i saw this in vancouver once, w/o its cctv apparatus, and with it. it reminded me of prayer wheels and prayer flags. , and the arthur c clarke short story 1000 names of god. there is something eastern, i guess, in the idea of technological interventions and prayer--how machines, not operated by human hands, can still do the work of god. there is something of the rule of st benedict in it too, in the idea that work is prayer, and that work (by extenstion, prayer as well) is an extenstion of the spirtual need to abase the self

the ancient buddha (literally ancient, its an antique, a found object), looking at the noise/snow of the dead television, the narrative of history and humanity interupted, of what happens when banal things like televisions and vcrs interupt (and lasers, prisms, mirrors, neon) affect our gopspace.

his other work, the wicker men made out of tvs; the red, white, blue flag made of stacked 70s philcos (like phils discount house of electronics), but in a high art context are funny, sexy, cute, decadent and decaying. It is funny to think that he never really updated his materials, I wonder what that means? Even in the most recent sculptures, he ddi not move onto anything sci-fi sleek. He is cyberpunk in that way, the future is not the wombs of kubrick but the slagheap banality (brutality?) of Burning Chrome.

I wish I had seen more of his work IRT. He died on Sunday at the age of 79.

(is this more readable?)