Divided Attention (2005)
PowerPoint transferred to DVD (limited edition of 5), 12:57

Divided Attention is presented as a game to be played by a group in a theater or auditorium. It requires no introduction, setup, or special equipment. Audience members need only to watch the screen to participate.

Relentless, chaotic and dizzying, Divided Attention asks viewers to make choices that place them geographically on the screen. The choices continually unite and divide the group, until the game concludes with a final evaluation. The piece relies on a willingness to engage and comply with a system operating by rules that seem consistent yet are not quite understood. It also comments on the sporting nature of taking sides on an issue, and the arbitrariness built into a culture based on freedom of choice.

In the body of work that includes Divided Attention, the participants' responses and behavior constitute the raw material of the work. The videos and objects themselves are frameworks upon which a localized social structure, shaped by explicit or implicit rules and guidelines, emerges. My intent is to foster awareness of the social and political systems that one continually engages and disengages with, and how this activity creates invisible, overlapping alliances and enmities that may have little substance beyond their structural functions.

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