katherine behar
katherine behar: this.construction();

Title: We Grasp at Straws (Take One)
Media: Single-channel 4K video with sound; 12 minutes 56 seconds
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.

Credits:

Dancers: Nola Gibson, Aliya Kerimujiang, Darrian O'Reilly, Waeli Wang, Magnolia Yang Sao Yia
Choreographer: Charlotte Griffin
Director of Photography: Maximillian Harper
Animator: Silvia Ruzanka
Vicon Motion Capture Director, UCI: Dr. Kelli Sharp
Vicon Motion Capture Technicians: Whitney Schmanski and Zuri Fors
OptiTrack Motion Capture, ISPACE: Dennis Lupresto (Director) with Tom Nguyen (Lead), Cesar Sigala, Loc Luong, and Monica Robles
Sound: Bitstance
Colorist: Myles Stelling
Production Assistant / Swing: Nancy Nguyen
Understudy / Production Assistant: Veronica Allen
Film Producer: Waeli Wang
Documentarian: Prettymega Inc.

Support:
Created with support from Creative Capital and supported in part by the Black Box Projects Residency at the Beall Center for Art + Technology, and the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences at Baruch College.

The project received crucial support from the Claire Trevor School of the Arts, with generous contributions of motion capture facilities and skilled technicians. Dr. Kelli Sharp's Lab at the University of California, Irvine played a pivotal role.

The ISPACE at California State University, Long Beach provided valuable support by contributing OptiTrack motion capture facilities and technicians.

Special thanks: Jon Behar & Meghann Riepenhoff, Ken Behar & Linda Liu Behar, Tuixén Benet, Heidi Boisvert, Jesse Bonnell, David Cecchetto, Christina Cho, Audrey Collette, David Familian, Jesse Colin Jackson, Marianne M. Kim, Jessica Lang, Ezra LeBank, Dan Lichtman, David Long, Fatima Manalili, Kat Mustatea, Taisha Paggett, Ino Yang Popper, Chris Pounds & Gerardo Okhuysen, Lee Anne Schmitt, Kate Sicchio, Dawn Stoppiello, Alisha Tejpal, and Alcott Plastics.

Installation photography: Yubo Dong, ofstudio photography

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: We Grasp at Straws (Take One)
click to enlarge:
We Grasp at Straws (Take One) We Grasp at Straws (Take One) We Grasp at Straws (Take One) We Grasp at Straws (Take One) We Grasp at Straws (Take One) We Grasp at Straws (Take One)
We Grasp at Straws (Take One) We Grasp at Straws (Take One) We Grasp at Straws (Take One) We Grasp at Straws (Take One) We Grasp at Straws (Take One) We Grasp at Straws (Take One)

Statement

We Grasp at Straws (Take One) captures an absurd attempt at remote group puppetry. Five dancers each embody a finger to form a hand that grasps at straws. As a group, they attempt to pick up an ungainly piece of material like a larger-than-life straw. Using motion capture, their body-scaled data drives a digital model of a robotic hand, showing an exercise in dexterity that's also an exercise in futility! Collectively, they try the humble first step of basket-weaving—merely picking up a piece of straw.

This work is part of Inside Outsourcing, a larger project on robotics and basketry that probes the improbability of robots' making baskets without human help. Instead of conceiving humans and machines as each other's replacements, this project rethinks automation as an opportunity for human-machine collaboration.