Ventriculus

Ventriculus is a tactile and material investigation in glass, plastic, and handmade paper, translated through the lens of a video camera. Glass and plastic are used to interrupt and refract light onto surfaces of handmade paper, creating images that refer to skin and the body. The piece addresses the inherently political landscape of the body through ambiguity of materials and representation, and it challenges the politics of craft vs. conceptualism by requiring craft materials to perform their tactility to the camera.

        “In their collaborative glass-based sculpture and sound installation Ventriculus, JE Baker and Marie Bannerot McInerney explore the material and symbolic properties of skin. Their essay “Ventriculus: Residue of Subjectivity” traces the video art project of the making and effects of Ventriculus (colour stills from the film can be found in the centrefold). The film explores the skin’s permeability and vulnerability by using materials such as cast glass and handmade paper, which imitate the qualities of skin, and multimedia devices like light and sound, which render the tactility of these materials and add a level of ambiguity to the visual perception. The artwork focuses on the sensual capacities of skin and, via the wound, on the skin’s relationship to trauma, knowledge, and metamorphosis. Baker and McInerney’s video art work invites viewers to experience how materials perform their tactility in front of the camera. Their art work and essay make us aware that the skin is not just a surface, something to be looked at, but rather an interface between a feeling subject and the world.”

from Probing the Skin: Cultural Representations of our Contact Zone