GARY HILL

One 45-inch (or larger) 16:9 format LCD monitor and wall mount, one DVD player and one DVD (color; silent)

Dimensions variable (45-inch monitor: 25 ½ h. x 43 w. inches [65 x 109 cm.])

Edition of five and one artist’s proof

Although related to the earlier series entitled Liminal Objects (1995 – 98), in which specific iconic pairs of black-and-white, computer-generated animated objects continuously pass through one another via their shared geometries in virtual space, the works in this recent series (which include Big Legs Don’t Cry, 2005; Attention, 2005; Church and State, 2005; and Spoonful, 2005) are rendered in color and created specifically for a wide-screen format, flat-panel 45-inch (or larger) LCD screen.  These works involve objects that, in a sense, violate each other’s borders in unpredictable ways, with the repetitive interaction and circular logic of their movement suggesting different readings of these veritable micro-scenes.  Hinting at elements of symbology, they are “objects on the threshold of being something other than objects, ‘animated’ in a sense deeper and stranger than the technical.”

In Spoonful, a generic silver spoon rests on a dark reflective surface. A United States Gold Eagle coin, rapidly spinning on its edge and also reflected in the dark surface, moves toward the resting spoon.  At times, the spinning coin passes through the surface of the seemingly untouched spoon, yet at others, the laws of physics prevail, and the force of the coin’s rotation kicks the spoon, knocking it across the surface.  As the sequence ends, the coin spins into the mouth of the spoon, slowing down its rotation, and then quickly regains its momentum, once again forcibly pushing the spoon across the surface as the coin comes to a final rest.