SEPTEMBER 1998
The latest visual at work to emerge from Bob Turner’s COMMUNICATION WORKS STUDIO is being presented in exhibition venues in his city and in cyberspace as THE CONVERGENCE PROJECT.
THE CONVERGENCE PROJECT is a multi-media work-in-progress fueled by process - the process of construction, de-construction, and re-construction - to form a tableau-like art installation.
The concept for THE CONVERGENCE PROJECT began to unfold in late 1997 when Turner constructed a series of in-studio table-top micro theatre sets, utilizing a myriad of found and personal objects placed amongst remnants and innards of computer components, wiring and electronic gadgets. Sections and slices from these pieces of “Setual Perceptions” were captured on digital camera under various lighting conditions. This process served to preserve, highlight and record vignettes pierced with human references caught in a dark sense of the absurd , a teeming technological landscape gone slightly awry.
With the relocation of the images from the construction site of the studio onto the construction site of the computer, the eventual dismantlement and collapse of the “Setual Perceptions” seemed inevitable. The ensuing process of deconstruction engendered a transference of the props to a series of monumental allegorical assemblages which have become the central focus of THE CONVERGENCE PROJECT. It is as if that burgeoning process forced the table tops upright for wall surface placement as the working parameters were pushed to greater scale and volume to accommodate the expansion of the artist’s vision.
Discarded coils and springs, machine parts, tools of play and war have been bolted and screwed to ceremonial planks of wood and neutralized/minimalized with white or black spray-paint. They become a playing field on which opposing forces of duality joust and vie for position; they become a stage on which demonic tragic references cavort with playful clowns; they become a fairground where sarcastic wit takes a rollercoaster ride with poetic possibility through THE CONVERGENCE PROJECT. The muted yet screaming figurative representations confront the viewer and toss mirrored reflections into the mix, while pointing fingers at the contradictions spewing from the convergence of reality and mythology.
There are, in process, groupings of free-standing conceptual sculptures which adhere to the dichotomy within the thematic material of the project. The moving totality of the project converges the raw refinement of technique, the weighty optimism of content, and aesthetic values with technology, to create a science-fiction/futurist scenario of unlimited interpretations.
Turner’s experimental work in the wide-angled field of multi-media and communications continues to meld a lifetime of astute observations and expression to deliver yet another thought-provoking, and somewhat disturbing, art project. the personal voice converges with that of the universal. The intense electrical current of Turner’s refrain runs succinctly through all previous work and is wired up to power THE CONVERGENCE PROJECT.
The convergence continues.
