Mary Lucier

I took a specific interest in the video work of Mary Lucier via her piece titled Forge (2000). The piece features the raging flames of a forge where hardened materials were being shaped into industrial goods, steel shelves perhaps. Exposing both the usefulness and the devastation of heat, Lucier uses the forge as the place to examine the complex relationship between human and the natural elements. Of course with my love for casting metal Lucier’s piece allows me to see opportunities for using video to portray the ideas that hold my interest in casting metal. The life of the metal is a concept that I had been trying to portray through several failed attempts at exposing small cast figures just after being poured in the mold. Though these pieces became more of experiments and less of finished pieces the things I learned from the experience combined with seeing other similar works has given me new ideas for work such a this. Wanting to pull away from the figure and work more with video Lucier’s piece is inspiring.

Exposing both the usefulness and the devastation of heat, Lucier uses the forge as the place to examine the complex relationship between humans and the natural elements. Using a digital technique called ‘nesting,’ in which one image is placed inside another, Lucier intensifies the flaming activity inside the forge by multiplying it in front of the viewer’s eyes.

There are similar parallels with Lucier’s work and that of Fabrizio Plessi, in terms of the natural and the technological; ideas that I am constantly juggling myself. She began as a still photographer as well as Performance artist. She also incorporated technological interventions in her work, as in her 1975 Air Writing and Fire Writing. Multiple video monitors, lasers, prerecorded audio texts and other elements contributed to energetic ‘techno-performances’ that reflected her profound and, as it turns out, enduring interest in air, fire, and earth.

"INCONVERSATION Mary Lucier with Phong Bui." Interview by Phong Bui. The Brookly Rail. Mar. 2007. Web.

Rush, Michael. Video Art. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2007. Print.