Robert Mertens
Recollecting Time, 2017-18
Cotton, Conduit, electrical wire, speakers, video projectors Installation Size variable
On a recent trip to Costa Rica, I developed a piece titled "Recollecting Time" in which I was thinking about the time spent traveling alone. I photographed street pavers on the sidewalks of San Jose and traced out the paths taken by myself and students. There is an animation of the paver photographs paired with field recordings of myself traveling through the streets. The photographs are then turned into repeat fabric prints which are then quilted and embroidered with contour drawings of the map tracings. These techniques represent different ways of presenting time at varying speeds of animation and stitching, the speed of the hand and the speed of the machine. "Recollecting Time" Digital Fabric Dye Sublimation Printing, Digital Jacquard Weaving, Digital Embroidery, Machine Quilting, felt, wool, cotton, conduit, junction boxes, projectors, speakers, Animations (1 minute looped) Audio (1 hour looped). Size variable, 2017-2018
Robert Mertens
Monument to Repetition, 2015
9-track Digital Magnetic Tape, fluorescent lights, speakers, speaker and electrical wire Installation size variable
Double cloth tabby weave, 9-track data tape warp and weft containing information from the University of Wisconsin, Madison's gender studies program, fluorescent lights, speakers, audio from an interview with Rachel Rosenthal and an audio advertisement of Suzanne Venker discussing her book "the Flipside"
Robert Mertens
Breathe, 2021
Wool, Steel wire, Speakers, Speaker Wire, rust 72" x 36" x 36"
BREATHE is an abstraction of the human body and a consideration of the body as an archeological site. Sound is used to give the piece a living presence, expressing the emotions I’ve felt after being diagnosed with cancer. The basket-form is a vessel not unlike the human body and the processes of felting are the external forces that form us as we grow. The random shaping of the felting process is a metaphor for a lack of control and the rusting process leads to the “death” of the form over time.
