Vacuum

Steven Pippin 1960

Summary

An early sculpture by Steven Pippin comprising of an old small television monitor, with its outer casing removed to reveal the internal workings, and a pair of tall aerial shafts forming antennae fixed to its top. The monitor is vacuum sealed in a perspex bubble, eliminating any transmission sounds and thus frustrating any pleasure, The ghostly TV reception infers mechanical redundancy and alienation. The two tall 'ears' encompass the aerials; the bubble is sealed with a black trim. The whole rests on a tall, aluminium stand with four legs formed from interlocking aluminium.

Display Label

Vacuum 1994 Steven Pippin born 1960 Perspex, aluminium, television monitor and a vacuum Pippin sees himself as much as an engineer as an artist and wryly assumes the role of the eccentric inventor. Vacuum plays on human fears of advancing technology: of machines that can work by themselves, and of the dominance of television in our lives. The form of Vacuum is cartoonish. Many people think it has ‘bunny ears’. The air has been sucked out of the perspex shell – a conceptual rather than a visual device. This means that the sound is on but muffle, deliberately frustrating our usual experience of TV. Gift of the Contemporary Art Society 1996.34