Departure - W. Benjamin Bray and Christopher G. Watts

Sound, video, and glass installation

"A transient state of mind is characteristic of contemporary society. Whether in conversation, collaboration or simply perusing memories, we maintain an instinctual quest to find something different from - if not better than - what we have now. This cyclical, perpetual sense of departure, and its affect on our perception of where we are and what we are doing, is expressed via an array of translucent, and acoustically-resonant glass bodies.

We leave traces of ourselves in the matter we personally engage. Consider this: That a person's usage of an object injects that person’s being into the molecular structure of the object. The object forever afterwards "contains" the person. Video of people going about their lives is recorded via their reflections in mirrors. These mirrors are then smashed, re-melted and blown into glass forms representative of the subjects' personalities. In this manner, we can get an idea of the personality whose essence remains when a mirror is left unbroken.

In Departure, both this transient state of mind and the traces of it that we leave behind are cast in an installation of glass, video and sound, in an accommodating environment very close to an international airport."

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Writing

:: "DEPARTURE : The Peanuts Ain't Free These Days"
by John Barera, Weekly Dig, 8/4/2008 ... (download)

:: Artist Statement for "Modes of Departure Series"

:: "Video in Sculpture", by W. Benjamin Bray, 2008