TITLE: White Noise Duo, and Response, Remote Control 1, Remote Control 2
DATE: 2003

DESCRIPTION
Our current work dissects the inner workings-metaphorically and literally-of the "toy" in a consumer society. We have disassembled discarded mechanical plush toys in order to reveal the crude and complicated mechanisms that make them tick. These disposable items are familiar objects that propose interplay of education, communication, and entertainment. The plush toy and its construction are based on recurrent action. Through interaction with the "toy" we allude to a medium whose golden age was over in a glimmer, where nostalgia and repetition are commodified but never felt: television. This medium has had an impact that is so profound and so resolutely banal that it has removed vulgarity from modern culture. Its impact has carried over to the Internet whose format derives much from similar repetitive processes. These concepts of repetition are sustained through interaction. Similarly, all of our mechanisms are activated by audience participation - motion, sound, or touch. The toys repeat a song throughout a choreographed action making the event incessant. People are asked to question the nature of their perception during their involvement and are then forced to evaluate the illusory nature of technology and the reality of its persistence. By transforming a familiar object that has an aesthetic interface that people are entirely disinterested in, paring that interface down to it's truest form, people are then asked to reevaluate their original experience through continued activity. We believe that their interest in this repetition is a sign of success. As with all diversions on the sideshow of culture, events are sustained by audience desire and are often the most revealing when they are mindlessly repeated. The intent is to place the audience in a mesmerized state induced by optical illusion and sound. We propose that the concept of these casts of characters engaged in a continuous action does relate to a dreamy cinematic operation, but it also alludes to a modern life characterized by escapism, frenzy and consumption. In a future presentation, we plan to construct our discarded "toybots" out of sterling silver. This contrast between the discarded forgotten object and the cherished precious one underscores our societal contradictions.

CONTACT
Cathy McClure and Seth Sexton
Seattle, WA