Mutable Sculpture

Mutable Sculpture series

The Mutable Sculpture series consists of video art and sculpture that explores materiality and continuity.  In collaboration with cognitive scientist Robert Goldschmidt, these creative, perceptual experiments manifest the intersection of digital video projection and sculptural surface.  Referred to as "mutable sculpture," a defining characteristic of the work is the ability of architecture and sculptural objects to adopt the characteristics of virtual objects, through the layering of virtual and physical space. Through the presentation of the falsely real, the various unstable ontological states between video, sculpture, and installation are explored.

The mind is a powerful and flexible tool for shaping our perceptual experience. Its capacity for learning, pattern grouping, and reification enable swift perceptual comprehension. The layering of virtual and physical space can present new and unique perceptual phenomena that might prime the viewer to ponder certain ontological questions. In our digitally mediated culture, Fontanilla investigates the ways that the virtual can extend and even reinvent the physical, and how the virtual can reorganize and fracture the perception of the physical.

Works during the Tenure Track include:  Overlooked 2.0 (2014);  Writhe (2015);  Tempest (2017);  Erosion (2018);  Evanescence (2019)

Fontanilla was an invited speaker and art exhibitor at TechFest 2014, where Overlooked 2.0 was featured as an exemplar of experimental projection application.  Overlooked 2.0 and Tempest were selected from over 900 entries in a national exhibition of digital art, Digitalia.  The Erosion retrospective solo show, juried by the Sierra Arts Committee, premiered new works that fused wood sculpture, custom software, and video art.  At the national gallery, Nepal Art Council, the Evanescence solo show featured a new creative trajectory of works that combined custom software, radio frequency electronics, strobes, and video art.

More information about the conceptual underpinnings that drive the creative trajectory can be found in my presentation about Mutable Sculpture, presented at the The 11th Biennial Symposium on Arts and Technology, Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology, Connecticut College.