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Tim McLaughlin's "Type Face" (http://artists.banff.org/tmcl/typeface/index.html
[Accessed 15 November 1999].) has actual faces in it. This work begins with a young man's
face, the word "TYPE" written in differently fonted
letters on his forehead. The letters come out at the viewer, twisting as they do so,
and showing that the larger part of the letter, what's not seen immediately on the
surface, but makes up most of it, is a face. The "T", a fourty-something man
with a mustache; the "Y", a stern looking woman; the "P" and the
"E", average looking men, without any evident distinguishing features. The face of the "P" though, changes as it moves toward the viewer. At first, it looks like the face of an old man, but once it has almost completely turned, the viewer sees that was a distorted view because the same face appears at least three times on the "P", along each surface and curve that is visible. Three eyes can be seen initially on this letter. The "P" is at least two different bodies, in and of itself. Once all the letters have come out and turned, the young man's face is completely obscured, and in its place are angled fractions of the four other people's faces. They stay paused there for a moment, and then the animation repeats itself, starting again with the young man's face, "TYPE" on his forehead. This work is considered iconic poetry, in which the form of the signs or symbols suggests its meaning. This piece is an example of the many bodies kinetic poetry can inhabit, represent, and be. It shows that the way in which the viewer looks at the work determines whether she sees faces or bodies or words, surfaces or depths, skins or minds, or all of these. |
