Shomit Barua and
Christine Cassano:
Degrees of Granularity
form & concept | June 2022
In Degrees of Granularity, over 500 hand-formed pieces of paper-thin, translucent porcelain are delicately stacked on a mirror and on top of each other. They appear still, but motion reactive audio reveals subtle tectonics, forming what collaborative artists Shomit Barua and Christine Cassano term “corrosive harmonics.”
After a substantial injury resulting in reconstructive surgery, Christine Cassano began to meditate with and then obsess over the process of pinching and forming tiny, delicate porcelain objects, reminiscent of vertebrae. “I was exploring the macro of the body and its relationship to technology and interdependence, and it eventually grew, over ten years, to a larger look at the universe. This morphogenic form recalls creation and dark matter, and yet there is obscure humanness in each permutation.”
Accompanied by Shomit Barua’s vibrating, motion-responsive sound art, each unique, finger-printed form in a black room at form & concept tinkles, topples, chips and crashes based on visitor proximity. Eventually, the friction caused will transform the remarkable arrangement into a pile of porcelain dust, recalling our inevitable return to Earth. “We’ve painted and enclosed this room to match what the artists first envisioned for this installation,” says Director Jordan Eddy. “The effect is twofold: it’s a new media sanctum where visitors can linger and reflect. And it’s also a nod to death, the womb, and curious outer space and darkness. The bones here don’t rest, but the mind does.”
Press
“Cassano has been creating the forms by hand, imprinting each one with her own fingerprints, since 2012, when shaping the material became a way to process a hip replacement surgery. ‘It was my way of working through what had happened inside my body,’ Cassano told Hyperallergic. ‘When I make them I feel connected to consciousness; my hands don’t have to be told what to do, they just know.’”
-Lynn Trimble, Hyperallergic
This piece was an official selection of the CURRENTS New Media Festival 2022, as reported by Michael Abatemarco in Santa Fe New Mexican.
My contributions: Curatorial oversight of Frank Ragano and Mariannah Amster of CURRENTS New Media with Marissa Fassano
Artwork: Christine Cassano, Shomit Barua
Photography: Byron Flesher
Marketing Writing: Marissa Fassano