Faculty of Art

Sculpture/Installation

Eija Loponen-Stephenson

Net Interface

Net Interface is a proposition for a new body composed of both human and nonhuman components that might emerge from the rubble of a demolition site. A large sheet of heavy forest-green privacy netting (often used to obscure construction projects) is draped over the entire site and five human subjects. In an action similar to swallowing, the net combines the forms of the rubble and bodies beneath its surface. Eight long gloved sleeves extend from the surface of the sheet made of the same green netting to be worn by the human subjects. Attached by the gloves, the human subjects move beneath the netting through the rubble together. The net-skin inhibits the participant’s individual motion so that their movement must be in consideration of space and one another. What results is a writhing building-sized body-structure or compound actant with both architectural and human attributes.

“This work calls into question both the participants' and the viewers' perceptions of wholeness and singularity. When activated in an architectural space this work teaches bodies to move with their environment as if it were an extension of themselves. The goal of this work is to dilute perceptions of self-hood to extend to one’s surroundings; perhaps an antidote to the perceived hardness of the object world which alienates us from the urbanscape.”