TOO CLOSE,1988
48 x 31 x 3.5 in

Responds to the motion of a viewer with a light dance and something that sounds like it could be language. The "language" is derived from 64 phonemes combined into "words" and pauses, the length and frequency of which was derived from a statistical analysis of the front page of a NY Times newspaper. When this was shown in Germany, visitors thought it was speaking German. Several weeks after it was sold to a collector, he called me to let me know that it wasn't understandable, and I had to explain that the only real words it produced were "ready" when first powered up, and "you are too close" if a viewer was. Real words are in the ear of the beholder.


High-res image