Daniel Rozin
Fabrication
September 8 – October 6, 2007
Daniel Rozin debuts new mirrored interactive sculptures at bitforms gallery in New York.
“In a tour de force display of mechanical engineering and computer software skills, Rozin makes the audience the subject of his kinetic sculptures.” – RC Baker, Village Voice
bitforms gallery is pleased to announce a third solo exhibition with Daniel Rozin in New York. Opening Saturday Sept 8, Fabrication marks the world premier of two new mirrored interactive sculptures, and the United States debut of his Snow Mirror. The exhibition will remain on view through October 6, and will be accompanied by a new brochure on the artist.
Daniel Rozin (b. 1961, Jerusalem) creates interactive installations and sculptures that have the unique ability to change and respond to the presence of a viewer. Although computers are often used, they are seldom visible. Mirrors and mediated perception of the self are central themes in Rozin’s recent work. In most of his pieces the viewer takes part, actively and creatively, in the performance of his art.
Displayed at the gallery doorstep, Rozin’s Weave Mirror assembles 768 motorized and laminated C-shaped prints along the surface of a picture plane that texturally mimics a homespun basket. A seemingly organic smoky portrait comes in focus to the sound of clacking steps made by the sculpture’s moving parts. Informed by traditions of both textile design and new media, the Weave Mirror and paints a picture of viewers using a gradual rotation in greyscale value on each C-ring. A playful juxtaposition between the rustic and photographic, this sculpture is suspended from the ceiling. Its functional circuitry and wiring is visible behind the picture plane, exposing its genius craft.
Also exhibited for the first time, Rozin’s Peg Mirror comprises 650 circular wooden pieces that are cut on an angle. Casting shadows by twisting and rotating in unison, wooden pegs forming concentric circles surround a small central camera. The mirrored image produced in this work is activated by software authored by Rozin that processes video signals and breaks up imagery geometrically, seemingly pixel by pixel. The silently moving wood components in this piece flicker like jewels or coins in the spotlight, challenging our notions about what constitutes a “digital object”.
For more than a decade Rozin’s art has employed a wide range of materials including chrome spheres, flat wood panels, and city trash from the streets of New York. Software art that links screen-based performance with real-time video processing has been another focus of Rozin’s efforts since the mid-1990s. The Snow Mirror, which uses an artist-authored algorithm that floats site-specific visual imagery of the immediate past into the present, hovers in the gallery mid-air as a projection on silk fabric. Exhibiting for the first time in the United States, the Snow Mirror debuted at bitforms gallery in Seoul last year.
In June 2008 Daniel Rozin’s Trash Mirror, Circles Mirror and Peg Mirror will be exhibited in Madrid at the Reina Sofía in its new Jean Nouvel-designed space on the second floor. The exhibit will be part of ArtFutura, Spain’s foremost art and technology festival. Fall 2008 Rozin’s work will be shown in the Milwaukee Art Museum, as part of a group exhibition curated by George Fifield on interactive installation art.
Daniel Rozin’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, John Michael Kohler Art Center in Wisconsin, and bitforms gallery in New York and Seoul. He has participated in group exhibitions at the Taiwan National Museum of Fine Art; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León in Spain; Ars Electronica; Jamaica Center for the Arts in New York; Art Interactive in Cambridge; Lincoln Center; InterCommunication Center in Tokyo; The American Museum of the Moving Image; Itaú Cultural Institute in São Paulo, Markle Foundation in Rockefeller Center; SIGGRAPH; Media City Seoul 2000; New York University; Interaction’99 in Ogaki, Japan’; Zman Laomanut in Tel Aviv; and Threadwaxing Space in New York. Rozin is the recipient of numerous awards including the Prix Ars Electronica, I.D. Design Review, and the Chrysler Design Award. Rozin’s artwork is part of many celebrated public and private collections including Fundación Privada Sorigué, MUSAC Fundación Siglo para las Artes en Castilla y León, Sprint, The Capital Group Companies, W Hotel Seoul, Ark Investment Partners, SK Corporation, New York University, Radio Shack, and Pearl Lam.