Sex Machines, Volumes, & Related Objects

The fetish, in Freudian terms, is when an object is transformed into a talisman against impotence and castration. I find within this definition a perverse parallel with our cultures fixation on consumer goods; in addition to the making, exhibiting, selling, and collecting of art works. As a body of work the Sex Machines, and related works explore the art work as fetish and sexuality as an object of consumption as opposed to erotic desire or procreation.

For the most part the Sex Machines, and related items, are fabricated from found objects or are facsimiles of said objects produced by various means of reproduction. Some are simply altered domestic objects, whereas others are appropriated and renamed medical equipment. At times the objects are placed in situations where their meaning is changed through their association with other found items such as grocery store tabloids, prepackaged foods, pornography, political circulars, and films (including animated cartoons and instructional films). The interplay between the object, context, and usage is "tongue in check", and the works generally carry mixed messages or are paradoxes.

By creating one-of-a-kind works and then reproducing them as casts in plaster, artist books, multiples, color photographs, photo-booth portraits, and 16mm films and film loop installations I am playing with the notion of originality and the potency of the unique object. The intent is to metamorphose these found items into fetishes, yet at the same time to undermine their uniqueness by means of reproduction and in turn creating a quantity of art objects for inexpensive (or free) dissemination. These facsimiles are then presented along side one-of-a-kind objects, and their own prototypes, to contrast uniqueness, materials, and assigned value.