Puparium Assemblage
Installation: Matter and Form Contemporary Art Month Show
Studio Gallo: San Antonio, TX 1999
Puparium Assemblage, an electronic multimedia installation, combined Electronic Puparium (1997), puparium.3 (1997), and puparium.head (1998) together in an interactive assemblage. Electronic Puparium, (a puparium is the pupal stage that occurs within a protective cocoon or hard casing between the larval and the adult stages in certain insects), was set within two metal diamond-plate truck runners that provided a rigid frame for the softer, more malleable “cocoon” of metal screen-wrapped bamboo. Within this cocoon were a salvaged cathode tube monitor and a windshield wiper motor, both of which are connected to motion sensors. The passerby’s motion triggered a ten–second static pattern in the monitor and a probing motion in a piece of bamboo. The electro–mechanical organism sensed and reacted to outside stimuli by attempting to break free from the protective mesh casing. When combined with the smaller-scaled pupa studies as “organs” the full potential of an interactive biological / technological / noise parasite began to emerge and suggest responsive structures.
