O'Rourke, Woods

Woods is a large-scale mural consisting of printed panels as well as animations and an interactive human figure projected onto these panels. The mural causes us to think about our place as humans in the totality of existence and suggests that, relative to all that is out there, we are not terribly significant and we understand much, much less than we think we understand.

The printed imagery of Woods shows a dense woods in snow. Superimposed are two sub-images — one a busy construction site in Manhattan with pedestrians entering and leaving the construction tunnel, the other a child’s doll in bright sunlight on the edge of a bathtub. The quotidian and very human content of these two sub-images jars with the striking natural beauty of the woods and causes us to ask a central question of this artwork: How does this make sense with that?

Projected onto the surface of the mural at random times are several animations. They are comical, cartoony, even ridiculous, using well-known freeware characters engaged in short, odd behaviors that contrast with the sublimity of the woods imagery. One shows three “Package Men” in red underwear dashing among the tree trunks of the woods. Another shows an “Andy” figure falling out of the top of the image, tumbling down a tree trunk, dropping to the ground, brushing himself off, and walking calmly off-screen at the bottom of the image. Another shows "Generi Guy" popping up out of the snow, looking down at the Manhattan scene, shrugging, and hustling off through the trees and out of the mural. A final image is more subdued. A realistic human figure walks out of the construction tunnel, behind that sub-image and across the snow, disappearing behind a tree trunk. Several minutes later, it emerges and walks into the distance and disappears into the woods. All of the animated figures are the size of squirrels or chipmunks relative to the trees. Because the animations are small, silent, and occur randomly, a viewer may miss the animations entirely. Only if we are very patient and bide our time and look very carefully can we begin to understand the mural.

At other random moments a ghostly human figure, a “Looker”, appears and, by means of programmed motion detection, randomly selects one of us, one of the viewers of the mural. The Looker stares at us, tracking us silently as we move about in front of the mural. After 20-40 seconds, the Looker calmly looks away -- and fades away. Several minutes later and without warning, it reappears and selecst another viewer to track and stare at.

See my Artist Statement for more about the ideas behind this artwork.