WORKS AVAILABLE

POLARVISIONS 002

3-Channel HD 1080p30 Video with LFE Audio Track, 2016.

Stearns reconstructs a sunset from its representation as a digital still; an exercise in reformulating machinic experience for humans.

 

HE WAITED THERE AS THE SKY DARKENED AND THE WIND WHIPPED AROUND THE MOUNTAINS

Digital Scan, Archival Inkjet Print, Video Projection 76” x 59” Random Loop, 2014. Unique

‘He Waited There As The Sky Darkened And The Wind Whipped Around The Mountains’ was presented in ‘EVIDENT MATERIAL’. Stearns produced film-based images without a camera by applying various household chemicals and 15,000 volts of alternating current directly to the film. In a flash, arcs spread out across the surface, burning holes and igniting the film. As in our eyes, images are conveyed in a stream of such electric impulses. Here such impulses are amplified some 300,000 times.

 

THEY WERE LIKE PLANETS ORBITING SO CLOSELY THEY BREATHED THE SAME ATMOSPHERE

Digital Scan, Archival Inkjet Print, Video Projection 76” x 59” Random Loop, 2014. Unique

This work continues previous explorations challenging the ontology of post-digital photography using extended techniques—bending, cracking and breaking the medium. The works in ‘EVIDENT MATERIAL’ explore the potential for analog photographic media to operate beyond their intended capacity for reproducing a world of appearances. The process of extension is applied to every material in such a way that reveals process itself as evidently material.

PHILLIP DAVID STEARNS’, (USA, 1982) work is centered on the use of electronic technologies and electronic media to explore dynamic relationships between ideas and material as mobilized within complex and interconnected societies. Deconstruction, reconfiguration, and extension are key methodologies and techniques employed in the production or works that range from audio visual performances, electronic sculptures, light and sound installation, digital textiles, and other oddities both digital and material.

His work has been exhibited internationally at electronics arts festivals, museums, and galleries including: Turku Biennial 2013, WRO Biennale 2013, Transmediale 2013, Denver Art Museum (2013), The Photographer’s Gallery London (2012), The Camera Club of New York (2012), Eyebeam (2012, 2007), Harvestworks (2010, 2012); Gli.tc/H 2112; and more. Full bio

EXHIBITIONS

November 2014 –‘EVIDENT MATERIAL’ solo exhibition at TRANSFER

PROJECTS

Glitch Textiles – A collection of woven and knit wall hangings and blankets whose patterns are generated using images taken with short circuited cameras.

These blankets are layered with irony: a digital photographic image, made with an intentionally broken (rewired) camera, is mechanically woven or knit into a photoblanket. In this project, a keepsake for cherishing one’s memories now becomes a platform for fashioning corrupted memory, the cold logic of digital systems into soft, warm blankets.

This project is related to the Year of the Glitch project and DCP Series of images produced with modified, obsolete Kodak digital cameras. Images from these and other experiments are used as pattern sources for creating these blankets.