Tony Oursler
Encyclopedia
Tony Oursler is a multimedia and installation artist.
Signature works have been his talking lights, such as Streetlight (1997), his series of video sculptures of eyes with television screens reflected in the pupils, and ominous talking heads such as Composite Still Life (1999). An installation called Optics (1999) examines the polarity between dark and light in the history of the camera obscura. In his text "Time Stream", Oursler proposed that architecture and moving image installation have been forever linked by the camera obscura noting that cave dwellers observed the world as projections via peep holes. Oursler's interest in the ephemeral history of the virtual image lead to large scale public projects and permanent installations by 2000.
commissioned the "Influence Machine" in 2000. This installation marks the artist's first major outdoor project and thematically traced the development of successive communication devices from the telegraph to the personal computer as a means of speaking with the dead. Oursler used smoke, trees and buildings as projection screens in Madison Park NYC and Soho Square London. He then completed a number of permanent public projects in Barcelona, New Zealand, Arizona including "Braincast" at the Seattle Public Library. He is scheduled to complete a commission at the Frank Sinatra High School in Astoria, New York.
, David Bowie
, Kim Gordon
, Sonic Youth
, Joe Gibbons, Rem Koolhaas
and Stephen Vitiello
.
Oursler is part of the musical and performance group, "Poetics", with fellow California Institute of the Arts
students Mike Kelley and John Miller
.
Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, CA
Lehmann Maupin Gallery
Tapes, Installations: 1977-1989
Tony Oursler is known for his fractured-narrative handmade video tapes including The Loner, 1980 and EVOL 1984. These works involve elaborate sound tracks, painted sets, stop-action animation and optical special effects created by the artist. The early videotapes have been exhibited extensively in alternative spaces and museums, they are distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix. His early installation works are immersive dark-room environments with video, sound, and language mixed with colorful constructed sculptural elements. In these projects, Oursler experimented with methods of removing the moving image from the video monitor using reflections in water, mirrors, glass and other devices. For example, "L-7, L-5", exhibited at the Kitchen NYC 1983, used the translucent quality of video reflected on broken glass.Projection: 1991
Oursler began working with small LCD video projectors in 1991 in his installation "The Watching" presented at Documenta 9, featuring his first video doll and dummy. This work utilizes handmade soft cloth figures combined with expressive faces animated by video projection. Oursler then produced a series of installations that combined found objects and video projections. "Judy", 1993, explored the relationship between multiple personality disorder and mass media. "Get Away II" features a passive/aggressive projected figure wedged under a mattress that confronts the viewer with blunt direct address. Oursler’s works seem like animate effigies in their own psychological space, often appearing to interact directly with the viewer's sense of empathy. These installations are consistently disturbing and fascinating and lead to great popular and critical acclaim.Signature works have been his talking lights, such as Streetlight (1997), his series of video sculptures of eyes with television screens reflected in the pupils, and ominous talking heads such as Composite Still Life (1999). An installation called Optics (1999) examines the polarity between dark and light in the history of the camera obscura. In his text "Time Stream", Oursler proposed that architecture and moving image installation have been forever linked by the camera obscura noting that cave dwellers observed the world as projections via peep holes. Oursler's interest in the ephemeral history of the virtual image lead to large scale public projects and permanent installations by 2000.
Public Projects: 2000-2009
The Public Art Fund and ArtangelArtangel
Artangel is a London-based arts organisation founded in 1985 by Roger Took. Directed since 1991 by James Lingwood and Michael Morris, it has commissioned and produced a string of notable site-specific works, plus several projects for TV, film, radio and the web...
commissioned the "Influence Machine" in 2000. This installation marks the artist's first major outdoor project and thematically traced the development of successive communication devices from the telegraph to the personal computer as a means of speaking with the dead. Oursler used smoke, trees and buildings as projection screens in Madison Park NYC and Soho Square London. He then completed a number of permanent public projects in Barcelona, New Zealand, Arizona including "Braincast" at the Seattle Public Library. He is scheduled to complete a commission at the Frank Sinatra High School in Astoria, New York.
2010 exhibitions
From October–December 2010, the Lehmann Maupin Gallery hosted Oursler's exhibition entitled "Peak". The exhibition is timed with Oursler's Valley, the inaugural exhibition of the Adobe Museum of Digitial Media.Collaborations
Oursler has collaborated with Constance DeJong, Tony ConradTony Conrad
Tony Conrad is an American avant-garde video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician/composer, sound artist, teacher and writer...
, David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
, Kim Gordon
Kim Gordon
Kim Althea Gordon is an American musician, vocalist, artist, record producer, video director and actress. She has sung and played bass and guitar in the alternative rock band Sonic Youth, and in Free Kitten with Julia Cafritz...
, Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...
, Joe Gibbons, Rem Koolhaas
Rem Koolhaas
Remment Lucas Koolhaas is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and "Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design" at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, USA. Koolhaas studied at the Netherlands Film and Television Academy in Amsterdam, at the Architectural...
and Stephen Vitiello
Stephen Vitiello
Stephen Vitiello is a visual and sound artist. Originally a punk guitarist he is influenced by video artist Nam June Paik who he worked with after meeting in 1991...
.
Oursler is part of the musical and performance group, "Poetics", with fellow California Institute of the Arts
California Institute of the Arts
The California Institute of the Arts, commonly referred to as CalArts, is located in Valencia, in Los Angeles County, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the United States created specifically for students of both the visual and the...
students Mike Kelley and John Miller
John Miller
-Politics:* John Miller , Governor of North Dakota, 1889–1891* John Miller , Governor of Missouri, 1826–1832; U.S. Representative from Missouri, 1837–1843...
.
Galleries
Metro Pictures, NYC (see official website)Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, CA
Lehmann Maupin Gallery
Film and Video
see videos Electronic Arts Intermix- “Tony Oursler Video Projections” by Tony Oursler, Inner-Tube Videos. 2002, 27 minutes, Color. NY: Inner-Tube Videos.