Temporale
My new series Temporale was inspired by this non-linear experience of Time when moving between the physical and virtual worlds of the early 21st century.
“All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just the way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.”
–Kurt Vonnegut, “Slaughterhouse-Five”
My fascination with non-linear Time began around 2002, when I was 16 years old. This was the year I first read “Slaughterhouse-Five,” a special assignment from my favorite English teacher – a person who saw me for the interdimensional weirdo that I was, and guided me toward that which would tickle my curious mind.
This was also the year that I began my photography practice in earnest, having acquired a Lomo LC-A at a local closeout store. I became enmeshed in the online community around the cult camera – a rarity in the pre-social media era – finding the connection and feedback around my work to be powerful fuel in my desire to experiment with the waning medium of film.
I was “@thesarahshow” then as I am now, as I have been since I came up with the screenname as a 9-year-old on AIM. Simplistic though it may be, I treasure this continuity – my little hieroglyph carries through each new unfolding era of digital exploration.
I have begun to view my online activities as a sort of weaving with Time. Our moments here get preserved. They are never gone; instead, the Past swims around us, barely distinguishable from the Present. And, through our state of constant connection with one another and the zeitgeist, we receive flashes of the Future. Electric signals pulse through the network and into our nervous systems, delivering encoded messages of what’s to come.
Like the Tralfamadorians of Vonnegut’s lore, we see the different moments laid out like a mountain range, no longer a string of pearls – even if we feel afraid, and as of yet unsure how to interpret such revelations.
My new series Temporale was inspired by this non-linear experience of Time when moving between the physical and virtual worlds of the early 21st century.
I wanted to return to my roots in experimental photography, as that practice emerged synchronously with my interest in altered temporality. And so, I devised a concept and a process that would allow me to capture multiple timelines of the same moving object into a single still image.
These works begin with “seed” videos of luminous fabrics and materials rotating through space. This is a nod both to the origins of computing as developed through the Jacquard Loom, as well as a desire to work with highly organic forms that shift depending on their viewpoint and light source.
I created these videos through a dual process. First, I filmed physical objects in the Light Witch Lab of my studio.
Then, I created animations of virtual objects with similar properties and motion through a combination of Stable Diffusion and After Effects.
These “origin” properties are split 50/50 within the series. My intention with this is to blur the line between the material and the incorporeal.
At this stage, the seeds get fed through a series of time displacements. After a round of digital time manipulations, I bring the videos into the analog ecosystem of my video rig.
Here is where I begin to craft the final works with my hands extended through circuits. I herd my seeds through devices which allow me to de-synchronize the video frames in a rhythmic, musical fashion. I simultaneously capture these controlled glitches off my vintage CRT screen through a digital slit-scan, recording one line of pixels at a time. This registers myriad timelines of the same moving object into a single still image.
As I sit in command of the rig, I call upon both my fluency with analog video and my experience with playing the drums, synthesizing hand and eye into glorious visual music.
I see this as my contribution to “a field whose special dimension is time. An art which is temporal, as music itself; being, that is, spatio-temporal. An art whose time has come because of computer technology and an art which could not exist before the computer,” in the words of the artist John Whitney. (Whitney, John. "Computational Periodics." Artist and Computer, edited by Ruth Leavitt, Harmony Press, 1976, pp. 42-51.)
(Interestingly, I found this essay after I had already completed the series while researching Whitney, who first inspired my desire to work in time-based media.)
Created in a 16:9 aspect ratio, these works were crafted with fluidity in mind. As such, they may be displayed vertically, horizontally or even cropped at the viewer’s preference. Displays have been a pain point in the widespread embrace of digital art, and I wanted to create work that was impossible to display improperly.
Temporale is in an edition of 1/1/250 – my first larger-scale series of this type, released on the fourth anniversary of the first artwork I minted on the blockchain. I have witnessed a culture emerge, crest, recede and reset in that time. I continue to find the blockchain to be, at its core, an intriguing and useful tool for the Long Now – Even if its co-option by hypercapitalists and grifters is both demoralizing and frustratingly par for course in society-as-we-know-it.
I can speak only to my small part in the vastness of things. It is still remarkable to be able to edition digital artwork in its native format with an immutable, decentralized timestamp and provenance. I stand by my advocacy in this regard, even as the dance I do becomes increasingly complicated.
I present these tapestries of Time with the thrust of my whole heart and human sensuality, channeled through the new tools we take up and the old webs we weave.
EDITION INFO
Temporale is an edition of 1/1/250, meaning it comprises 250 unique works within a single series. It was minted on a sovereign contract on April 3, 2023 and distributed the following day to all holders of SuperRare’s RarePass.
The editions will, therefore, be solely available on the secondary market. Links provided below. I ask that all collectors honor the 10% artist royalty in good faith as agreed upon in the smart contract, regardless of the marketplace.
Collect Temporale on OpenSea
View all cross-platform listings for Temporale on Deca
Rhapsody in Hue
The bliss of all things moving in harmonious alignment. My favorite color has always been all of them all at once.
RHAPSODY IN HUE is a signature VideoFeeling crafted in my studio in 2021. It came together through a unique pairing of original video synthesis animation and video feedback technique with analog processing.
I have become increasingly aware of the nature of my VideoFeelings as a form of rhythmic sculpture that I create with light on videotape. They vibrate with tactility and possess a unique dimensionality despite being entirely incorporeal.
It’s no secret that I’m forever in love with rainbows. I have long said that my favorite color is all of them at once. Aside from their arrestingly beautiful aesthetic qualities they bear great mythological meaning. The rainbow signifies harmonious alignment and wholeness in both spiritual and scientific modes of thought.
I’ve been musing lately on the vibrant palettes I explore in my work, and how they’re only accessible through the RGB colorspace originated in Cathode Ray Tube Televisions. The emergence of NFT technology has encouraged widespread embrace and support for screen-based artworks in their natively luminous format without the need to dull their shine to fit into the material world.
This piece is a celebration of the dance we do between the physical and spirit realms as we wield our novel command of electric light.
RHAPSODY IN HUE was minted at 9am this morning as the genesis token on my new VideoFeelings contract provided by Manifold.
I’ll no longer be minting to the SR shared contract, which caps my existing 1/1s there. The use of my own contracts will allow for my ongoing series to exist as self-contained collections on OpenSea, while being aggregated seamlessly with my longstanding SuperRare profile. This should yield an optimized secondary market experience for my collectors – I’m quite dedicated to elegance, after all.
This piece will be making a special IRL emergence this month – more info on that when it can be revealed.
RHAPSODY IN HUE is now available on reserve auction on SuperRare.
POLARIS
Forever creating my own North Star, so that I never lose my way.
POLARIS is a signature VideoFeeling crafted in my studio during a wildly transitional time in my life. I have been meditating on the concept of the North Star, and the role it’s played in guiding wayward sailors and redemption-seekers to safety.
The need for a guiding light became paramount as I’ve been reorienting myself to my new reality. The work I’ve done over the past three years editioning my artwork on the blockchain has reached psychedelic new levels of visibility and import in the eyes of others, and I’ve been asking myself where I wish to point myself moving forward.
These new tools have always been about self-sovereignty for me, and as such, it seems only fitting that this guiding light must be self-derived. And so, I have created my own North Star.
It’s a glorious synthesis of rhythmic linear counterpoints and vibrating gemtones – a look I’ve been revisiting and refining since I first began working with analog video in 2015. The desire to hone this particular visual strain in my work has become a pet obsession, as I forever chase the combination of color, rhythm and texture that will unlock the ultimate pleasure of synesthesia.
I imprint this work onto the blockchain today, on the brink of Passover season and its tale of the journey from constriction into open exploration. I intend it as a beacon of ecstatic feeling that can guide us all toward that which makes us feel free.
And, therefore, bards of old,
Sages, and hermits of the solemn wood,
Did in thy beams behold
A beauteous type of that unchanging good,
That bright eternal beacon, by whose ray
The voyager of time should shape his heedful way.
-William Cullen Bryant
POLARIS is now available on SuperRare.
The Light Witch
She shines her light into the darkness – among the shadows, images appear!
THE LIGHT WITCH is a signature VideoPainting I created in my studio in 2021. This is a self-portrait of an alter ego who has been a part of me for a long time.
I was born in December, the darkest month of the year. And yet, December is also the most festive time, as darkness provides a canvas for color and light.
The Light Witch embodies my unique gift for transmutation, and the call to project my rainbow visions into the world so that others may see them.
My “Electric Dream” on the SuperRare Monolith at Miami Art Week 2021
This gift is a form of magic, and I am its joyous channel. I creep around my cave doing a marvelous dance of image manifestation. I I I am the witch of the light!
The Light Witch was created with vintage Sony Video Painter, original animation and analog processing on VHS. Digitally transferred in 1080p, Single Edition. Minted on the Winter Solstice of 2021 – a pivotal moment in a pivotal year.
THE LIGHT WITCH was minted on SuperRare at 1pm ET / 10am PT on December 21, 2021.
It’s on Reserve Auction starting at 12Ξ. Click here to bid or view the token.
Madame de Gateau
Laisse-moi me manger comme un gâteau – Let me eat myself as cake!
MADAME DE GATEAU is a signature VideoPainting I created in my Hollywood Studio in 2021. This organic channeling of the camp feminine is a celebration of self-sovereignty – and self-consumption.
I took some inspiration from The Edible Woman, a Margaret Atwood novel I read in college that left a huge impression on me. It examines how women are traditionally consumed by society, and at one point the central character eats a cake she baked shaped like a woman as a metaphor for her own empowerment.
I see this piece as a spiritual descendent of Ouroboros, my 2020 VideoPainting currently in the Metapurse collection.
On a personal level, the concept makes me giggle a bit: I used to be exploited as an artist in the days before I could develop support through NFTs. And now, no one can exploit me… but me!
And of course, there’s the reference to that icon of royal excess, Marie Antoinette. I don’t seek to condemn or exonerate her, but I do feel the decadence she personifies and the precarity of her status are relevant to our moment.
Largely I’m tickled by the cake-like personal fashions of the 18th century!
Way Back Now
WAY BACK NOW is a signature VideoThought reflecting on the Now. Specifically, when everything’s moving so fast you find yourself feeling nostalgic for the present moment.
This piece is the latest installment of the “NOW” series, a strand of works within my greater body of text art. The “NOW” series pairs the infinite looping recursion of analog camcorder feedback with original animation, evoking a “strange loop” as a means of visualizing the weirdness of Time.
The first piece in the series, WHAT NOW, was minted in June 2019 on SuperRare, and is in the @artnome collection. The second piece, ETERNAL NOW, was minted February 2020, and is in the @niftytime collection. The third piece, LUCIDITY NOW, was minted June 2020, and is in the @satsmoon collection.
With WAY BACK NOW, I’m revisiting the “NOW” series from my vantage point in 2021, having experienced both the exponential growth of the Crypto Art space as a whole and my own position within it.
I often point out that I use nostalgia as something of a Trojan Horse in my work – a way to draw people in with aesthetics of the Past as a means of looking at the Present. WAY BACK NOW is a conceptual paradox that could sum up my entire body of work – a logistical impossibility that tickles the brain into a new way of seeing things.
WAY BACK NOW was created in my studio in summer 2021. The Token will be a Hi-Res GIF. The collector will also receive a 4K mp4 optimized for display, and a smaller mp4 optimized for social media.
WAY BACK NOW was minted on SuperRare at 4pm ET / 1pm PT on September 8, 2021.
The Primary Sale is a Reserve Auction starting at 12Ξ. CLICK HERE TO VIEW OR BID.
SPACE LOAF – SuperRare & Bonhams present CryptOGs
CryptOGs: The Pioneers of NFT Art
June 21st-30th 2021. Lot 4.
Space Loaf is one of those artworks that came about serendipitously, yet went on to become one of my most widely beloved pieces.
My sassy Siamese Cat, Ginny, is a frequent fixture (and mischief-maker) in my studio. I shot the footage for this piece after discovering her casually loafing upon equipment I had spent all afternoon carefully setting up.
I piped the footage into my analog video rig, a custom-built system of hardware I play like an instrument, manually manipulating the signals to my liking. The cat appears to be hovering through a digital-analog cosmos, looking around inquisitively in response to the ever-shifting landscape.
I conceived this piece on April 8, 2018, almost *exactly* one year before I minted my genesis token on SuperRare. It was widely shared on Instagram and Facebook on its initial release. I have been featuring it in my pinned tweet on twitter throughout 2021 as an introduction to my Art.
Prior to crypto art, the only way I made my work directly collectible was through my Video Alchemy clothing line. I have long been a lover of fashion, and wanted to translate the colorful rhythmic qualities of my video art to textile. I ran the clothing line from 2017-2020, and the Space Loaf Tee was my #1 bestseller.
Something about this piece speaks deeply to people. Of course, cats have long been a part of Internet culture. But I think this work has a sublimely relatable quality to it. You see Space Loaf and think, “It me!” Floating, titillated and confused, through the primordial soup of cyberspace.
Space Loaf feels like the perfect piece to offer up for CryptOGs at Bonhams x SuperRare. It’s an iconic artwork that serves as a prelude to my entire canon of on-chain editions. And it speaks to the experience of being an early pioneer of the Metaverse, a silly little creature exploring this newly forming ethereal realm.
Space Loaf was conceived in April 2018, and minted on SuperRare on June 16th, 2021.
The collector of this single edition will receive an .mp4 of the piece optimized for display.
Bids can be made in Ethereum or USD through Bonhams Online Auction. The winner will be able to pay via MetaMask or the Exchange of their choosing.
