Edited by author 06-10-2006 02:56 AM
Shannon will show videos of her mechanical sculptures and explain their relationship to the notion of "agency". She imagines some of her projects as having been put forth by an unidentified administrative authority intent on replacing imperfect representatives of the natural world with hyper-efficient surrogates. Other devices serve to de-animate people in order to clumsily re-animate them, or at least impose unwanted order on their movements. In her most recent work she attempts to question what constitutes a living thing, what properties must be present for it to qualify as that thing: a given substance, in temporary conjunction with an elusive animating principle? Shannon's attempts at simulating, reprogramming and repairing living things are intentionally crude, and the technology in her pieces is mostly obsolete.

Shannon Wright is an artist who works predominantly in sculpture. Her work utilizes "old-school" technology like levers, pulleys and articulated connection systems, and only occasionally electricity. Shannon is an Assistant Professor of Spatial Art and the Coordinator of Three Dimensional Foundations at San Jose State University. She lives and works in Oakland.

http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotsf/archive/200606/