Virtual Tectonic

Titanic Chamber, 2012

Digital Print  30”x 60”

The Rising, 2012

Digital Print 30” x  48”

Click image to enlarge

from Dichotomies virtual photograph series, 2011

go to http://benstagl.tumblr.com/dichotomies for more images

I re-imagine existing architecture in order to reveal implicit social tensions concealed within the surface of its facades. Tracing seams separating religious, state, and secular order, I seek areas where overlaps occur and slippage between different conventions of thinking allows space for emergence of new and broader understanding. 

Dome of the Rock vs Capital Building - Double Headed Eagle

1:06 loop

click image to play video

Click image to enlarge

from Dichotomies virtual photograph series, 2011

go to http://benstagl.tumblr.com/dichotomies for more images

detail from Pulse Point, 2011

Installation for Urban Institute of Contemprary Art in Grand Rapids, MI

go to http://benstagl.tumblr.com/PulsePoint for more images

Virtual sketch for upcoming installation “Pulse Point” as seen from outside.

Designed for The Urban Institute of Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, MI

go to http://benstagl.tumblr.com/PulsePointrenderings for additional rendered images

Video Document of Lost Gate, 2011

Fabric, Digital Animation

2:20

work produced in collaboration with Su Hyun Nam

Lost Gate(숭례문), 2011

fabric, acrylic, string, wire, wood, projected animation

work produced in collaboration with Su Hyun Nam

At approximately 8:50pm on Sunday, February 10, 2008, South Korea lost it’s National Treasure No.1, a historic pagoda-styled gateway named Namdaemoon by the arsonist.  It turned out he did it out of revenge for the government, which he said treated him unfairly. By burning historic architecture, he showed the challenge for the authority.

However, Google Earth, which has a seemingly endless database of physical reality, still allows me to see it online even from here.  The physical limitation in the real world are overstepped and blurred by the virtual world.  Such virtual maps are formed by anonymous users who are allowed to create, distort, and own digital models of real objects.  Depending on our position, architectural objects not only contain the histories of many human dramas, but also today can control us or be controlled by us.

Arrested Ascent
2011
Laser Cut and Etched Acrylic, Projected Light, Braided Steel Wire
Arrested Ascent presents the image of a sanctuary hung inverted, affording the impression of a ship hull and keel.  The prismatic virtual object deconstructs projected light and text describing the incidents which occured the night of my brother’s death by brutal police shooting 5 years ago.

Review of Arrested Ascent by Su Hyun Nam      May 4, 2011

Stagl moves his work between digital and tangible realities in order to reposition himself relative to architecture.  In the digital reality he takes over the authority of those magnificent objects in the real world, distorting and rearranging them in order to examine and look into them further.  Sometimes he combines unrelated ones and finds something in common or transpose their meanings in real world.  As the virtual models become tangible objects, they have the power to call back people’s memory, and tell a history of human life.

In Along the Axis (2011) as he reorders the structure of a church, which is the symbol of authority and sanctuary, converting it into a fragile object, he attempts to reveal what it has cherished and what we could not have seen behind conventional belief systems. I could imagine those who have longing, emotional trauma and belief in divinity, come and tell their story in there. A church looks like a vessel for hope and story of human to me.  That could be the reason traditionally the church room is seen as a ship.

detail of Arrested Ascent without projection

Votive Ship, 2011

Virtual Photograph

Digital Still Image from Animation “Passage”

2010