In Absentia’s virtual presence embodies texts and contexts drawn from digital and physical worlds. Carving matter as material, the sculpture touches lightly on the Earth. It references natural and ancient materials, methodologies and mythologies, fusing their storied histories with the Metaverse.
Activated by audiences using mobile technology, the sculpture binds physical and digital realms. It is made in endless multiples in the real world and can be experienced communally at full scale in 3D - at over 3.5 metres high - in collective space and time. Large-scale yet feather-weight, the structure defies physics and gravity while relying on the propositions of each to articulate form. The missing centre is a keystone, without which arched structures would fall. The composition’s faint existence accentuates de-materialisation just as the human imagination and body begins to trust it is physically there.
Rising from an Ionic stone column base, two crystal-glass figures lean in but do not touch. Translucent and reflective, the text-number-symbols slide onto and across each other as they curve to form an incomplete arch. They oscillate between states of being, equally and at once individual and collective, human and spirit, mind and body, present and absent, a split personality, a perfect coupling, sparring partners, or sovereign states in accord or debate.
Activated by audiences, the sculpture binds physical and digital realms. It is made in endless multiples through personal mobile phones and experienced communally at full scale in 3D - over 3.5 metres high - in collective space and time. The circular structure defies physics and gravity while relying on the propositions of each to articulate form. The missing centre is a keystone, without which arched structures would fall. The composition’s faint existence accentuates de-materialisation just as the human imagination and body begins to trust it is physically there.
As classical statuary in transient form, and with agency as free-standing I’s, the sculpture reminds of cultural property and psyches stolen by empires and colonisers, once considered the legitimate spoils of occupations and wars. The stone pedestal recalls an Ionic column taken from the Erechtheion, an Ancient Greek temple to the Goddess Athena, while the glass figures bow like the temple’s Caryatids, carved female columns bearing the weight of ancient structures on their heads. In Absentia’s fluted and curved elements disrupt the existing Order of structures that manifest in both real and abstract forms. The virtual work describes new I-beams poised for load-bearing on a fresh platform and a stone circle with ancient ties shaped presently by the atmosphere.