• Semblance I

    An audience member approaches the medicine cabinet and sink and sees whatever is on the other side of the wall. A video camera is capturing the public space to be viewed in place of a reflection in a private space.
      |  2014

  • Semblance II

    An audience member approaches the medicine cabinet and sink and see whatever was in front of the mirror five minutes prior. A discrete video camera is capturing and delaying the display. This delay allows the viewer to see one of three things: the empty space, someone else or a past version of the viewer.
      |  2015

  • L.E.G.

    This small case with the monogram L.E.G is mounted on the wall. Viewers open the case to reveal a live video of their own legs captured by a discrete surveillance camera embedded into the wall below. They are unwittingly given a private reoriented view of their legs.
      |  2014

  • L.E.G.

    This small case with the monogram L.E.G is mounted on the wall. Viewers open the case to reveal a live video of their own legs captured by a discrete surveillance camera embedded into the wall below. They are unwittingly given a private reoriented view of their legs.
      |  2014

  • Foot

    Two foot boards are suspended on the wall. From afar viewers can see a blue glow coming from the bed. The bed on the left contains a projection of one set of feet feet on the left side of the bed and the bed on the right contains a projection of another set of feet on the right side of the bed. If combined they might be lying together. The viewer either must lean over the bed or use the hand mirror to see the video at which point their bodies obstruct the projection, casting their shadows in the bed.
      |  2014

  • Foot

    Two foot boards are suspended on the wall. From afar viewers can see a blue glow coming from the bed. The bed on the left contains a projection of one set of feet feet on the left side of the bed and the bed on the right contains a projection of another set of feet on the right side of the bed. If combined they might be lying together. The viewer either must lean over the bed or use the hand mirror to see the video at which point their bodies obstruct the projection, casting their shadows in the bed.
      |  2014

  • Embed

    A portion of a bed is suspended two feet off the floor and affixed to a wall. This abbreviated physical object is paired with a projected image of the audience’s body that is captured in another part of the gallery. The mapped projection only shows a portion of the audience’s body on this disassociated intimate setting of the bed. The suspended object and the live feed video both have characteristics of a dream in that they are illogical and not all together within one’s control. The subjects are not able to see their own projected image. They must rely on other audience member’s willingness be subjected to this capture in order to view the pairing of object and person.
      |  2015

  • Proxy; A State of Apparent Death

    This was an experience offered to anyone wanting reenact moments of regret with a five-foot opossum in a state of apparent death. People could either go alone or with someone into this shrouded octagonal structure to speak into the ear of the opossum. The small mic fitted into the possum’s ear fed into a program that delayed the sound by five minutes. It was then played through speakers away from the possum, near the entrance of the gallery. An audience entering the gallery was only able to see the shadow and to hear the delayed voice. The audience assumed the voice belonged to the shadow but it was more likely that the voice belonged to someone standing right next to them.
      |  2013

  • Proxy; A State of Apparent Death

    This was an experience offered to anyone wanting reenact moments of regret with a five-foot opossum in a state of apparent death. People could either go alone or with someone into this shrouded octagonal structure to speak into the ear of the opossum. The small mic fitted into the possum’s ear fed into a program that delayed the sound by five minutes. It was then played through speakers away from the possum, near the entrance of the gallery. An audience entering the gallery was only able to see the shadow and to hear the delayed voice. The audience assumed the voice belonged to the shadow but it was more likely that the voice belonged to someone standing right next to them.
      |  2013

EMILY BIVENS Art Palace Website
Art Palace

Knoxville, TN | Sculpture, Time-based, Sound, Performance, Installation
Bio:

Emily Ward Bivens is an Associate Professor of 4D arts and Transmedia Design at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She received her MFA from The University of Colorado, Boulder in 2004.

Exhibitions and performances of Bivens’ individual and collaborative work have been shown in festivals, museums, galleries and washaterias. Individual work has been shown at Skulpturens Hus, Stockholm, Sweden, Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, CO and Temple Contemporary, Philadelphia, PA. The Bridge Club work has been shown at Press Street for Prospect 3+, New Orleans, LA, The Ulrich Museum, Wichita, KS, New Genre Arts Festival XXI, Living Arts, Tulsa, OK, Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara, CA, The Texas Biennial at the Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum, San Antonio, TX, Currents: The Santa Fe International New Media Festival, Santa Fe, NM and the Lawndale Art Center, Houston, TX. The Bridge Club was awarded grants from The Idea Fund and the Mid-America Arts Alliance.

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Statement:

I use found and made objects to forge narratives, provoke interaction and reveal fictional and non-fictional mysteries. These objects shift from prop to subject to evidence when used in performance, video and installation. Domestic objects such as bedframes and antique tube radio cabinets are made, found and manipulated to hold new narratives that either clarify or obscure the original or assumed narrative. The contexts and orientations of the recognized objects are skewed to disrupt the familiar. A chandelier holds surveillance cameras rather than bulbs shifting the meaning of illumination. The foot of a bedframe is suspended five feet high on the wall with a video projection of feet that seems to eerily disappear into the wall. Recorded video, live-feed video and delayed image and sound are used to reintroduce the human and more specifically the audience to these long forgotten utilitarian objects. The projected images and relayed sounds offer a ghostlike human presence while the audience is implicated in a perpetual making and unmaking of a temporal performance between object, voice and image.

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