Sample and Hold
2013
Installation, variable dimensions.
Materials: mixed media
Collection: Courtesy of the artist and VI, VII, Oslo.
The installation configured around the film Sample and Hold is perhaps her most coherent statement on the self-reflection that some inanimate objects appear capable of. The title is borrowed from the name of the East London company where Hawser’s father was body-scanned, which is the action we see performed in the film. The captured data was used to manufacture a clear acrylic optical lens, following the contour of his stomach and creating a figurative paunch. It is rather dysfunctional as a device for focused viewing, but it does become a synecdoche (‘a part standing for the hole’) of the father figure. The installation is completed with the video Intervolameter, where viewers find themselves persecuted by paparazzi. It is shown behind a custom-made horsehair screen.
