Sandra C. Haynes Podcast #5 Jessica Bronson first purple, (2005) second purple, (2005) third purple, (2005) Artist-in-Residence Fine Art Collection Shatford Library and Boone Sculpture Garden Pasadena City College February 2007 The kaleidoscopic design characteristics of the three large chromogenic prints hanging on the south wall, over the computer monitors, near the circulation area in the Shatford Library may be the only hint that these works are from the hand and brain of video and installation artist Jessica Bronson. first purple (2005), second purple (2005) and third purple (2005) are manipulated, soft-focus, close-up images of ruffle-edged roses, in luscious pinkish-purple shades.* Each C-print is like a peek into a child's kaleidoscope, where you twist the tube placed up to your eye, fascinated by recombinations of color and shape that appear in a mesmerizing kinetic flow. Jessica Bronson, who teaches at CalArts, is no doubt one of the most technology-savvy of artists to have taken part in the Artist-in-Residence program. And perhaps appropriately, it was with her advanced high-tech, married to art, that we celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the program in 2006. Bronson's embrace of digital technology is not surprising. She came of age as an artist with a significant vision in 1990s after receiving her MFA from the prestigious Art Center College of Design in 1994. But she arrived in the art world somewhat late, having entered college as a biomedical engineering major and then after some dissatisfaction with that area of concentration, switching to biochemistry, and finally receiving her BS from the University of New Mexico in 1987. Her work has been described as "an investigation of the visual through her lifelong obsession with evidence and methodology." (Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, exhibition get URL and put here) Her work exemplifies the fact that art and science are not incompatible or unrelated. She uses science and technology to reflect on nature, with an emphasis on time and space. Bronson's artistic tools include film, multi-channel video, digital images, electronic music, satellite imagery, LED (light emitting diodes), microchips, integrated circuits and of course, the computer. Philosophically and formally, Bronson's work is strongly influenced by structuralist film theory and especially the seminal work of Hollis Frampton who often based his films on mathematical and scientific principles. Her favorite Frampton film is Lemon (1969), a sort of soliloquy on the subject of a simple piece of fruit as having the potential to reflect on all of nature and existence. first purple (2005), second purple (2005) and third purple (2005) are in fact three unique C-prints that are part of a larger body of work that includes an LED or flashing text installation, and a video called five lobed and propagating (2005). Bronson described the process of creating these works in her lecture at Pasadena City College on March 13, 2006. "I was invited by Art Center to participate in a project that was to be a collaboration between artists that were working with science and scientists and engineers at the Caltech Neuromorphic Engineering Lab. I was excited and perplexed by that because I hadn't ever actually addressed how science influenced my work though I'm asked about it all of the time.... I ended up interviewing many of the scientists and engineers at the lab and I was interested in how the lab was divided into different sections and those sections were based upon different sensory perception. I decided the piece would be about perception and the piece would be perceptual as well. ...I decided that I wanted it to be text-based. I wanted to have five LEDs and have each one devoted to a different sense....I finally decided to use the rose for a number of reasons, because I was revisiting Gertrude Stein and was interested in her style of reductive writing and also her tendency to make lists of things. I was also interested in how the rose was this hybrid subject between art and science. I had been visiting the Huntington Gardens a lot and was really interested in how there seems to be this quest by all these backyard gardeners to create new rose hybrids and to name those and it seemed so territorial and interesting. That's when I decided that each LED would be devoted to a sense and the sense would be addressing the rose." As you look at Jessica's Bronson's three prints, you probably now see more than just "a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose." *There are in fact five purples ( The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles owns one and the artist retains one.) References: Bronson, Jessica. Vosloh Forum Lecture, Pasadena: Pasadena City College, 13 March 2006. Dick, Leslie. Introduction of Jessica Bronson, Artist-in-Residence, Vosloh Forum, Pasadena City College, 13 March 2006. Jessica Bronson: superlfuent circumfield, (Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Mo, Feb 18-April 30, 2000. http://www.kemperart.org/exhibits/PastExhibits/JessicaBronson.asp Ise, Claudine. Art Reviews; Cutting to (and Cutting Up) the Chase in 'World Picture' Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, California: January 8, 1999, p 36. Haynes(c)2007