An exhibition of recent animated projection sculptures from the Extruded Video Engine series by the American artist Peter Sarkisian (b. 1964). Trained in filmmaking at UCLA, by the early 1990s Sarkisian had directed his attention to creating video installations. Making use of recent developments in editing, sound, and projection technologies, Sarkisian's works through the 1990s were widely praised for their philosophical seriousness and an unwavering adherence to exploring the phenomenological aspects of visual perception.

In his most recent body of work, whose development began in 2004, Sarkisian has made a seemingly abrupt stylistic transition. In place of the sometimes austere, even esoteric explorations of the recent past, his most recent sculptures are animations of impossibly futuristic, brightly-colored 'language machines,' which are projected at actual scale onto the plastic shell of the machines' actual shape, so that their vivid appearance is heightened by their three-dimensionality.

The six new works presented at CAC incorporate text at the core of their mode of presentation to the viewer. Words appear as ribbons of printed text, although they are taken from transcriptions of interviews that the artist made with New Orleans residents during the spring of 2008. In these interviews, Sarkisian asked people to compare their lived experience with media reports of the city during and after Katrina. In their final form, Sarkisian's 'language machines' offer the antithesis of the numbing conventions of media treatment of catastrophes and other high-profile events, in favor of a range of individuals whose stories do not disappear, but return as a kind of highly mediated fact.

Peter Sarkisian has had numerous one-person museum exhibitions, most notably at SITE Santa Fe and the Musee Picasso in Antibes. His work is in numerous public collections, and he has recently had solo exhibitions at I-20 Galery in New York, James Kelley Gallery in Santa Fe, NM; and Bernice Steinbaum Gallery in Miami. Peter Sarkisian was born and raised in Santa Fe, NM, where he continues to live and work.

Exhibition curated by Dan Cameron, Director of Visual Arts, Contemporary Arts Center.

Curated by Dan Cameron.

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