Particular Heights: Paul Theriault and Siebren Versteeg

Particular Heights is a site-specific, participatory electronic installation that activates the outdoor courtyard of Chapel and Orange Streets, otherwise known as The Lot, and the front lobby window of Artspace. Conceived and constructed by NY- and CT-based artists, Paul Theriault and Siebren Versteeg, Particular Heights is composed of a swingset, LED counter, and a web camera; audiences are invited to swing on the counting swing–each swing on the set that reaches a certain height, will trigger an electronic switch which will perform two operations.

The first operation will add one digit to the counter, thus over the course of the exhibit the counter will continue to add to itself and serve as a quantitative documentation of collective time spent on the swing. Additionally, a webcam affixed to the building across from the set will capture an image of the swinger in flight. A computer located nearby will upload this image to a web server that will collect the images over time.

The resulting image of this operation bank will then be presented and indexed on an accompanying website. In Artspace, an LCD monitor will hang from similar swing chains in the window and continuously display the captured images in a continuously building looping animation that will depict all captured frames of swingers in flight, seeming almost still, as the visible counter ticks away add timelapse speed.

About the artists:

Paul Theriault is an artist currently residing and working in New Haven Connecticut, and Brooklyn, New York. His work is based in new media, sound and sculpture. From 1992-2002, he lived in Chicago, Illinois, where he studied orchestral technique of the contra bass and worked primarily in digital video and sound based art. Theriault is represented by Dutch Kills Gallery in New York and has exhibited work regularly in the United States as well as had his video work screened overseas. Examples of his work appear on several online journal spaces, and in the Artspace flat-file series.

Siebren Versteeg is a multi-media artist most recently interested in our interactions with the Internet and technology as both inspiration and subjects for installations. He graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York and received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Versteeg has shown both nationally and abroad, and currently lives and works in New York City.