700 Million Miles an Hour

Exploring the sculptural, experiential and sometimes humorous possibilities of light and natural phenomena, Rebecca Cummins’ works often reference devices from the history of science and optics. Frequently, she has incorporated obsolete technologies in combination with newer media. In this program, Cummins presents her installations, including a machine for making rainbows, a camera obscura journey through the center of the earth, paranoid dinner-table devices (periscopes), an interactive computer/video rifle, site-specific camera obscuras and a variety of sculptural and photographic approaches to marking time. She also discusses her recent photographic and sculptural investigations into the apparent movement of the sun and moon and the creation of giant sundials.

Rebecca Cummins is Associate Professor at the University of Washington, Seattle. Exhibitions include: The 2008 Biennial of Contemporary Art of Seville, Spain; Interlude: 366, Zendai MOMA, Shanghai, China; 2007; Affect / Effect, KIASMA Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland; and The South Australia Biennale of Australian Art, Adelaide; I Space, Chicago (2003); and The Exploratorium, San Francisco. Cummins was recently awarded the Chancellor’s Award from the University of Technology, Sydney and the outstanding University 2003 PhD dissertation entitled Necro-Techno: Examples from an Archeology of Media.

Coordinated by Artemis Willis, Ph.D candidate, Department of Cinema & Media Studies in conjunction with Professor Tom Gunning's Seminar on the Moving and Projected Image.