Skin Control

In our digital age, "skin" and "control" evoke, respectively, a program's faceplate screen and the key in the bottom left corner of the keyboard. MIT-based media artist Chris Csikszentmihlyi calls up other, older technological references, to an airplane's exterior and a control panel, with two large-scale installations at New York's Location One. "Skin" is the partial fuselage of a Boeing 737, inside of which viewers can feel the vibrations of a plane in flight and hear the muffled conversations of passengers. "Control" is roughly modeled on panels used in Chernobyl's nuclear reactor, which a viewer can manipulate while also wondering what kind of control he gains by his interaction. The two projects provide a visceral understanding of our dependence on complex technologies and the vulnerability they engender.