Electrical engineering meets art in the Ambiguous Icons exhibit showing in West Hall Gallery 111 through November 30. Jim Campbell uses two-dimensional arrays of LEDs on which he displays animations by changing the intensity of the red in three works as well as intensity and color in another work. The animations integrate seamlessly with the technology used to create them.
“Church on Fifth Avenue” presents a scene of a New York City crosswalk in front of a church. The dark images of cars and walking people contrast with the bed of red lights. An angled translucent plexiglass cover creates the effect of making the distinguishable LEDs on the left portion gradually transition into a blur of light on the right portion. The objects and people also blur as they transition from one part of the screen to the other.
Minute details, such as the shading of the objects, makes this piece amazing. The experience is almost analogous to watching black and white television on red LEDs.
Even with less image resolution, the amount of detail builds a cohesive story about peoples lives. The work draws attention to the difference between the discrete lights as a digital representation of an image and the blurred light as a continuous representation. Campbell portrays everyday life in New York City in an accurate, but abstract way, which challenges the perception of reality and how it relates to digital media.
“Running Falling” portrays a figure running, falling, and then splitting in half as the top part of the body tries to catch up with the legs. The legs and the torso play a game in which they try to meet with each other but never quite succeed. The repetition of this clearly painful scene becomes beautiful as the form of the shadowy figure moves. This work is presented with uncovered red LEDs.
The other work most similar to “Running Falling” is “Motion and Rest #5.” A disabled figure walks within the frame of red LEDs and then stops. The motion appears very smooth across the lights because they do not just blink on and off, but change in intensity. The subtle outline of a cane, smaller than the width of a single LED, can be detected as the figure leans on it for support. The figure appears like a shadow against the red backdrop, creating questions about the figure’s sex, dress, ethnicity, and disability.
“Wave Modulation” contrasts with the other works because it uses green, blue, and red LEDs to make a full color image of ocean waves crashing toward the viewer. The piece changes speed, slowly decelerating over 20 minutes until it is still. When playing in real time, the image looks like waves crashing, but as the image slows down, it looks more like an abstract work of colored light. This aspect draws attention to the motion and not the actual image as the conveyer of information. Because the speed processing takes place in real time, a different still image will appear at the end of each repetition.
Campbell’s use of technology to further a creative idea makes the work very powerful because the themes presented could stand alone without the use of technology. The LEDs enhance the project by challenging the viewer to rethink the themes based on how the medium portrays the issues of time, image, and space. Repetition and the slow pace of the works emphasize the subtle motions of the objects within the LEDs. The work is held together with the common reflective nature of the pieces but remains interesting because of the diversity of ideas presented.
