DAVID SOKAL

 

 

 

 
Pitkin Room Installation View  

This site specific installation was an enlarged, composite photograph of the room, (officially know as the "Pitkin Room") in which it was installed. The project was inspired by a discussion among my graduate school cohorts that was held in this room. We discussed issues related to our personal feelings and experiences while students in our two and one-half year program that was coming to a close. As such, the installation was not only specific to this physical space, but also to the people who used it and who would ultimately be the main viewers of the installation.

The Pitkin Room is at Fort Worden in Washington State. The fort is now a state park and much of it is preserved as it was when it became a park in the 1970s.

The installation also consisted of an audio portion. This included interviews of people who had participated in a Juvenile Diagnostic and Treatment Center that was housed at Fort Worden in the decade before it became a park. Many of the experiences that are recorded in these interviews paralleled experiences that were shared in my cohort's meeting held in the Pitkin Room.

The installation reflects how memory may be conditioned by photography. It also deals with ontological concerns in photography. As in Plato's cave, the photograph is merely the shadow representing that which is real. Yet, it is itself a real phenomenon with a life of its own.

Pitkin Room Installation, 2014, digital print on fabric    
     
     
Pitkin Room Composite Photograph
Pitkin Room Composite Image, 2014, digital composition using multiple views of the Pitkin Room.    
The entire image shown here was printed on a twelve foot long by eight foot high piece of fabric. The fabric was then sewn into a tube shape and installed on a column made of sheets of rigid plastic.