Selection Display, 2011
(installation view at Grimmueseum, Berlin)
Selection Display uses a stock photograph of a woman selected from iStockphoto.com. Its presentation is at once a display of image-mediated sexual selection and an embodiment of a display-image tendency to use attractive women to draw the gaze - that tendency's efficacy itself being a byproduct of sexual selection.
The commercial display object takes its form in part from the selective pressures of market competition - specifically, the object's ability to send a signal to the human brain via the retina. The elliptical display pillar's curved panels represent an evolution from flat-paneled displays, gaining a competitive edge by giving the viewer more angles from which to read its content. Specifically, the curved shape allows the passerby to experience the content for a fraction of a second longer than a flat-surfaced display.
All art objects are in pursuit of the same goals. These include being looked at, and transmitting and displaying an artists selective capacities in order to gain competitive advantages in natural and sexual selection. Selection Display aims to present and inhabit precisely these mechanisms of selection.