Legroom for Daydreaming was a solo-exhibition of sculptural work and photo documentation that explores the alternative form and function of common objects as pseudo-technological devices. Inspired by the blurring of cultural boundaries evident in Métis architecture and the integration of research, play, and domestic design within European Court Salon inventions, these works explore an intersection of culture and discovery within the domestic device. Familiar yet strange, the works appropriated consumer material into failed-luxury objects that exhibit visual phenomenon or inexplicable functions.
By altering familiar forms with mechanics, optics, photography, and staging with one another, Legroom for Daydreaming provided a dissimilar experience of the domestic objects we are accustomed to interacting with. These alterations gave physical form to phenomenon and create curious, often humorous, situations where the line between image and object was blurred. Combined together in an installation that would warrant leisure and interaction, these works provided legroom for another way of seeing the world or the whatchamacallits that populate it.
Glass’ practice focuses on an integrated studio process as an alternative to medium specificity. In this integrated practice he has increasingly employed alternative forms and optical technology and as a way to create an immersive experience for audiences and expand the capabilities of traditional mediums of photography, sculpture, new media art, and architecture. “At its centre, my artwork deals with how images are created and experienced in contemporary culture in relation to technology and viewing habits.”
This concern for an integrated studio practice and research sit at the heart of his professional practice where the methodology of research, play, exhibitions, and theorization come together. Studio experimentation, or play, and public exhibitions offer a way to merge a consistently innovative practice with group curiosity and serious research. “This directly mimics my interest in European Salon culture, where a group of people would watch demonstrations of an experimental device as a way to come up with explanations of phenomenon together. I seek to link this concept further by generating work and exhibitions that combine research and platforms for audiences to see and discuss acts of play.”
His work and research projects, such as Cineorama or Party Stacker, have continually focused on reworking optical technologies, expanding it’s use and reach. Glass continues this focus within new work in a reinvigorated way by utilizing interest in hybrid technology and art practices with hybrid identities. He has found his own mixed European and Métis identity to be at the root of his interest in developing these alternative domestic forms, hybrid technologies, and a reason to create new perspectives. His artistic practice has tied together an interest in early optical technology with acts of adapting and hybridizing image technology along deeply personal lines.
Levi Glass is a Canadian artist of Métis and German descent. He has exhibited internationally at venues in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, UK, and frequently across Canada. He holds a BFA degree from Thompson Rivers University and an MFA degree from the University of Victoria. Glass’ research practice focuses on the mediation between images and objects that often result in new technologies in familiar forms. His artistic practice utilizes a wide range of mediums including sculpture, installation, photography, and new media to experiment with a similar wide range of contemporary issues from self-representation to politics to phenomenology. In addition to his own research and artistic practice, Glass has been an assistant preparator at the Kamloops Art Gallery, a member of the programming committee at Arnica Artist-Run Centre, a research assistant to The Camera Obscura Project, an artist assistant to Donald Lawrence, Kevin Schmidt and Cedric Bomford, and a sessional instructor at the University of Victoria. He currently practices art in Victoria, British Columbia and works in Indigenous Education at Camosun College.
For more information or to see more of his work, please visit leviglass.ca .
