“Low Fidelity” is the first iteration of an interactive sculptural installation. It consists of ten vintage AM transistor radio photo cubes, and 40 Polaroid 600 film photographs taken using a multi-image lens. They rotate atop solar-powered platforms to allow an uninterrupted 360 degree view. The radios play simultaneously; their signal strengths vary and are highly susceptible to interference from passing electronics and each other, which leads to highly unpredictable and often low audio fidelity.
I capture intimate moments on public display; by combining narrative storytelling with glimpses into reality I seek to translate them into a generative experience using disembodied stereoscopic visuals, motion, and sound. It’s easy to overlook the value of the intimate moments when you’re living them. I endeavor to capture and convey their nostalgic value as well as question the credibility of our memory recall.
Each of these photos illustrate a snapshot of the cerebral procedures by which we process and store memories. It’s the memory and the moment either in the midst of merging into one or being split in two; the fractured reinvention of a once-clear event. When coupled with the AM transistor radio cubes the nostalgic reach of the photos is amplified. Just like the Polaroid photography, from the golden age of radio to the kitsch resurgence in the 60s and 70s, the small but powerful portable transistor radio has etched itself into the public memory.
The resulting interactivity from the curation of the photos in each radio cube manifests itself as a cognitive glitch in which everyones’ equally flawed memories of a past event are competing for airwaves, resulting in signal interference and distorting the true memory even further. It is one, or many, minds attempting to create a single cohesive, convincing narrative to accept as the truth.
Sydney Gush is an interdisciplinary artist exploring themes in multiplicity, interactivity,
form and function, and the societal and emotional connotations people attach to
material objects, derived from their authentic and manufactured histories. Sydney has
experimented in sculpture, found object modification, instant photography, collage,
alternative image capture, interactive sculptural installation, and time-based media and
technology.
Sydney was born in Monterey, CA in 1995 and grew up traveling the globe as an 'Army
brat'; raised, for the most part in Stuttgart, Germany. She received her B.A. in 2017 from
Gettysburg College in Studio Art, with a double minor in Sociology and Women Gender
& Sexuality Studies. She is currently enrolled at School of the Art Institute of Chicago,
pursuing her MFA in Art & Technology Studies.
