Glitter Crash #1

GlitterCrash is a series of works that transforms images of technology accidents into thousands of bits of glitter, hologram, and mirrored vinyl. The series formalizes the strange seduction engendered by images of destruction. The first, GlitterCrash #1 (2000), shows the tailfin and tires of a Formula-1 racecar spinning out-of-control and engulfed in flames. This is the spectacular moment that we watch on replays, that we include on the highlight reel, and that we secretly, perhaps unconsciously, desire to see while we're watching the race live or on television. Abstracted from its source and diminished in resolution, the sparkling image is the echoe of a media pixelated reality.

Lust for machines to push the physical barriers of existence, to go faster and higher than ever before. Ignore the deadly risk and potential doom that is an inherent component of this desire! Recapitulate the ultimate tragedy as a moment of spectacle, as a moment of beauty.

Glitter Space Disaster reminds me of the Challenger Space Shuttle accident of 1986, one of the defining moments of my childhood. It was as if my optimistic, childish worldview full of hopes welled up in science, dreams founded in exploration, sunk into the disastrous depths of despair and failure. Impending destruction, as if it is fate, is an unavoidable requisite of progress. Forever is impossible.

Glitter Space Disaster

Isn't it difficult to mentally separate the television footage of a real event from what we've seen on the silver screen so many hundreds of times? We cheer with wonder and satisfaction as we watch Macy's blow to smithereens in "Die Hard 3." How are we supposed to feel when we witness a similar catastrophe in reality?

At that moment in September, 2001, American popular culture got a kick in the gut and its generators were forced to take a long hard look at themselves in the mirror, at the curious tendency towards disaster worhip. But alas, our odd desires are entrenched enough to withstand the jerk. To see the spectacle, To consume it's glow, To warm in it's flare, yes, stronger now than ever. We are right back at it.

The Titan Strip #1-6 (2002) series is displayed in a vertical strip like cells in a filmstrip. Shortly after liftoff in August, 1998, the Titan IVA rocket experienced an electrical malfunction and changed it's path to head back towards Earth. So bold and brazen was this drone! But structurally unable to make the turn, it began to break apart. A self-destruct mechanism kicked in and the rocket ignited into a fantastic fireworks display that rained down from the heavens in streams. The rocket's name, Titan, like that great ship Titanic that sunk in 1912. I saw it sink myself in 1953 and oddly once again in 1997. Popular media spins wildly between desire and death, our grossest failures wrapped in a glimmering veil.