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I love to collect things.

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Ever since I was a kid, I've had massive collections

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of random stuff, everything from bizarre hot sauces

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from all around the world to insects

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that I've captured and put in jars.

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Now, it's no secret, because I like collecting things,

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that I love the Natural History Museum

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and the collections of animals

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at the Natural History Museum in dioramas.

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These, to me, are like living sculptures, right,

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that you can go and look at,

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and they memorialize a specific point of time

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in this animal's life.

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So I was thinking about my own life,

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and how I'd like to memorialize my life, you know,

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for the ages, and also — (Laughter) —

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the lives of my friends, but

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the problem with this is that my friends aren't quite keen

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on the idea of me taxidermy-ing them. (Laughter)

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So instead, I turned to video,

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and video is the next best way to preserve and memorialize

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someone and to capture a specific moment in time.

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So what I did was, I filmed six of my friends

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and then, using video mapping and video projection,

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I created a video sculpture, which was these six friends

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projected into jars. (Laughter)

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So now I have this collection of my friends

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I can take around with me whenever I go,

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and this is called Animalia Chordata,

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from the Latin nomenclature for

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human being, classification system.

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So this piece memorializes my friends in these jars,

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and they actually move around. (Laughter)

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So, this is interesting to me,

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but it lacked a certain human element. (Laughter)

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It's a digital sculpture, so I wanted to add

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an interaction system. So what I did was,

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I added a proximity sensor, so that when you get close

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to the people in jars, they react to you in different ways.

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You know, just like people on the street

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when you get too close to them.

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Some people reacted in terror. (Laughter)

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Others reacted in asking you for help,

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and some people hide from you.

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So this was really interesting to me, this idea of

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taking video off the screen and putting it in real life,

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and also adding interactivity to sculpture.

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So over the next year, I documented 40 of my other friends

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and trapped them in jars as well

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and created a piece known as Garden,

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which is literally a garden of humanity.

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But something about the first piece,

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the Animali Chordata piece, kept coming back to me,

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this idea of interaction with art,

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and I really liked the idea of people being able to interact,

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and also being challenged by interacting with art.

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So I wanted to create a new piece that actually

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forced people to come and interact with something,

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and the way I did this was actually by projecting

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a 1950s housewife into a blender. (Laughter)

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This is a piece called Blend, and what it does is

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it actually makes you implicit in the work of art.

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You may never experience the entire thing yourself.

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You can walk away, you can just watch as this character

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stands there in the blender and looks at you,

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or you can actually choose to interact with it.

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So if you do choose to interact with the piece,

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and you press the blender button, it actually sends

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this character into this dizzying disarray of dishevelment.

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By doing that, you are now part of my piece.

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You, like the people that are trapped in my work

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— (Blender noises, laughter) —

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have become part of my work as well. (Laughter)

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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But, but this seems a bit unfair, right?

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I put my friends in jars, I put this character,

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this sort of endangered species character in a blender.

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But I'd never done anything about myself.

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I'd never really memorialized myself.

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So I decided to create a piece which is a self-portrait piece.

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This is sort of a self-portrait taxidermy time capsule piece

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called A Point Just Passed,

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in which I project myself on top of a time card punch clock,

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and it's up to you.

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If you want to choose to punch that punch card clock,

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you actually age me.

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So I start as a baby, and then if you punch the clock,

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you'll actually transform the baby into a toddler,

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and then from a toddler I'm transformed into a teenager.

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From a teenager, I'm transformed into my current self.

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From my current self, I'm turned into a middle-aged man,

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and then, from there, into an elderly man.

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And if you punch the punch card clock a hundred times

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in one day, the piece goes black

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and is not to be reset until the next day.

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So, in doing so, you're erasing time.

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You're actually implicit in this work

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and you're erasing my life.

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So I like this about interactive video sculpture,

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that you can actually interact with it,

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that all of you can actually touch an artwork

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and be part of the artwork yourselves,

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and hopefully, one day, I'll have each and every one of you

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trapped in one of my jars. (Laughter)

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Thank you. (Applause)