UCBM (you could be me)
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65073
Description: Viewers experience a "test" of their adaptation to artificial empathy. A speaking female shown as a video projection is the artist's surrogate in the setup, an intensely self-absorbed persona but funny too. Her script revolves around ironic scientific and theoretical commentary, and she also solicits from viewers as much input and intimacy as she can get. She wants to make a portrait of who viewers are by assessing their willingness to relate, then she gives each interactant a score and a personalized adaptation pattern.
photo: Paul Litherland.
Measurements: overall 3 x 7.5 m.
Collection:
Date Made: 1999
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Work by Nell Tenhaaf
Us and/or Them
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65037
Description: Fifty pages of text, maps, and graphics on the Cold War, gathered from various information sources, including newspapers and United Nations reports, with manipulated images and graphics. This database established the analogy between the binary structure of information based on a Boolean logic of and/or and the deadlock of an us/them Cold War mentality (Kim Sawchuk).
photo: Nell Tenhaaf.
Measurements:
Collection:
Date Made: 1983
Materials: screen shot from interactive videotex database (Telidon)
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Us and/or Them
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65039
Description: Fifty pages of text, maps, and graphics on the Cold War, gathered from various information sources, including newspapers and United Nations reports, with manipulated images and graphics. This database established the analogy between the binary structure of information based on a Boolean logic of and/or and the deadlock of an us/them Cold War mentality (Kim Sawchuk).
photo: Nell Tenhaaf.
Measurements:
Collection:
Date Made: 1983
Materials: screen shot from interactive videotex database (Telidon)
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Us and/or Them
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65038
Description: Fifty pages of text, maps, and graphics on the Cold War, gathered from various information sources, including newspapers and United Nations reports, with manipulated images and graphics. This database established the analogy between the binary structure of information based on a Boolean logic of and/or and the deadlock of an us/them Cold War mentality (Kim Sawchuk).
photo: Nell Tenhaaf.
Measurements:
Collection:
Date Made: 1983
Materials: screen shot from interactive videotex database (Telidon)
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Shopping for Value (Systems)
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65041
Description: This database investigated the implicit cultural imperialism made possible through [communication] technologies and foregrounded the use of electronic devices within a globally voracious free market system promoting commodity culture (Kim Sawchuk).
photo: Nell Tenhaaf.
Measurements:
Collection:
Date Made: 1984
Materials: screen shot from interactive videotex database (Telidon)
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Shopping for Value (Systems)
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65040
Description: This database investigated the implicit cultural imperialism made possible through [communication] technologies and foregrounded the use of electronic devices within a globally voracious free market system promoting commodity culture (Kim Sawchuk).
photo: Nell Tenhaaf.
Measurements:
Collection:
Date Made: 1984
Materials: screen shot from interactive videotex database (Telidon)
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
believable if not always true, (detail of ‘Queen’)
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65044
Description: Introduced the viewer to the matriarchal presence in Egyptian culture. The database explained the religious significance of the Cycladic goddess icon, information conveniently omitted in the Ramses exhibition previously displayed in Montréal (Kim Sawchuk).
photo: Louis Lussier.
Measurements: runtime: 7min 17sec
Collection:
Date Made: 1987
Materials: installation with interactive videotex database
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
believable if not always true, (detail of interface)
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65043
Description: Introduced the viewer to the matriarchal presence in Egyptian culture. The database explained the religious significance of the Cycladic goddess icon, information conveniently omitted in the Ramses exhibition previously displayed in Montréal (Kim Sawchuk).
photo: Louis Lussier.
Measurements: runtime: 7min 17sec
Collection:
Date Made: 1987
Materials: installation with interactive videotex database
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
believable if not always true
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65042
Description: Introduced the viewer to the matriarchal presence in Egyptian culture. The database explained the religious significance of the Cycladic goddess icon, information conveniently omitted in the Ramses exhibition previously displayed in Montréal (Kim Sawchuk).
photo: Louis Lussier.
Measurements: runtime: 7min 17sec
Collection:
Date Made: 1987
Materials: installation with interactive videotex database
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
…believable, if not always true
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65556
Description: 1987 [colour, 7 min. 17 sec.]
(Installation with interactive videotex database)
Introduced the viewer to the matriarchal presence in Egyptian culture. The database explained the religious significance of the Cycladic goddess icon, information conveniently omitted in the Ramses exhibition previously displayed in Montréal". (Kim Sawchuk)
Measurements:
Collection:
Date Made: 1987
Materials: video
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Species Life
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65045
Description: Species Life marked Tenhaaf's passage from info-technology to bio-technology, ironically playing with binarism and culturally encoded gender presuppositions. Rectangular lightboxes enclosed a sequence of digitally processed images: a man and a woman standing on a hill, looking at a sunset, hand in hand, with pink and in blue strands of DNA swirling beneath them. Computer-generated, hand-printed portions of emblematic texts from Friedrich Nietzsche and Luce Irigaray indecipherably crawl up the ladders of the strands of the DNA double helix (Kim Sawchuk).
photo: Guy Couture.
Measurements: three boxes overall 367 x 95 cm., one 150 x 29 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1989
Materials: four fluorescent lightboxes and Duratrans transparencies
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Species Life, (detail)
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65046
Description: Species Life marked Tenhaaf's passage from info-technology to bio-technology, ironically playing with binarism and culturally encoded gender presuppositions. Rectangular lightboxes enclosed a sequence of digitally processed images: a man and a woman standing on a hill, looking at a sunset, hand in hand, with pink and in blue strands of DNA swirling beneath them. Computer-generated, hand-printed portions of emblematic texts from Friedrich Nietzsche and Luce Irigaray indecipherably crawl up the ladders of the strands of the DNA double helix (Kim Sawchuk).
photo: Guy Couture.
Measurements: three boxes overall 367 x 95 cm., one 150 x 29 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1989
Materials: four fluorescent lightboxes and Duratrans transparencies
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Species Life, (detail)
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65049
Description: Species Life marked Tenhaaf's passage from info-technology to bio-technology, ironically playing with binarism and culturally encoded gender presuppositions. Rectangular lightboxes enclosed a sequence of digitally processed images: a man and a woman standing on a hill, looking at a sunset, hand in hand, with pink and in blue strands of DNA swirling beneath them. Computer-generated, hand-printed portions of emblematic texts from Friedrich Nietzsche and Luce Irigaray indecipherably crawl up the ladders of the strands of the DNA double helix (Kim Sawchuk).
photo: Guy Couture.
Measurements: three boxes overall 367 x 95 cm., one 150 x 29 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1989
Materials: four fluorescent lightboxes and Duratrans transparencies
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Species Life, (detail)
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65048
Description: Species Life marked Tenhaaf's passage from info-technology to bio-technology, ironically playing with binarism and culturally encoded gender presuppositions. Rectangular lightboxes enclosed a sequence of digitally processed images: a man and a woman standing on a hill, looking at a sunset, hand in hand, with pink and in blue strands of DNA swirling beneath them. Computer-generated, hand-printed portions of emblematic texts from Friedrich Nietzsche and Luce Irigaray indecipherably crawl up the ladders of the strands of the DNA double helix (Kim Sawchuk).
photo: Guy Couture.
Measurements: three boxes overall 367 x 95 cm., one 150 x 29 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1989
Materials: four fluorescent lightboxes and Duratrans transparencies
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Species Life, (detail)
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65047
Description: Species Life marked Tenhaaf's passage from info-technology to bio-technology, ironically playing with binarism and culturally encoded gender presuppositions. Rectangular lightboxes enclosed a sequence of digitally processed images: a man and a woman standing on a hill, looking at a sunset, hand in hand, with pink and in blue strands of DNA swirling beneath them. Computer-generated, hand-printed portions of emblematic texts from Friedrich Nietzsche and Luce Irigaray indecipherably crawl up the ladders of the strands of the DNA double helix (Kim Sawchuk).
photo: Guy Couture.
Measurements: three boxes overall 367 x 95 cm., one 150 x 29 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1989
Materials: four fluorescent lightboxes and Duratrans transparencies
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
In Vitro (the perfect wound)
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65050
Description: In this work, a quest to know the body makes of it an experimental site, and turns it into a perverse, quasi-biological science display. This display shows penetration of the body as a process of fragmentation and classification. It also posits science as a sacrificial practice, through the repeated image of Jesus Christ's flesh wound.
photo: Paul Litherland.
Measurements: overall 153.8 x 125.8 x 20.2 cm.
Collection: National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Date Made: 1991
Materials: four fluorescent lightboxes and Duratrans transparencies
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
In Vitro (the perfect wound)
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65051
Description: In this work, a quest to know the body makes of it an experimental site, and turns it into a perverse, quasi-biological science display. This display shows penetration of the body as a process of fragmentation and classification. It also posits science as a sacrificial practice, through the repeated image of Jesus Christ's flesh wound.
photo: Paul Litherland.
Measurements: overall 153.8 x 125.8 x 20.2 cm.
Collection: National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Date Made: 1991
Materials: four fluorescent lightboxes and Duratrans transparencies
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
In Vitro (the perfect wound), (detail)
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65052
Description: In this work, a quest to know the body makes of it an experimental site, and turns it into a perverse, quasi-biological science display. This display shows penetration of the body as a process of fragmentation and classification. It also posits science as a sacrificial practice, through the repeated image of Jesus Christ's flesh wound.
photo: Paul Litherland.
Measurements: overall 153.8 x 125.8 x 20.2 cm.
Collection: National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Date Made: 1991
Materials: four fluorescent lightboxes and Duratrans transparencies
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
horror autotoxicus
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65560
Description: 1992 [colour, 6 min. 55 sec.]
(interactive video installation with lightbox touch interface, slide projection, videodisc, sound)
<The subject of this work is the fatality of the Oedipal story and its metaphoric parallel with the desire for genetic control and prediction. Its three basic elements juxtapose scientific imagery from various eras, so as to play with the issue of truth in representation.
Measurements:
Collection:
Date Made: 1992
Materials: video
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
horror autotoxicus
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65053
Description: The subject of this work is the fatality of the Oedipal story and its metaphoric parallel with the desire for genetic control and prediction. Its three basic elements juxtapose scientific imagery from various eras, so as to play with the issue of truth in representation.
photo: Jim Jardine.
Measurements: runtime: 6min 55sec
Collection:
Date Made: 1992
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Oedipal Ounce of Prevention, detail
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65059
Description: While the artist had left traces of her interventions (the soundtracks for Horror Autotoxicus and Gramatica), not until 1993 did she become the explicit visual subject of her own work. In dipal Ounce of Prevention, light boxes shaped like Erlenmeyer flasks contained images of dipus' pierced ankles. They were hung beside photographs of the artist's body (menaced by medical instruments placed in front of them, the steel in contrast to the warm skin tones) and the protein molecules (sections from the inner body in transition) also in light boxes (Kim Sawchuk).
photo: Ian Murray.
Measurements: overall 193 x 88 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1993
Materials: two C prints, fluorescent lightboxes and Duratrans transparencies
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
The solitary begets herself, keeping all eight cells, detail
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65063
Description: I am depicting the reproduction of my own self as an auto-generated artificial progeny. This fantasy narrative is constructed through an image of my own body reclining, twice its actual length but showing only a small section in height. Superimposed over this is a sequence of small images dispersed along the length of the piece, consisting of medieval monster figures (half-human, half-animal), a small figure drawing inside a glass bottle, and dividing cells.
photo: Paul Litherland.
Measurements: 369 x 19 x 25.5 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1993
Materials: fluorescent lightbox and Duratrans transparencies
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
The solitary begets herself, keeping all eight cells, detail
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65065
Description: I am depicting the reproduction of my own self as an auto-generated artificial progeny. This fantasy narrative is constructed through an image of my own body reclining, twice its actual length but showing only a small section in height. Superimposed over this is a sequence of small images dispersed along the length of the piece, consisting of medieval monster figures (half-human, half-animal), a small figure drawing inside a glass bottle, and dividing cells.
photo: Paul Litherland.
Measurements: 369 x 19 x 25.5 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1993
Materials: fluorescent lightbox and Duratrans transparencies
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
The solitary begets herself, keeping all eight cells, detail
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65066
Description: I am depicting the reproduction of my own self as an auto-generated artificial progeny. This fantasy narrative is constructed through an image of my own body reclining, twice its actual length but showing only a small section in height. Superimposed over this is a sequence of small images dispersed along the length of the piece, consisting of medieval monster figures (half-human, half-animal), a small figure drawing inside a glass bottle, and dividing cells.
photo: Paul Litherland.
Measurements: 369 x 19 x 25.5 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1993
Materials: fluorescent lightbox and Duratrans transparencies
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
The solitary begets herself, keeping all eight cells
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65062
Description: I am depicting the reproduction of my own self as an auto-generated artificial progeny. This fantasy narrative is constructed through an image of my own body reclining, twice its actual length but showing only a small section in height. Superimposed over this is a sequence of small images dispersed along the length of the piece, consisting of medieval monster figures (half-human, half-animal), a small figure drawing inside a glass bottle, and dividing cells.
photo: Paul Litherland.
Measurements: 369 x 19 x 25.5 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1993
Materials: fluorescent lightbox and Duratrans transparencies
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Homunculus, detail
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65056
Description: My own homunculus is irremediably shaped by the ghosts of sacred iconography. The image in Homunculus is from The Penitent Magdelene in the Wilderness, 1660, by Elisabetta Sirani. The molecular model, made in wireframe 3-D graphics, is shown as a sequence of stills that are merged with a figure drawing (model courtesy of the Biotechnology Research Institute, Montreal).
photo: Ian Murray.
Measurements: 125 x 62 x 18 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1993
Materials: C print, fluorescent lightbox and Duratrans transparencies
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Homunculus
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65054
Description: My own homunculus is irremediably shaped by the ghosts of sacred iconography. The image in Homunculus is from The Penitent Magdelene in the Wilderness, 1660, by Elisabetta Sirani. The molecular model, made in wireframe 3-D graphics, is shown as a sequence of stills that are merged with a figure drawing (model courtesy of the Biotechnology Research Institute, Montreal).
photo: Ian Murray.
Measurements: 125 x 62 x 18 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1993
Materials: C print, fluorescent lightbox and Duratrans transparencies
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
The solitary begets herself, keeping all eight cells
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65061
Description: I am depicting the reproduction of my own self as an auto-generated artificial progeny. This fantasy narrative is constructed through an image of my own body reclining, twice its actual length but showing only a small section in height. Superimposed over this is a sequence of small images dispersed along the length of the piece, consisting of medieval monster figures (half-human, half-animal), a small figure drawing inside a glass bottle, and dividing cells.
photo: Paul Litherland.
Measurements: 369 x 19 x 25.5 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1993
Materials: fluorescent lightbox and Duratrans transparencies
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
The solitary begets herself, keeping all eight cells, detail
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65064
Description: I am depicting the reproduction of my own self as an auto-generated artificial progeny. This fantasy narrative is constructed through an image of my own body reclining, twice its actual length but showing only a small section in height. Superimposed over this is a sequence of small images dispersed along the length of the piece, consisting of medieval monster figures (half-human, half-animal), a small figure drawing inside a glass bottle, and dividing cells.
photo: Paul Litherland.
Measurements: 369 x 19 x 25.5 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1993
Materials: fluorescent lightbox and Duratrans transparencies
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Oedipal Ounce of Prevention, detail
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65060
Description: While the artist had left traces of her interventions (the soundtracks for Horror Autotoxicus and Gramatica), not until 1993 did she become the explicit visual subject of her own work. In dipal Ounce of Prevention, light boxes shaped like Erlenmeyer flasks contained images of dipus' pierced ankles. They were hung beside photographs of the artist's body (menaced by medical instruments placed in front of them, the steel in contrast to the warm skin tones) and the protein molecules (sections from the inner body in transition) also in light boxes (Kim Sawchuk).
photo: Ian Murray.
Measurements: overall 193 x 88 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1993
Materials: two C prints, fluorescent lightboxes and Duratrans transparencies
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Oedipal Ounce of Prevention
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65058
Description: While the artist had left traces of her interventions (the soundtracks for Horror Autotoxicus and Gramatica), not until 1993 did she become the explicit visual subject of her own work. In dipal Ounce of Prevention, light boxes shaped like Erlenmeyer flasks contained images of dipus' pierced ankles. They were hung beside photographs of the artist's body (menaced by medical instruments placed in front of them, the steel in contrast to the warm skin tones) and the protein molecules (sections from the inner body in transition) also in light boxes (Kim Sawchuk).
photo: Ian Murray.
Measurements: overall 193 x 88 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1993
Materials: two C prints, fluorescent lightboxes and Duratrans transparencies
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Homunculus, detail
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65057
Description: My own homunculus is irremediably shaped by the ghosts of sacred iconography. The image in Homunculus is from The Penitent Magdelene in the Wilderness, 1660, by Elisabetta Sirani. The molecular model, made in wireframe 3-D graphics, is shown as a sequence of stills that are merged with a figure drawing (model courtesy of the Biotechnology Research Institute, Montreal).
photo: Ian Murray.
Measurements: 125 x 62 x 18 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1993
Materials: C print, fluorescent lightbox and Duratrans transparencies
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Homunculus
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65055
Description: My own homunculus is irremediably shaped by the ghosts of sacred iconography. The image in Homunculus is from The Penitent Magdelene in the Wilderness, 1660, by Elisabetta Sirani. The molecular model, made in wireframe 3-D graphics, is shown as a sequence of stills that are merged with a figure drawing (model courtesy of the Biotechnology Research Institute, Montreal).
photo: Ian Murray.
Measurements: 125 x 62 x 18 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1993
Materials: C print, fluorescent lightbox and Duratrans transparencies
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Orphaned Life-Form
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65068
Description: Orphaned Life Form and Apparatus for Self-Organization are my first very simple and very intuitive stabs at representing artificial life issues, such as principles of self-organization and self-reproduction. The light patterns are used to perceptually elicit patterns of randomness (in Orphaned Life Form) and biological development (in Apparatus for Self-Organization, where the light cluster splits into two, then four, then eight like a developing zygote). Marcel Duchamp's Le Grand Verre (The Large Glass) is quoted in the cloud-like shape of the Bride Stripped Bare, with its three skewed squares. Duchamp's work pictures a cycle of eternal self-generation between the Bachelor below and the Bride above.
photo: Jean-Jacques Ringuette.
Measurements: 107 x 42.5 x 17 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1995
Materials: fluorescent lightbox with shaped plexiglass and Duratrans transparency
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Orphaned Life-Form
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65562
Description: 1995 [colour, 2 min. 32 sec.]
(fluorescent lightbox with shaped plexiglass and Duratrans transparency)
Orphaned Life Form and Apparatus for Self-Organization are my first very simple and very intuitive stabs at representing artificial life issues, such as principles of self-organization and self-reproduction. The light patterns are used to perceptually elicit patterns of randomness (in Orphaned Life Form) and biological development (in Apparatus for Self-Organization, where the light cluster splits into two, then four, then eight like a developing zygote). Marcel Duchamp's Le Grand Verre (The Large Glass) is quoted in the cloud-like shape of the Bride Stripped Bare, with its three skewed squares. Duchamp's work pictures a cycle of eternal self-generation between the Bachelor below and the Bride above.
Measurements:
Collection:
Date Made: 1995
Materials: video
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Apparatus for Self-Organization
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65067
Description: Orphaned Life Form and Apparatus for Self-Organization are my first very simple and very intuitive stabs at representing artificial life issues, such as principles of self-organization and self-reproduction. The light patterns are used to perceptually elicit patterns of randomness (in Orphaned Life Form) and biological development (in Apparatus for Self-Organization, where the light cluster splits into two, then four, then eight like a developing zygote). Marcel Duchamp's Le Grand Verre (The Large Glass) is quoted in the cloud-like shape of the Bride Stripped Bare, with its three skewed squares. Duchamp's work pictures a cycle of eternal self-generation between the Bachelor below and the Bride above.
photo: Jean-Jacques Ringuette.
Measurements: runtime: 2min 20sec / 107 x 42.5 x 17 cm.
Collection: Gary Evans
Date Made: 1995
Materials: fluorescent lightbox with shaped plexiglass and Duratrans transparency
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Machines for Evolving
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65070
Description: Figure drawings are superimposed on a backdrop that consists of different kinds of information about the body: a computer model of t-RNA and an artificial wound. These are more technical in their implications than the drawings, and the three elements as a whole pose the question of how accessible our bodies are to ourselves (model of t-RNA courtesy of the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Mellon Institute). [Number three of six].
photo: Nell Tenhaaf.
Measurements: each 23.5 x 18.7 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1995
Materials: six R3 colour photographs
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Apparatus for Self-Organization
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65558
Description: 1995 [colour, 2 min. 20 sec.]
(fluorescent lightbox with shaped plexiglass and Duratrans transparency)
Orphaned Life Form and Apparatus for Self-Organization are my first very simple and very intuitive stabs at representing artificial life issues, such as principles of self-organization and self-reproduction. The light patterns are used to perceptually elicit patterns of randomness (in Orphaned Life Form) and biological development (in Apparatus for Self-Organization, where the light cluster splits into two, then four, then eight like a developing zygote). Marcel Duchamp's Le Grand Verre (The Large Glass) is quoted in the cloud-like shape of the Bride Stripped Bare, with its three skewed squares. Duchamp's work pictures a cycle of eternal self-generation between the Bachelor below and the Bride above.
Measurements:
Collection:
Date Made: 1995
Materials: video
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Machines for Evolving
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65071
Description: Figure drawings are superimposed on a backdrop that consists of different kinds of information about the body: a computer model of t-RNA and an artificial wound. These are more technical in their implications than the drawings, and the three elements as a whole pose the question of how accessible our bodies are to ourselves (model of t-RNA courtesy of the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Mellon Institute). [Number five of six].
photo: Nell Tenhaaf.
Measurements: each 23.5 x 18.7 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1995
Materials: six R3 colour photographs
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Machines for Evolving
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65069
Description: Figure drawings are superimposed on a backdrop that consists of different kinds of information about the body: a computer model of t-RNA and an artificial wound. These are more technical in their implications than the drawings, and the three elements as a whole pose the question of how accessible our bodies are to ourselves (model of t-RNA courtesy of the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Mellon Institute). [Number one of six].
photo: Nell Tenhaaf.
Measurements: each 23.5 x 18.7 cm.
Collection:
Date Made: 1995
Materials: six R3 colour photographs
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
UCBM (you could be me)
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65074
Description: Viewers experience a "test" of their adaptation to artificial empathy. A speaking female shown as a video projection is the artist's surrogate in the setup, an intensely self-absorbed persona but funny too. Her script revolves around ironic scientific and theoretical commentary, and she also solicits from viewers as much input and intimacy as she can get. She wants to make a portrait of who viewers are by assessing their willingness to relate, then she gives each interactant a score and a personalized adaptation pattern.
photo: Paul Litherland.
Measurements: overall 3 x 7.5 m.
Collection:
Date Made: 1999
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
UCBM (you could be me)
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65561
Description: 1999 [colour, 3 min. 57 sec.]
(interactive video installation with motion sensors, touch interface, computer, videodisc, sound; electronics and programming by Jeff Mann)
Viewers experience a "test" of their adaptation to artificial empathy. A speaking female shown as a video projection is the artist's surrogate in the setup, an intensely self-absorbed persona but funny too. Her script revolves around ironic scientific and theoretical commentary, and she also solicits from viewers as much input and intimacy as she can get. She wants to make a portrait of who viewers are by assessing their willingness to relate, then she gives each interactant a score and a personalized adaptation pattern.
Measurements:
Collection:
Date Made: 1999
Materials: video
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
UCBM (you could be me)
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65072
Description: Viewers experience a "test" of their adaptation to artificial empathy. A speaking female shown as a video projection is the artist's surrogate in the setup, an intensely self-absorbed persona but funny too. Her script revolves around ironic scientific and theoretical commentary, and she also solicits from viewers as much input and intimacy as she can get. She wants to make a portrait of who viewers are by assessing their willingness to relate, then she gives each interactant a score and a personalized adaptation pattern.
photo: Paul Litherland.
Measurements: overall 3 x 7.5 m.
Collection:
Date Made: 1999
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
UCBM (you could be me)
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65073
Description: Viewers experience a "test" of their adaptation to artificial empathy. A speaking female shown as a video projection is the artist's surrogate in the setup, an intensely self-absorbed persona but funny too. Her script revolves around ironic scientific and theoretical commentary, and she also solicits from viewers as much input and intimacy as she can get. She wants to make a portrait of who viewers are by assessing their willingness to relate, then she gives each interactant a score and a personalized adaptation pattern.
photo: Paul Litherland.
Measurements: overall 3 x 7.5 m.
Collection:
Date Made: 1999
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
dDNA (d is for dancing)
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65557
Description: 1999 [colour, 5 min. 58 sec.]
(two channel video projection in storefront window, sound)
When watching people learn to dance, it's quickly obvious that it comes more easily to some than to others. In this work, I'm not proposing that there's a dancing gene. Still, it's never been disproven. Further, I'm not proposing that we learn to dance and then pass it on, but we teach many things to the next generation and the next in very subtle and complex ways.
Measurements:
Collection:
Date Made: 1999
Materials: video
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
dDNA (d is for dancing)
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65076
Description: When watching people learn to dance, it's quickly obvious that it comes more easily to some than to others. In this work, I'm not proposing that there's a dancing gene. Still, it's never been disproven. Further, I'm not proposing that we learn to dance and then pass it on, but we teach many things to the next generation and the next in very subtle and complex ways.
photo: Nell Tenhaaf.
Measurements: runtime: 5min 58sec
Collection:
Date Made: 1999
Materials: two channel video projection in storefront window, sound
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
UCBM (you could be me)
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65075
Description: Viewers experience a "test" of their adaptation to artificial empathy. A speaking female shown as a video projection is the artist's surrogate in the setup, an intensely self-absorbed persona but funny too. Her script revolves around ironic scientific and theoretical commentary, and she also solicits from viewers as much input and intimacy as she can get. She wants to make a portrait of who viewers are by assessing their willingness to relate, then she gives each interactant a score and a personalized adaptation pattern.
photo: Paul Litherland.
Measurements: overall 3 x 7.5 m.
Collection:
Date Made: 1999
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Swell
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65077
Description: Viewers relate emotively to an artificial entity that comes into being through their interaction. Viewers know through electronic sound feedback whether or not the entity, through a conjunction with their own presence, is alive. The sound is digitally processed microphone feedback. It is triggered via an ultrasonic sensor when the viewer is about four feet away, and subsequently becomes very loud if one backs off but very quiet if one comes close.
photo: Paul Litherland; photo composite: Nell Tenhaaf.
Measurements: electronics by Nick Stedman and programming by Galen Scorer
Collection:
Date Made: 2003
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Swell
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65563
Description: 2003 [colour, 4 min. 48 sec.]
(freestanding aluminum and plexiglass sculpture with LED display and interactive sound by John Kamevaar; electronics by Nick Stedman and programming by Galen Scorer)
Viewers relate emotively to an artificial entity that comes into being through their interaction. Viewers know through electronic sound feedback whether or not the entity, through a conjunction with their own presence, is alive. The sound is digitally processed microphone feedback. It is triggered via an ultrasonic sensor when the viewer is about four feet away, and subsequently becomes very loud if one backs off but very quiet if one comes close.
Measurements:
Collection:
Date Made: 2003
Materials: video
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Flo’nGlo, detail
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65079
Description: The two characters in Flo'nGlo converse with each other through electronically-manipulated sound and a very low resolution video display, excluding the viewer. They have their own small screens, which are LED displays like those in UCBM and Swell. Flo's sound is a compellingly relentless flow of scrubbed source files, while Glo is a chorus of granularized voices. This is a hybrid work, combining video that mimicks our own screen fixations with programmed behaviours that determine on the fly how Flo and Glo will look and sound.
photo: Paul Petro.
Measurements: electronics by Nick Stedman
Collection:
Date Made: 2005
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Flo’nGlo
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65078
Description: The two characters in Flo'nGlo converse with each other through electronically-manipulated sound and a very low resolution video display, excluding the viewer. They have their own small screens, which are LED displays like those in UCBM and Swell. Flo's sound is a compellingly relentless flow of scrubbed source files, while Glo is a chorus of granularized voices. This is a hybrid work, combining video that mimicks our own screen fixations with programmed behaviours that determine on the fly how Flo and Glo will look and sound.
photo: Paul Petro.
Measurements: electronics by Nick Stedman
Collection:
Date Made: 2005
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
Flo’nGlo
Artist: Nell Tenhaaf
Work ID: 65559
Description: 2005 [colour, 5 min. 18 sec.]
(freestanding aluminum and plexiglass sculptures with LED displays and sound by John Kamevaar; electronics by Nick Stedman)
The two characters in Flo'nGlo converse with each other through electronically-manipulated sound and a very low resolution video display, excluding the viewer. They have their own small screens, which are LED displays like those in UCBM and Swell. Flo's sound is a compellingly relentless flow of scrubbed source files, while Glo is a chorus of granularized voices. This is a hybrid work, combining video that mimicks our own screen fixations with programmed behaviours that determine on the fly how Flo and Glo will look and sound.
Measurements:
Collection:
Date Made: 2005
Materials: video
Virtual Collection: Original CCCA
