Installation view 1
Katamari AndyT
2006
All of the artist’s studio trash rolled into a ball, then superimposed into a screen shot of the video game Katamari Damacy. Digital print on backlit film presented in a light-box the dimensions of a TV set
8’ x 5’ x 1’
As part of the group exhibition State of the Union at Gallery Project, Ann Arbor, MI
Installation view 1
“Katamari AndyT is an homage to Katamari Damacy, the Japanese video game where one rolls a sticky ball (tar ball?) around collecting items until a certain dimension is achieved, to wit, the ball gets turned into a star in the night sky. I have no dimensional goal in mind while collecting and assembling my trash into a personal katamari, just the desire to make use of that which I wasn’t ingenious enough to use positively, (like Donald Lipski’s Pieces of String Too Short to Save, or Michelangelo Pistoletto’s minus objects). The katamari ball will not be turned into a star when it is finished, it will simply be a testament to my negative presence in the world.”
— Statement about the work excerpted from my master’s thesis
Installation view 2
Image 1, Katamari Ball
Image 2, Game Play
“Along with the image of my katamari ball, is an image of me “playing” this cleanup game, and an image of what my artist’s studio looked like at the time. The character (myself) is so tuned into the merits of virtual cleanup that he has no regard for his own corporeal need of cleaning. The allure of electronic entertainment and its immediate gratification is an enabling force that helps distract us from the less pleasurable things in our lives that need to be done. This piece is a commentary on the materialistic paradigm of having too much stuff, the trauma of throwing away these things never needed in the first place, and the self-medication of escaping through a video game.”
— Additional statement about the work when it was exhibited at Gallery Project for the State of the Union exhibition
Image 3, My Studio