Today we're at the Headlands Center for the Arts,
just north of San Francisco, where
we're meeting with Oakland based artist Desiree Holman who's
currently in residence here.
Her work looks into a variety of communities
which she thoroughly researches and tackles
through thematic projects like her 2005 series
"Troglodyte," considered human behavior
through chimpanzee role play.
And her 2009 series "Reborn" explored the community
of women who play act motherhood with life-like infant dolls.
And in her current series, "Sophant,"
Desiree shows her interest in science fiction, aliens,
New Age ideology, mysticism and tech culture.
In much of her work she involves props that
are activated by performers.
And here at Headlands she's been at work
on a video project called "Sophant in Action,"
which involves participants wearing psionics helmets
like this one, made to enhance the abilities of its wearer.
I'm Desiree Holman, and this is your art assignment.
I call it a psionics helmet.
And this is a helmet that one of my characters that I've created
wears in a project that, um, I've
been working on since 2012 called "Sophant."
The idea behind this psionics helmet and all of them
that I've created is that they are for these characters
to enhance their extrasensory abilities.
And these hats, I position them as being somewhere
in between, um, tin foil conspiracy theorist type
hats and Google Glass.
The tin foil hat classically has been
used to either transmit signals or block signals,
so it is actually a technical device.
The Google Glass, uh, also does something
to en, enhance the wearer's capabilities-- extrasensory
capabilities.
So I think, and, and looking at it in that way,
they're very connected.
In general, I'm really interested
in cultural phantasm.
So, as a culture, what kind of, what kind of fantasies
do we have about ourselves and, and what
do those fantasies mean?
So some of the, I think, more dominant themes
that we may be working out as a broader culture, kind
of our relationship to technology.
And, um, even perhaps our relationship
to equality-- not perhaps, actually, definitely.
Our relationship to equality and other people,
equality among human beings.
And, um, and I would think of that in an expanded sense
as well, like our relationship to the natural world,
our relationship to other species.
So your assignment is to become a science fiction character who
wears some sort of psionics hardware
that enables this character to, um,
enhance their extrasensory, uh, abilities in some way.
So that could mean, um, this character can time travel.
Or this character can communicate with the beyond.
Or this character can communicate telepathically
across species.
I don't know, you choose.
I'd really like for you to make, um, an actual character,
to become the character with physical objects.
Um, in lieu of that, if you cannot do that or choose not
to, I invite you to make a drawing or an animation.
But if you do make a fantastic physical psionics helmet
or what have you, I'd love to include, um, potentially,
some of that work in future performances.
So Sarah, I recently lost my phone for about 24 hours.
And during that period, I realized
that without, uh, noticing, I have become a cyborg.
I have become a, a person who is part machine
and I don't feel like myself if I don't have access
to the machine.
Yeah, I think a lot of us are these days.
We have this technology that's becomes so, uh, entrenched
in our lives and ingrained that we don't even
realize that we're holding these things,
we're wearing them around our wrists.
Yeah, like the M.T. Anderson novel "Feed,"
uh, has kind of become real life,
and that's one of the things I find fascinating
about this assignment.
Like, uh, I'm already on the path
to becoming a sci-fi character.
So what's different about this is that it's not just
about received technology.
Like, somebody else designed that iPhone.
Somebody else designed the iWatch--
actually, the same people-- but, uh, or the Google Glass.
But this is about you coming up with your own technology.
What do you need to enhance your own capabilities?
Right.
Yeah.
But here's my question-- uh, unless Claude Monet
had some secret period, uh, where
he was a sci-fi character, what is the possible art
historical precedence for this?
I did have a little trouble with this one.
But I polled my friends, I thought about it,
and I came up with a good one.
In 1964, German artist Rebecca Horn
was 20 years old and living in Barcelona,
making polyester and fiberglass sculptures
without using a mask.
She had no idea of the dangers of the material,
got very sick with lung poisoning,
and had to stay in a sanatorium for a year.
Completely isolated, Horn began to make drawings and sew
what she called "body sculptures," which she could
make while confined to her bed.
One of the first of these was "Arm Extensions,"
which used the material language of the sanatorium, bandages
and prosthesis, to extend the reach of her own body
beyond its confines.
"Finger Gloves" in 1972 put faraway objects within reach.
And "Scratching Both Walls at Once" in 1974
allowed her to, well, scratch both walls at once.
Horn described wearing the gloves. "The lever
action of the lengthened fingers intensifies the various sense
data of the hand.
I feel me touching.
I see me grasping.
I control the distance between me and the objects."
Desiree is also asking us to consider
the way we relate to our environment,
to acknowledge our bodies strengths and shortcomings
and imagine the ways material and technology might enhance
our abilities.
The helmets are symbolic, right?
So, I mean, I like to step into the fantasy
and pretend that they're actually doing something,
but right there they are props.
So they are meant to symbolize, um, or discuss,
our use of, uh, technology to en, enhance our perception.
So this one happens to be made out
of a pan and a tea baller and some electronics.
But other ones I have are, are made out of bent spoons--
psychically created, of course-- and, um, other just found odds
and ends.
In my process in making the psionics I,
um, started by going to the flea market
and gathering pieces so I could tinker.
I wanted to tinker physically and think about,
like, what could this do.
So it really started with the physicality of the object.
But simultaneously, and actually maybe before that
there was research and the kind of inspiration that
was coming through Google searches and looking at,
you know, various, um, uh, hardware
that was directed by the body.
And from there, I actually, um, you
know, once I had an array of things to play with
and ideas were beginning to form, um,
I actually worked with a programmer and someone
to do the electronics.
Um, and so he came on board.
And then we were in the studio together going back and forth.
Pretend, right, that it's a functioning device.
I mean, because who knows?
Maybe it is.