Heidi Kumao

Translator, 2008

Heidi Kumao is an interdisciplinary artist who creates video and machine art to explore ordinary social interactions and their psychological undercurrents. Emerging from the intersection of sculpture, theater and engineering, her “performative technologies” generate artistic spectacle in order to visualize the unseen: psychological states, emotions, compulsions, thinking patterns, and dreams. These works are designed to re-enact an event, perform a task for the viewer, or mediate her roles as a woman. Using a range of tools, she creates kinetic and electronic sculpture, interactive installations and digital animations. She is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Art and Design at the University of Michigan.

Heidi Kumao - Remote

A single, oversized eye is projected onto a screen from a zoetrope mechanism which is housed in a record player. The eye cautiously searches the room by repeatedly looking left, up, right, left, up, right. Similar to translucent skin, the suspended screen becomes a body-a physical extension of the obsessive, master machine that operates "behind the scenes." By pairing a rational, automated machine with its unsettled, paranoid gesture, this piece describes the state of living with constant internal tension.

http://www.heidikumao.net/cinema_machines/html/video/remote_movie.html