Ben Dean

Catalogue Essay | Images from the Exhibition Ben Dean Home Page | Artist Statement |

Project Series 37: Ben Dean
November 1 - December 21, 2008

	Ben Dean, "Account"

Ben Dean’s new multimedia installation, Account, and six related C-prints reflect his long-term investigations into the history and theory of modernism, early film history, Structural film, video art, and the growing prevalence of computer generated imagery––specifically in cases where it is used as a surrogate for, or “improvement” upon, photography. With Account, Dean meditates on film and new media technology as vehicles to explore visual and psychological perception, modern temporality, and the structural possibilities of film and video.

Account began as a proposal, a tool, or a structure through which Dean could question how film and media change over time and how economic and social forces have evolved since the mid-19th century. Dean explores how knowledge of the histories of spaces and places informs––or fails to inform––a direct phenomenological understanding of those same spaces and places. Account thus combines and links together his background and interests in history, economy, and sculpture, with his practical experience in digital technology.

After scouting numerous locations in the San Francisco area and conducting research into the most promising, he chose three specific sites—Islais Creek, San Francisco City Hall, and Pacific Shores Center—upon which to base his project. The dual projection format this project took stemmed from a fundamental question Dean asked himself: “What would be revealed if two uncannily similar moving images, each executed in a different media, were placed side-by-side?” With Account, Dean looks at how modes of representation are deeply embedded in our consciousness—not just through accidental incident, fragmentary memory, or momentary glimpse. He attempts to unearth the myriad of ways representations resonate with historical periods and viewers’ knowledge and memories.

Dean set out to film the three sites, and then digitally re-create each film using strict rules and parameters as guides to conceptually unify the project. Dean designed and fabricated devices that he used during the filming process—a protective framework for the camera and a catapult, among others. At the two outdoor locations, Dean punctuated the completion of the filming with a “vaulting” of the camera: he catapults the camera into the sky. The “vault” enhances the viewer’s identification with the camera’s viewpoint—as the camera ruptures the visual plane, the viewer is alerted to a sense of dimensionality and physical presence. But the footage of the camera shooting into space then bouncing on the ground also reflects a sense of humor, belying the intense seriousness of filming and production.

Ben Dean’s exhibition is the thirty-seventh in the Pomona College Museum of Art’s Project Series, an ongoing program of focused exhibitions designed to introduce experimental art with new forms, techniques, or concepts to the Pomona College campus.

Rebecca McGrew
Curator