The Story Behind "A Hole Hanging in the Air"

In A Hole Hanging in the Air, artist Kate Conlon offers a looping dialogue between the past and future, fact and fiction, time and space.

The exhibition centers on Conlon’s "Time Machines," precise reconstructions of mechanical devices from the history of cinematic visual effects. Through a meticulous process of archival research and digital modeling, Conlon recreates illusion-generating devices such as Max Fleischer’s setback camera, Fritz Lang’s Schüfftan setup, and Stanley Kubrick’s slit-scan apparatus as cut-paper constructions. 

Inspired by the machines that made special effects possible in films that are now ubiquitous in culture, but were at one point the cutting edge of the time, Conlon considers how these machines and the resulting films have influenced how we think of time and time travel. 

“The works in the series are vignettes constructed from stacked layers of white paper. The effect is a series of highly-detailed bas-reliefs defined by highlight and shadow - existing between sculpture and image,” said Conlon. “The images oscillate between presence and absence. They recall both architectural ornament and the default rendering space of 3D modeling. At once highly detailed and strangely smoothed over with a uniform texture.”

“I was so interested in how Kate’s work is inspired by both facts and questions,” said Beth Falconer, Executive Director of 3S Artspace. “Her deep dive into the recreation of these machines used to create film is born from a curiosity about how we perceive and are able to imagine time. Film has such an impact on our cultural consciousness. We are in the twenty-first century that was dreamed about and represented in early science fiction films. What do we think of those representations now? When we think about the future, how will filmmakers and artists help shape our visual imagination of what that future might hold?”

“Standing in for the archetypal time traveler in the exhibition is a reimagining of a sculptural work that I completed exactly ten years ago. Projected from the past, the work has taken on a new form, recording my transformation over that time and suggesting the possibility of a single artwork that is unfixed in time, maintaining its identity in multiple states and forms,” said Conlon. 

Going Deeper: The Story Behind  Fall 2015 (South Pointing Chariot) from Kate Conlon 

In preparation for this show, I was reading a lot about time travel and the complicated verb tenses that would need to be invented to describe events that jump around in time. I wanted to make a work that had a complicated relationship to verb tense. Because 10 years have passed since I made Fall 2015 (South Pointing Chariot), it seemed like a fitting place to start. The South Pointing Chariot is a fabled navigational device of ancient China (c. 200 CE). Surviving texts suggest that, prior to the discovery of the magnetic compass, Chinese armies used this mechanical carriage to calculate their direction of travel. No drawings or precise descriptions of the chariot’s mechanism survive today. Fall 2015 (South Pointing Chariot) is my speculative replica of this ancient device. It is the first working model that came out of a four-month period of reading, sketching, and prototyping. The title of the piece points not to the resulting object, but back to this phase of searching and speculating. For me, there is a strong connection between solving the day in the studio and larger attempts to make sense of the world. In this case, efforts toward physical navigation of the earth gave way to thoughts of finding my place in the world in a more figurative sense. The project reveals a lasting and common desire for a fixed point of reference and suggests that accepted reference points may be unstable or even illusory.

Kate Conlon is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work draws inspiration from the history of scientific thought. 

Conlon has received grants and residencies from MASS MoCA, Kala Art Institute, Vermont Studio Center, Wassaic Project, Willapa Bay AIR, Haystack Mountain, ACRE, Chicago Artists Coalition, Boston Center for the Arts, and The Chicago Public Library Foundation. Her work is in the collections of The Art Institute of Chicago, Depaul Art Museum, and the Joan Flasch Artist Book Collection, and the Institute of Contemporary Art Baltimore.

Conlon served as a founding director of Fernwey Gallery and Editions from 2014 to 2018 and currently co-directs Limited Time Engagement Press (LTE). Conlon received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her BA from Smith College. She is currently a Professor of the Practice in Print at SMFA at Tufts University in Boston, MA.

Don't miss the opportunity to explore "A Hole Hanging in the Air" at 3S Artspace. On exhibit until June 1, 2025