Elevate at 21c: Kreher Williams Research & Development

Elevate at 21c showcases the work of artists in St. Louis and the central Mississippi River region, highlighting the range and depth of visual culture in this dynamic, ever-changing area.

St. Louis-based artists Jamie Kreher and Brett Williams utilize imagined scientific experiments and processes when creating their multi-media artworks. In this custom data set, Kreher and Williams looked at transitional spaces around the lobby of 21c Museum Hotel St. Louis and invented procedures to search for and accrue the hidden meta information left in the spaces by recording and then subjecting the images to experimental studies, resulting in Output Test of Recursive Broadcast 21c and Data Set 21c. Through an imitation of the scientific method and shifts between digital and analog formats, the artists expose imagined information, alternate time lines, and versions of seeing a space that could be present but are invisible.

The artists explain their methodology for this artwork:

For this project, we made photographic field studies of the “transitional zone” by this video monitor. It’s an area in which there are utility spaces, restrooms, and a staircase which exits the building. The photographs were then converted to black and white negatives, printed, and then subjected to testing in our studio laboratory.

During the testing, we developed a proprietary segment of the electromagnetic spectrum that is recursively broadcast back to its source to­ create a perceptual testing field. We then exposed the photographic field studies to this electromagnetic spectrum in order to measure the microhistory of sites at 21c St. Louis. We activated a specialized folding chair as a docking station to support the laptop computer transceiver. This enabled us to simulate a bodily experience in the chair without exposing a test subject to any possible adverse effects of the proprietary electromagnetic spectrum before it is fully studied. One of the unique features of our testing environment is a high-quality air filtration system (visible in the background) that prevents contaminants from affecting our test results.

Located in the lobby at 21c St. Louis alongside the exhibition Reflections, Refractions: Explorations of Space, Light, and Form, Kreher and Williams join Serkan Ӧzkaya, Astrid Krogh, and others in highlighting the ephemerality of space and movement, while referencing art history, science, and the inevitability of change.