A pendulum hangs from the ceiling, with an omnidirectional bar code scanner as the bob (the weight) at the end of the cable. The scanner casts an intense red laser beam downward as it skims the floor, reading symbols printed on a 12 foot diameter bar code carpet. A projected image covers the carpet, generated by a video projector mounted high above on the ceiling. More ↓↑
An octagonal railing surrounds the pendulum and carpet, with holsters for eight pneumatic air—guns, disguised as ordinary hair dryers. Participants can influence the pendulum’s path over the bar code carpet by aiming the hair dryers and shooting blasts of air. At all times, scaner/pendulum works as a tool, sometimes as a chisel, cutting grooves through images to expose other images hidden bellow, sometimes as a magnet dragging bits of images along its path, or a vacuum cleaner sucking up images. Workoholic refers to pendulum both as the prototypical timekeeping device (Galileo’s great discovery of 1583), as well as the prototypical machine, ceaselessly producing work (force times diseplacement), in this case — images and transformation of images.
Source: Perry Hoberman, WR02000@kultura catalogue
Place and date of documentation: WRO 2000@kultura, exhibition 17th Meridian, the National Museum in Wrocław, 20.11—10.12.2000
