Common Love,
Aesthetics of Becoming
April 27–June 11, 2011
-550.jpg)
Sean Dack
Ghost Hardware, 2010
Stereo components; approx. 14 x 20 x 40 in.
Included in the installation Tomorrow, Today, Yesterday, 2011
Courtesy the artist
The sculpture Ghost Hardware literalizes "black box" technology, which makes the functionality of electronic products seem mysterious, by encasing digital stereo equipment in black rubber. Dack renders the equipment inoperable, thereby pointing to the alienation of the consumer from objects of technological consumption. The final component is an audio track that layers fourteen versions of Erik Satie's Gymnopédies (1888) and stretches them over seventy-four minutes—the length of a standard CD—consequently normalizing the interpretation of sheet music to a consumer standard.