ELAINE GAN

Whose Place Is It Anyway, 2009

2009-10-27T22:32:00.007-04:00

Mylar balloons are given out to pedestrians, who are then encouraged to pass it on to other pedestrians, creating dispersed and unforeseeable trajectories. Each balloon is marked with an "X" on an icon borrowed from GoogleMaps. The project questions how individuals might map, mark, and occupy place in ways that are intimate and legible, yet immaterial and transient enough to avoid being bulldozed, evicted or commodified.

Produced at Union Square East, NYC for "Sign" (AiOP) curated by Erin Donnelly and Radhika Subramaniam. Special thanks to Wanda Acosta.

The Cosmopolitans (Allegories of Capital), 2008

2009-01-07T13:12:00.015-05:00

Over 600 photographs sourced from the internet and resampled into an oversized b&w digital print (56 in. x 71 in.) This resulting polyphonic image functions as a cognitive map or a semantic window that reconfigures various spaces, strips, and scales into interrelated strata. An experiment in visualizing relationships between macrocosm (global) and microcosm (body).

Email me for a printable pdf and an image map.

Installed at Toronto Free, Ontario, Canada

One World, One Dream, 2008

2008-06-20T16:36:00.003-04:00

Earth transforms into a fully-armored battle station. This 1 min.-13 sec. video was made by compositing NASA satellite images of Earth with fictional representations of the Death Star, an imperial battle station from George Lucas' sci-fi movie "Star Wars". Title is the slogan for the XXIXth Olympic Games in Beijing, China 2008.

Fast Car (Allegories of Capital), 2007-8

2008-06-01T10:43:00.003-04:00

40 photomontages form an allegorical narrative about encounters. Each montage contains four parallel visual sequences: (1) passenger window: tourists encounter indigenous tribes of the Philippine Rice Terraces, as captured in public snapshots on Flickr; (2) rearview mirror: the kiss from Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo"; (3) side mirror: earth morphs into the Death Star from George Lucas' "Star Wars"; (4) Cadillac car as unchanging Western framing device.

Supported in part by a Fellowship and Residency at the Vermont Studio Center. Published in "Intimate", Shifter Vol. 11, 2008, Sreshta Premnath and Steven Lam, Editors

Waiting (Allegories of Capital), 2008

2008-05-11T18:52:00.010-04:00

A narrative installation that considers the Modern Olympiad and its sequence of 30 host cities as historical and ideological constructions of a globalized culture industry.

CENTER OF ROOM: five 7-ft. rings in painted, corrugated cardboard.

RIGHT WALL: 30 color prints chronicle the games by presenting each host city's accelerating use of visual merchandising, corporate branding, and commercial design.

LEFT WALL: single black & white print based on Albrecht Dürer's 1514 engraving Melencolia 1 visualizes a counterpoint.

Installed at the Soap Factory, MN and at the Third Guangzhou Triennial, China.

Partial Views from an Artist's Space (Allegories of Capital), 2007

2007-10-01T21:59:00.032-04:00

Located in a passageway through which visitors must enter/exit, two facing walls present disparate world views.

LEFT WALL: Grid of 4 rows with 160 c-prints maps capital's uneven and sclerotic impact on various spaces and times. From top, row 1: Earth morphs into the Death Star; row 2: GoogleEarth satellite images of 40 megacities; row 3: Flickr snapshots taken at each city; row 4: YouTube screenshots of parkour sequence in reverse.

RIGHT WALL: Single c-print of NASA's 1968 "EarthRise", the first picture of whole Earth as it was originally photographed. Rest of the wall is blank, an invitation to imagine new worlds.

Installed at Artists Space, NYC, with the support of the Independent Study Program - Whitney Museum of American Art and Fractured Atlas - Creative Development Grant.

Occupations, Accumulations, and The Tourists' Gaze, 2007

2007-09-22T18:58:00.008-04:00

The Great Sphinx in Gizeh, Egypt (left) and one of its more popular doubles, the Sphinx at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, USA (right), as captured in over 700 tourist snapshots uploaded, tagged, and archived in photo-sharing websites. An experiment with non-narrative, collective representation.

Installed as a single-channel video projection at Exit Art, NYC.

The Madness of George, 2007

2007-09-21T15:03:00.003-04:00

A performative intervention: Two equestrians in historic/futuristic military uniforms circle a 300-year-old iron fence that surrounds Bowling Green Park in lower Manhattan. One equestrian paces clockwise inside the fence; another paces counter-clockwise outside. They circle without pause.

The intervention recalls the park's original monument to colonial rule: an equestrian statue of British George III (torn down in a collective act of defiance when the U.S. Declaration of Independence was read in 1776).

Supported by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council - Grants for Art in Public Spaces, Puffin Foundation, Ltd., and NYC Department of Cultural Affairs - Materials for the Arts.

The Ambassadors, 2006

2007-09-21T00:22:00.007-04:00

Six photomontage panels consisting of c-prints mounted on plexiglass. The photomontages combine fashion ads with news photos of protests published in the same six-month period. Representations of human beings are violated: models in ads are blocked out and rendered absent while protesters in news photos are faint, distorted spectral presences. Title is from Hans Holbein’s 1533 anamorphic painting.

Completed while in residence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council - 120 Broadway Workspaces Program.

Wite-Out, 2006

2006-08-15T18:40:00.000-04:00

Interventions consist of painting street posters white to reduce advertising messages blanketing city space. The fine art of painting is reclaimed as a public gesture and expression of opposition. Titled after "wite-out", an opaque white liquid used to erase mistakes and create new spaces.

It's A Hard Knock Life (For Us), 2004

2005-10-01T13:55:00.002-04:00

Aluminum structures scaffold living cherry trees. While appearing as fixed and distinct frameworks, the scaffolds are actually designed to expand with each tree's growth over time. One material becomes contained and internalized by the other as each negotiates construction and deconstruction.

Supported by and installed at Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City.

I Say Potato, You Say Potato, 2006

2005-09-01T13:35:00.000-04:00

Seesaws as a metaphor for binary relationships and feedback loops. At rest, the seesaws are flipped twins. When weight is applied, they pivot towards zero degrees. A zero sum game where balance is achieved regardless of physics. Diamond base alludes to Mondrian's lozenges, a search for equilibrium. (This is a maquette.)

Crowd Control, 2005

2005-08-01T13:00:00.002-04:00

Crowd control stanchions form a 1200 sq. ft. maze. Passersby may configure their own pathways--and thus continually recreate the overall maze--by interchanging red belts. Socio-spatial management becomes a flexible field for individual and collective negotiation.

Installed at Sara D. Roosevelt Park, NYC, with the support of NYC Dept. of Cultural Affairs - MCAF Grant (administered by LMCC), Artists Space - Independent Project Grant, and the Puffin Foundation, Ltd.

Walk On Red, 2004

2005-07-30T13:50:00.002-04:00

Under the Manhattan Bridge, a 152 ft. walkway is built into an alley that neighborhood residents consider their secret shortcut. The walkway is painted red to highlight open access and invoke oppositional form. Privilege goes public as territory is redefined.

Supported in part by the d.u.m.b.o. arts center, Arts Under The Bridge Festival.

Walking on Eggshells (Pier), 2003

2005-07-30T13:05:00.002-04:00

2,500 white eggs form a median strip down the center of an undeveloped pier, one of two left in Manhattan. The strip is carefully laid out yet ultimately fragile, standing in for the white traffic line ubiquitous to urban redevelopment and modern transport.

Supported in part by Artists Space - Independent Project Grant.

The Fairest Of Them All, 2003

2005-07-30T12:45:00.000-04:00

A massive ice cube in a park considers the aesthetics and politics of public monuments. Minimalist structure melts down to water, and eventually, air. Henri Lefebvre argues that "a genuinely responsible public art must appropriate space from its domination by capitalist and state power". This attempts to go further, eventually returning the space back to the public. (digital simulation)