The above image was projected onto the wall of a gallery with a slide projector for a group show which comprised work from the students of a critique class which was taking place in another room within the larger architectural structure of the institution in which both rooms described specific spaces, notably the classroom and the gallery. There was a movement intriguing to me in the shift of the class from a space of discussion to a space of display and that there may have been some feeling like culmination in ending the course with a gallery show for the members involved. The show was not planned in conjunction with the course or its description, but instead came up as a possibility midway through the semester and became an additional component not evaluated in the grading process, although, the dates of the show fell at the end of the academic semester and so became a final project to conclude the course.

For my contribution I wanted to attempt to open a space of context for the relativity behind the members involved in the group show as there was no overtly apparent continuity in the various works exhibited. The participating artists had shared a large amount of time together as a group discussing each other's work previous to having the gallery. It was due to being a student in the context of critique that the individual artists had the opportunity to show their work in a gallery context.

The slide projector seemed optimal in denoting the transition of space that had taken place for this group of people and served to indicate an amount of conversation which had led to the works up in the show whether directly discussed in critique or expanded or begun by it; conversation had taken place yet with no explicit record of any. As the most rudimentary function of a slide projector is to project I enabled this use as both literal and metaphoric as the projection filled my sanction of the gallery space.

The image chosen was a view from within the classroom (empty) in which the critique course had taken place. When taking the picture for the slide the camera was hand held and in accidentally reading the shutter speed wrongly the image came out with a slight blur due to the prolonged exposure. Upon reviewing the image I decided to use it as the blur indicated to me a time lapse in the process of acquiring the image, something slightly adverse to slides as they primarily exist to present clear documentation of the photographed for archival purposes. The blur not only gave human presence in an empty classroom presenting the potential of it, but also allowed the image to seep and take in more than a moment, relating as I saw it back simultaneously to the recording of the conversation and lack there of. The viewer was given the visual of a space of and for conversation but in a way was not admitted to it as it was, by, and for the members enrolled in the class to have, use, and think on.

While the work did not have a title, a supplementary title-like card was provided which was the most basic public information on the class found in the catalog of courses offered that academic semester and viewed at least by all those who signed up for the course. This information established a context for the picture: the room number, time, teacher, and class title moved a viewer to a clearer understanding of the slightly blurred slide projection, which alone is no more than a white room with a table and chairs. The card was placed inside the projected field on the wall, positioned in the work and not as an outside informative element. This also served to take the presence away that the image being projected was the work.

As it happened, the press release for the show went out with the title being quite nondescript giving no context as to why there was a group show by the people contributing. My work inadvertently came to be the only work to provide any description for the reasoning behind the show through addressing a social relationship built within a space and in the midst of loss through the movement to another space. The slide projection provided a temporary window view that stopped at the wall enabling what seemed a necessary transition of work surrounded by discussion to work left in an empty room.

Within the gallery the slide projector sat on a pedestal measuring 12x12x18'' lying on its side with labels reading "Please, turn projector on to view slide and turn off when exiting the gallery. Thank you." Demanding a level of interactivity the viewer, to see more than a slide projector on a pedestal had to go about inspecting everything present. This primary action and shift into a discursive observer was a way for the viewer to begin thinking about the work with a specific finitude. The interaction also enabled a certain level of privacy that was made in part by the viewer turning on and off the projector much like a private screening. After the show, along with the slide, the pedestal and the title-like card were kept, the card stuck to the pedestal. As the slide already exists as an archive and a holder of reminisce, the remainder of the work has become archive of the work in the show. The work has entered a second level archive, with the work in gallery being the presentation of the critique course in archival form itself.