill within the viewer a sense of slow-fear that has been engendered by "a prolonged and thorough process of violation, enfeeblement and anesthesia," a process that has been used to normalize the fictional world they are traveling through.