March | April 2007 - Boston Photography Focus

Picture ShowWith a background in computer science and philosophy, it is not surprising that Hollingerboasts several inventions, including a patented method for enlarging photographs, a softwareapplication for designing and printing flipbooks, and an aerodynamic rain umbrella.Hollinger’s recent exhibitions include Flights of Fancy at the Art Complex Museum, Duxbury,MA; Collision Collective/ Ocho and Chance at Art Interactive, Cambridge, MA; In Nature’sCompany at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA; and the 2003 DeCordova AnnualExhibition, Lincoln, MA. His work is also currently featured in the exhibition It’s Alive: A Laboratoryof Biotech Art at Montserrat College of Art (through April 7). Hollinger is representedby Chase Gallery in Boston.olivia RobinsonTroy, NYOlivia Robinson is a weaver and digital artist who employs photography, video, sculpture,multimedia, and circuitry. Her work is primarily concerned with facilitating interaction andposing the question of how art functions as a vehicle for communication and closeness.She places the viewers in control by allowing them to control the pace or outcome of apresented narrative. In Imbalanced Ambivalence, an antique box holds a small video screensurrounded by green velvet. Akin to a mutoscope or flipbook machine, we dictate the paceof the video using a small crank and are treated to a voyeuristic scene of a nurse and herpatient. Other pieces look to more recent popular visual culture for inspiration. Inside & Outis a high-tech version of a magic eight ball encased in a crocheted sock. When shaken, thestory literally breaks apart visually and metaphorically, and then begins anew.After earning her BFA in fiber art from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore,Robinson received a MFA in electronic art from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NYin 2004. She has been awarded several residency and research fellowships and held artistresidencies at the Center for Land Use Interpretation, Wendover, UT; the Atlantic Centerfor the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, FL, and in India. Her exhibition and performance recordincludes the Regional Triennial and Play at the Center for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock,NY; Performa 05 at PS1, Queens, NY; and the 2005 Boston Cyberarts Festival,among others. She serves as Coordinator and Instructor for Be the Media Workshops at TheSanctuary for Independent Media in Troy, NY.Erica von SchilgenJamaica Plain, MAOlivia Robinson, Inside & Out, 2004, Mixed Media:computer, sensors, LCD screen, wood, yarn, cloth,metal, Courtesy of the artistOlivia Robinson, Imbalanced Ambivalence, 2004,Mixed Media: computer, sensors, LCD screen, wood,cloth, metal, and video still,Courtesy of the artistErica von Schilgen, Mon Petit Espace,2005, mixed media, 17 x 33 inches,Courtesy of the artistErica von Schilgen, Pulling Pears from thePond, 2006, mixed media, 31 x 35 inches, Courtesyof the artistErica von Schilgen has always taken things apart and tried to figure out how they worked.She continues today to collect old photographs, reproductions, and objects of family historyand uses these along with cranks, pulleys, and music boxes in her art. Her sculptures, sheexplains, are “playful inventions, delightful toy machines” with a touch of whimsy, “but alsohave an underlying sense of melancholy and nostalgia.” In Mon Petit Espace, for example,an old printer’s drawer comes to life when a hand crank animates tiny doll images in variouscompartments. The small marionettes (the visage of von Schilgen as a child is a reoccurringelement in her work) bring to mind stop-motion animation and awkwardly move as if bycue to the music box of “As Time Goes By.” After pushing a small button, Pulling Pears bythe Pond transports us to a pastel-colored world in a fanciful take on Victorian collages andfairytales. Also on display are two other pieces with resonating titles such as I’m Not a ChildAnymore and Always, Just Beyond Reach.