D.O.L.L. brings thought-provoking art to Artisphere

Does doll stimulate for you thoughts and feelings?  How about DIWO OPNSRC LMFAO LHOOQ?  If you answered yes to either of these questions, you definitely should see D.O.L.L: DIWO OPNSRC LMFAO LHOOQ, now showing in Artisphere's Terrace Gallery. 

D.O.L.L. can be appreciated as cute and fun art.  You can make a pixel-by-pixel distorted portrait of you and your friends, if you're patient enough to wait for the digital processing.  There's a network of bulbs.  When you walk under them you start hearing voices, "Are you here?" But when you walk toward one voice, you start hearing another voice somewhere else.  It's like checking Facebook when you're walking down the street.  You can also peer into these magical portals that are only slightly thicker than a flat-screen TV, but they look really deep, like a bottomless black hole.  Don't fall in!

Despite its accessibility, don't be fooled: D.O.L.L. is deeply serious art.  Blake Fall-Conroy's Minimum Wage Machine delivers the real New York State minimum wage, in pennies, for the time you spend turning its handle.   Which would you rather do: work as a journalist for a prestigious local news organization, or earn a minimum wage?  This art painfully raises that churning question. 

Suppose that it's love rather than money that motivates you.  Patrick Resing's Hugg #1 is a robot that senses when a person is nearby.  The robot then directs itself to the person and hugs the person's leg with plastic grabbers.  Then the robot speaks sweet nothings to the person it has hugged.  If you feel unloved on the job or at home, Hugg #1 is the product you need.

D.O.L.L: DIWO OPNSRC LMFAO LHOOQ is showing in Artisphere's Terrace Gallery through Sunday, May 20, 2012.  Experimental Media films and free techno-art construction classes are being offered in conjunction with the exhibit.