ON THE EDGE OF SELF

2011

ON THE EDGE OF SELF

2011

Multi-channel HD video, 3D animation, sound
Site specific installation variables in space and time
Two-channel version premiered with Kiang Gallery (solo show)
5:52

The single channel director’s cut viewed at the Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Terminal T-Gate,2014;
Curated by Hope Cohn
Presented by the City of Atlanta Department of Aviation Art Program

Featured in NOPLACENESS: ART IN A POST-URBAN LANDSCAPE, edited by Cinque Hicks

How our identities are constructed has become increasingly complex by the systemic spatial coexistence “in between” virtual and physical migrations. ON THE EDGE OF SELF depicts a shared moment of choice – to stay or leave – between participants, Penny Aviles and Paul Gyori. No decision is revealed, no destination or place reached. One place does not leave the realm of influence as another, and a multiplicity of virtual others, continue a cycle where constructed fictions and reality are permeable and interchangeable.

ON THE EDGE OF SELF navigates migrant identity, working with continually accumulating scenes and randomized sequencing software, to interweave the duality of isolation and connectedness while redefining the spatial relationship of encounters. 3d animated environments and live footage envelope each person. They exist in each place yet never together. Each part is switched and repeated. Each version is site-specific and evolves.

The work references Jorge Luis Borges, from pieces including The Garden of Forking Paths and The Aleph, specifically to the notion of simultaneous exposure to the world- once magical and now virtual.

Animation collaboration with JEFF CONEFRY