Self - Imitation

By David Vosburg

“Indeterminacy, the unplanned nature of time, is frightening, but thinking through precarity makes it evident that indeterminacy also makes life possible.”

– Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World

My work explores the relationship of power, fragility and time. Employing decay as a medium I examine possibilities for serendipity, delight, and even beauty in the chaotic happenstance of everything from roadside trash to algorithmic interaction. I am particularly interested in the ways the imagination turns abstract ideas or flimsy objects into tools of power, and how that process might be interrupted or subverted. For this piece, Self Imitation, a scan of the artist's head is 3D printed. That print is scanned. That scan is printed. The process is repeated to create a sculptural series on identity, entropy, and technology, raising questions of individuality, imitation and perception.