Rhonda Holberton

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The Ground Was Never Stable in the First Place
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The Last of Human Things

Other projects

COLD STORAGE, 2015 View You Are Something the Whole World is Doing, 2015 Current The Italian Navigator Has Landed in the New World, 2014 View YOU BECAUSE FREE INSTANTLY NEW, 2014 View Two Otherwise Distant Points View The Sky's Normal State is at Night View What is there is the Greater Thing (Eighteen and a Half Minute Gap), 2013 View The Invention of The Ship Was Also the Invention of the Shipwreck, 2012 View
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You Are Something the Whole World is Doing, 2015

Continuing her ongoing investigations into the aesthetics of technologically enhanced human forms, Rhonda Holberton’s new series, You Are Something the Whole World is Doing, imagines the limitations of the physical body in digital space. The bodies represented in Holberton’s sculptures and videos are not like the bodies we see in movies, advertising, and video games that effortlessly navigate through groundless space. Instead, the burden of weight blankets the human form in the cast silicone sculpture, Free Fall. The video projection, The Ground was Never Stable in the First Place, depicts an exhaustive infinite landscape navigated by a fragmented body in protective gear. To Give Oneself as Thing pieces together sections of a full-body cast; the vacant exosekelten once having served to both to paralyze and to heal. Holberton’s work navigates planes of slippage between the finitude of biology, and the interminable capacity of virtualization.

The Ground was Never Stable in the First Place

Single channel Video Projection (looping), acrylic sheet
48 x 96in
2015
The single channel video The Ground was Never Stable in the First Place was developed using the Microsoft Kinect 3D scanning technology and video game developer’s tools. To create the work I dressed in various forms of body protection, from football pads to riot gear then made a 3D scan of my body. The 3D model was then animated in and endless walk cycle that navigating an infinite but invisible virtual environment. The video is projected onto an acrylic sheet leaning against the wall. At the base of the sheet, the feet project out into physical space; breaking into ‘real life’ from the 2 dimensional plane of virtual space.

Water Striders

Platinum Cure Silicone, Nylon Powermesh, Polyurethane Foam
34.5 x 78.5 x 30in
2015
A cast silicon blanket covers a human form cast in foam. The blanket is made using techniques utilized in medical simulation to produce suture test pads; simulating the texture, elasticity, and density of human skin.

To Give Oneself as a Thing

Plaster Casting Tape, Cotton Cast padding (foam & Steel Armature)
36 x 36 x 69in
2015
A Full-Body Cast taken while the subject held the Feathered Peacock yoga position (headstand). The cast was cut of and the sections were pieced back together and cast in position.

The Last of Human Things

Acrylic and Ink on Canvass
37 x 50 in
2015
Body Prints on inkjet print depicting human skin under high magnification.
© 2023 Rhonda Holberton
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