decapitated medium series
click each image to enlarge
This is an unfinished series of television sets cleanly bisected along various singular axes, begun in 2004; this first one is entitled "Decapitated Medium #1". I cut it horizontally, starting at the middle of the screen and sloping up about thirty degrees toward the back, so you can peer into the picture tube as you look down at it. We stare at the TV screen more than any other object in our history really; and by cutting it open and transforming it into an aesthetic object, it is also stripped of its power as a tool of propaganda and advertising. The passive act of consuming television itself has, in this case, been supplanted by not only a new aesthetic perspective of the television set but an active discussion about the role of television in our lives; a message and response for which it was never originally intended.
The second in this series, "Decapitated Medium #2", is bisected at a straight vertical axis behind the screen, and is meant to hang vertically with the inside facing the viewer. The phosphorescent coating has been removed from the glass so the screen is transparent. It is almost finished. See photo below.
