The Dutch Wives : an installation at Big Orbit Gallery by Michael Bosworth
May 20 - July 1, 2006

Part of a continuing exploration of phantasmagoria, three white, translucent, nine foot diameter air supported globes float in the gallery. The globes are illuminated from the inside by images projected from 24 lens magic lanterns suspended in the center of each. Each of the globes features a speaker playing audio from parabolic microphone above the bar outside the gallery. After passing the globes, viewers can enter an air-supported chamber to view video projected from behind the walls.

The video projected on the walls of the cave is generated within the gallery. Infrared spot lights suspended from the ceiling illuminate the gallery for a pair of infrared video cameras. Standing inside the cave, the viewer sees the audience outside the gallery with preternatural sight while another video camera records and publishes images to the Internet. Viewers of the website can see the gallery audience and make changes to a wiki–driven page that is continuously read aloud into the space by the project computer. The audience in the gallery can listen to the audience outside of the gallery. The gallery can be watched from the cave and all can be seen an spoken to from the website.

“Dutch Wife” is a term originating in the Dutch East Indies where sailors would weave wicker bolsters to sleep with on long journeys at sea. Now in Japan, a Dutch Wife is an elaborate and expensive silicone sex doll that can be purchased or rented by the hour and delivered to a hotel room. The three spheres and the cave reference Macbeth and the Weird Sisters. Images projected on the diaphanous material of the globes and cave walls are transitory and ethereal. The Dutch Wives is a mechanism for interaction, fulfilling a desire to watch and be seen. Our need for social connection can involve both the will-o-wisp of the projected image and computer screen or a brief, accidental touch in a dark gallery.

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