Neo Watcher V, 2002.

In this sculpture, Alan Rath explores the tendency of scientists, visionaries, filmmakers, and others to make machines in the human image. He also probes the moral and ethical dilemmas created by our hunger for new technologies. The MIT-educated artist in no way desires an “unplugged” world. He instead projects human qualities onto his fanciful electronic productions that we experience as personality. Rath’s digitized blinking eyes spring to life when a gallery visitor triggers a motion detector. In this transformation, the artist playfully gives us a face to address, with each sculptural element completing its overall physical presence. By bestowing such human-like qualities to what he calls his “e-sculptures,” Rath performs a variation on the mechanical surveillance we experience daily, with one profound difference: Neo Watcher does not record us. Instead, its monitors seek to engage, entertain, and even unnerve.

By using computer parts and code, Rath’s creative work broadly departs from the achievements of video art during the 1980s by artists such as Nam June Paik. In fact, Rath develops all the circuit and software designs for his sculptures. Neo Watcher features a 30-year programming loop that promises there will be surprising, unannounced changes appearing on the LCD screen “eyes.” While such an event does seem improbable, it is exciting to anticipate that the lulling monotony of blinking could, on one predestined day, be replaced by a running figure or display of 4th of July fireworks.

LOOK FOR: Unannounced changes in the LCD screen “eyes.”