Rarity may add material value to an artwork, but its emotional impact can appreciate even more—an infrequent occurrence in these remotely accessed times. So, imagine my surprise when Practical Effects, an immersive new video installation by Diana Thater, had me falling for a robot. That was not just unusual, but downright unsettling.
Within a former garage constituting part of David Zwirner gallery in New York, Thater erected a translucent circus tent, lit as if aflame, to serve both as a circular projection screen and as an enclosure for the viewer? Because it's as adorable as a new puppy? (Actually, it resembles J. Fred Muggs, the endearing chimp that in the 1950s, co-hosted the Today Show.)
But what invoked the pathos I felt for the safety-orange suited robot? It resembles J. Fred Muggs—the endearing chimp who co-hosted the Today Show in the 1950s—and is just as adorable. In Thater’s Twilight Zone environment, the robot plays the sole survivor of an imagined disaster that has decimated our planet, wiping out humankind and any vestige of wildlife. Its only companions are the animal topiaries (giraffes, lions, bears, chickens, poodles etc) inhabiting a deliriously lush landscape that, absent human interference, nature has reclaimed for itself.