Disc Fragment Collages: Squares and Spirals

Disc Fragment Collages: Squares and Spirals

The discs that have been donated over the years range from a couple's wedding mix to recordable discs that wouldn't burn, from album singles that never sold to a video game that was played so much it is too scratched to work.  As these were donated and have become woven into a collective consciousness of plastic and metal many discs break in the process. These breaks happen in fabrication, installation, de-installation, shipping, and so on.  I collect the fragments and use them to create these smaller collages. 

I think about the broken discs as a fragment of a song, a scene from a movie, a paragraph of an audio book, but in all cases as memories that can not be accessed.  These no longer can spin in a disc drive to play to find out what is on it; however, the memory of memories is present.  In these smaller works, I seek to create collages that give these disc fragments a final spot where each is part of a design that spirals, weaves, and explores in a more limited compositional format.

As most discs have an analog memory side with text, color, and images that refer to the digital content within the each disc, I use these colors and images as my palette as I design the collages.  The text and graphics can be small treasures that I put to the side as I sort through the boxes of disc fragments.  If I can cut them carefully enough, these elements are featured in special areas of the composition and are commonly the titles for the works.

Disc Squares, 2017
Each square is 12 inch x 12 inch with a variable thickness.

Thanks to an invitation from Sylvia Orozco, the first of this series was Random Bits of Unknown Significance which was on display in the Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin, Texas during the 2017 Mix 'n' Mash exhibition in February, 2017.

In August of 2017, five of these Disc Squares were exhibited at the Athens Institute of Contemporary Art (ATHICA) in Athens, Georgia:

The Best Little Secrets are Kept
Utopia
Split Net
Who I Am
Gonna Get It Wrong Before I Get It Right

Disc Spirals, 2017

In August of 2017, seven new Disc Spirals were exhibited at the Athens Institute of Contemporary Art (ATHICA) in Athens, Georgia:

For The Record 
Thigh Cream
Extreme America
Playtime
Sprint Ahead
Full Speed
Search and Departure Strategies

Disc Spirals, 2015
This series of 15 sculptures started thanks to Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (IMOCA) and the Executive Director Paula Katz who curated my artwork into a group exhibition titled Finders Keepers.  Several of these initial small sculptures were part of the interactive treasure hunt across the city.  Above are images of 5 of the 15.