Orange Lounge

In Cheryl Dunn's entrancing video Come Mute (2004), office workers break out of the daily grind of the cubicle, introducing dance and jubilant improvisation into banal activities. With two wall-mounted monitors featuring animated digital images of a pair of moving eyes, Alan Rath's Watcher II (1999) references the body, giving human qualities to electronic components. While Rath's sculpture "looks" at viewers, Tony Oursler's video sculpture seems to call out to the audience. In Come to Me (1996), a distorted fiberglass head becomes a projection surface for Oursler's whimsical video of a figure that engages and taunts the viewer.

The artist becomes the subject and performer in works by Kent Anderson Butler, Chris Burden, and Yoshua Okon. Chris Burden's 1974 compilation video revisits many of his provocative early Conceptual performances--which explore danger, pain, and physical risk--with revealing commentary by the artist. In Lament (2004), Kent Anderson Butler engages in a spiritual and seemingly transformative cleansing ritual. Recent art history is referenced by Yoshua Okon in Coyoteria (2003), as Okon re-creates a legendary 1973 performance by Joseph Beuys in which the artist lived with a live coyote in a gallery. Okon's provocative update on the topic involves a human "coyote" (coyote is a slang term for a person hired to assist in illegal border crossings from Mexico to the United States). Cloaked in a blanket, Okon engages with the "coyote" in a performance that is as comical as it is unsettling.

Transfixed: New Media and the Body is organized by Irene Hofmann, curator of contemporary art. Major support for Orange Lounge programs is provided by The James Irvine Foundation. Orange Lounge design and construction funded by the Segerstrom Foundation. Technical support provided by Integrated Media Systems.

Image Credits
Top to Bottom

Cheryl Dunn
Come Mute, 2004
Still from DVD
Courtesy of the artist

Alan Rath
Watcher II, 1999
Aluminum, custom electronics, acrylic, two cathode-ray tubes
Gift of the Curator's Circle

Chris Burden
Documentation of Selected Works, 1971, 1975
Still from DVD
Museum purchase with funds provided through prior gift of Lois Outerbridge