Sculpture November 2002 Vol. 21 No. 9 (p. 70-71)

Boise
Jack Dollhausen
Boise Art Museum

Jack Dollhausen’s 30-year retrospective was smartly curated and presented. In most cases, each piece had enough wall space to develop and individual aura. The layout was a successful meandering stream-of-consciousness. The walls were painted earthen tones: deep red as (dried) blood and/or nutrient-rich ironladen soil and dark browns as subterranean subconscious strata. The selective soft lighting furthered these psychological/geological interpretations, insulating the exhibition (blinking lights and all) from easy one-liners. Outwardly, this collection of 26 electronic works reflected the three decades it spanned: from Steve Austin (The Six Million-Dollar Man) to Austin Powers (The Spy Who Shagged Me). Beach Funk, Outsider Art, and (old) New Media were collaged into a cacophony of sounds and flickering lights.

Dollhausen’s early work features plywood backing that serves as a utilitarian mounting mechanism for the electronic gadgetry. SPHYNX is a fitting example from the early 70’s. It is programmed to systematically generate all possible four-letter arrangements in the alphabet. A blond wood armature, featuring darker inlaid lightning bolt patterns radiating from the apex, resembles a finely crafted Art Deco radio chassis. Piece of Ground is a sound-activated wooden backdrop that approximates the shape of a splayed-out animal pelt. A row of (spine-like) LED lights divides the four appendages along a vertical axis to form mirroring right and left sides. Two rings of (arterial) LED lights run between the extremities along the circumference of the two halves. The oval shape of Dancer vaguely resembles a painter’s palate, with 16 evenly spaced circular aperatures lining its circumference. These holes are backlit with conventional low-wattage light bulbs that respond to subtle temperature changes and emit varying sound and light patterns suggestive of free-form jazz pieces and tribal dance rituals.

More recent works eschew the opaque wooden anchoring mechanism in favor of openness. They are more lyrical, complex, and self-assured. The titles for Downwindsong and Downwindblue reflect the years Dollhausen has spent living and teaching in the Northwest, where watchful natives from (Eastern) Washington and (Western) Idaho call themselves “downwinders” in response to the increased radioactive presence in their region. Using a Geiger tube, this machine conveys the presence of invisible radioactive ions as light movements. With its two antennae, it resembles an insect – small, vunerable (and contemptible), and capable of surviving heavy doses of radiation.

Addictive, soothing, and luminous, Dancer 4 stole the show. Eleven tungsten tubes radiate from a tranquil anatomy that appeared to sleep in its dark corner. Yet when the motion sensors detected movement, the strobes increased their intensity and began alternately and wildly pulsing to coincide with a synchronized sequence of sounds that approximated the whooshing of helicopter blades. Visually and acoustically hypnotic, this experiential beauty induced trance-like, euphoric, out-of-body sensations. Not unlike the experience of a strobe light (or medicated state), perceptual continuity became pleasantly fragmented and disjointed. Purple after-images (tracers) floated rhythmically and repetitively throughout the space, in a manner comparable to Oskar Schlemmer’s Bauhaus-inspired Pole Dance. Memorable and metaphysical, this is a must-see machine.

Though not as frightening as Survival Research Laborartory, or as rigorous as Nam June Paik, Sterlarc, or Alan Rath, there is something unsettlingly Orwellian about Dollhausen’s work. His machines are programmed to respond, albeit indifferently and indiscriminately, to movement, heat, or sound. Living in a post-modern, post-9/11 survalliance society, there is something unsettling about the reality of human behavior altered by machines altered by human behavior. Dollhausen’s enthralling machines whir, clink, purr, hammer, tap, screech, croak, ring, whiz, chirp, cry, groan, pulse, tick, blink, and light up when people walk into the room. These resistors are simply irresistible.

--Byron Clercx