Desktop Biennial

A site-specific installation, Broad Street Gallery, Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia. October -December 2005
Installation Gallery
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Desktop Biennial

Thomas Houser

This solo installation was part of the Lamar Dodd School of Art’s 2005 juried exhibition series. It became a harbinger for future installations. Artifacts from the Desktop Biennial installation were recycled in The Other Side of the Mask. The use of a cacophony of sounds became a critical component in other installations, most notably The Other Side of the Mask and Babel Amidst an Arising. Moreover, my interests in “what is missing,” in “Loss countering Hope,” and in “what is portrayed versus what is under the surface” reveal themselves within this project. 

At a certain level this project was a travelogue. I captured photographs while taking students on field trips to New York, Chicago and San Francisco, while travelling to professional events in Pittsburgh, PA and Spartanburg, SC, while visiting family members in Washington D.C. and Hot Springs, NC, while vacationing in the Dismal Swamp and on the Outer Banks, while simply getting away for a day. At other levels this was autobiographical. Every background image was documented regardless of how long it was employed. Each screen capture revealed all active folders and documents. Each exposed the date and time of the capture. Each portrayed something about me.

Counterbalancing 144 backlit screen shots in the gallery were nine 36”x124” transparent panels listing all junk mail received over just a few weeks. The desktop images portrayed order; the junk mail revealed loss of control. The serenity of the photographs was disrupted by the sounds of 9 continually looping audio tracks of three people reading the dates and topics of sequential junk mail. As was the case with the desktop backgrounds, the lists were unedited. All were revealed.