MOCA Jacksonville is the first institution to exhibit Daniel Rozin’s Penguin Mirrors, an installation of 450 motorized stuffed animals scattered on the floor. As viewers approach the animals, the penguins respond and mirror their observers’ movements, either facing or turning away from their audience. The installation’s playful interactivity almost hides the complex geometry and computer robotics that drive it.
At first glance, Ken Matsubara’s Round Chair series appears to be simple glasses of water sitting atop stools. But the objects take on new dimension when viewers peer into the bottom of the glasses to find curious films whose technology defies explanation.
Even works that mimic nature, such as James Clar’s computer-projected Rain Under Lamppost and Patrick Jacobs’ fairytale portholes, are constructed with modern, man-made materials. MOCA Jacksonville invited Kathleen Vance to evolve her series Rogue Stream by creating a site-responsive installation based on the St. Johns River. After studying the river’s course, Vance recreates it in miniature—echoing every bend as water charts through the city and in the replica. Created to celebrate Cultural Fusion’s Year of the River, Vance constructs a living sculpture that poses questions about our relationship to nature.
Technology also breathes life into Project Atrium: Ian Johnston, the series’ first mechanical installation. In Fish Tales, shopping carts suspended from the top of the Atrium Gallery are covered in a giant bag that inflates and deflates, commenting on the uneasy marriage of consumption and waste. But it’s also a not-so-subtle reminder that our love affair with goods often leads to a landfill.
Artists who appropriate technology to create mind-blowing visual effects in three-dimensional forms—these exhibitions are just the latest examples of how MOCA Jacksonville brings you the art, artists, and ideas of our time.
