katherine behar
katherine behar: this.construction();

Title: Indispensable
Media: Hand sanitizer dispenser with floor stand, interactive kiosk, custom electronics, custom software, parametric speaker, sound; variable dimensions
Year: 2024.

Exhibited:

  • "Katherine Behar: Ack! Knowledge! Work!" Solo exhibition. Beall Center for Art + Technology. Irvine, CA, USA. February 3–April 20, 2024. Curated by Jesse Colin Jackson.

Photography: Yubo Dong, ofstudio photography

Credits:

Fee Christoph: Creative technologist
Will Bond: Voice actor
Harvestworks: Audio production
Kevin Ramsay: Sound engineer

Supported in part by the Harvestworks New Works Residency Program, by a PSC-CUNY Award, jointly funded by the Professional Staff Congress and the City University of New York, and by the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences at Baruch College.

Press:

"A Network of Machines Speaking Only with Each Other"
by Chase Bucklew for Los Angeles Review of Books, April 19, 2024.

"Machines Cannot Replace Human Boredom"
by Renée Reizman for Hyperallergic, April 9, 2024.

art: Indispensable
click to enlarge:
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Statement

On the one hand (pun intended), we take handsfree dispensers' work for granted, suggesting parallels between nonhuman "indispensable dispensers" and human "essential workers."" On the other hand, when we approach dispensers with a cupped hand gesture reminiscent of begging and ask them to save us from contagion, we elevate them to a near-godly role. With references to palmistry and the impossibility of knowing our own fate, Indispensable repositions a dispenser as an oracle, showing the uncertainty and fragility of human survival.

Viewers who place their hands under the dispenser will hear the its reflections on their outstretched hand gesture and may rate their experience at a customer feedback kiosk. Positive or negative ratings "move the needle" of the dispenser's mood, affecting subsequent statements.