The play things of space-time

Why does U.S. culture revere its celebrities? What role does mass media play in how we as a society structure our daily lives?

New York-based architect and video artist Paul Pfeiffer will seek to answer these questions in his Thursday lecture, the last installment of the Portland State Department of Architecture’s Firsts series. Pfeiffer will discuss his past and recent works as well as his works-in-progress while inviting intellectual discussion about the nature of “perspective.”

Nora Wendl, associate professor of design, once interviewed Pfeiffer about one of his better-known pieces, called the “Vitruvian Figure,” a model of a gigantic stadium that could seat a million people. Pfeiffer made the piece to call attention to a global fascination with size and scale.

“This piece was based off of Da Vinci’s ‘Vitruvian Man,’ and most people have forgotten what that drawing meant,” Wendl said. “That image spoke to how a human sees space and exists in space. The ‘Vitruvian Figure’ is an example of how an artist can create an impossible thing and have it considered a serious proposal.”

Of possible mention in Pfeiffer’s lecture will be one of his more iconic pieces, called the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” a photographic montage in which online archive pictures from the NBA have been digitally manipulated to give viewers an image of giant men in twisted poses before a massive audience. The piece is designed to simultaneously critique our culture’s obsession with celebrity hero-worship while showcasing Pfeiffer’s unique method of editing.

“The editing process that I use is very slow and ultimately very manual and requires going frame by frame, even though, to a degree, the process is somewhat automated through software tools,” said Pfieffer in an interview with Art21. “It’s like—the computer can only think so much, and then the human hand and eye really have to do the rest of the refining work.”

The fruits of Pfeiffer’s labor have produced intriguing, thought-provoking images that address the basics of architecture and use them to deliberately change a space, creating something original in the process. His art is often meant to provoke the imagination and creativity of his audience as it seeks to interpret it.

“I really like this one piece called ‘Perspective Study (after Jeremy Bentham),’” Wendl said. “There’s a model with a tiny tent in the center and a camera inside the tent. The camera is capturing a live feed of the people looking at it. In the next room, you go in and see the faces of people looking at the tent, huge and blown-up. It’s another example of playing with where we are in space.”

Pfeiffer was born in Hawaii and spent most of his childhood in the Philippines. He has earned numerous awards for his work, including the Bucksbaum Award from the Whitney Museum of Art in 2000. His art has been featured in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s List Visual Arts Center and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

“[Pfeiffer] has fun with his art because it’s so easy to make lies and make them look true with technology,” Wendl said. “He believes that technology, time and space are embedded in everything.”