Paranormal Mechanisms

Photo by Rick Gehrke

EXHIBITION
MFA 2007 Group Show, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, May 2007

PRESS
Suzi Steffens, Otherworldly, Eugene Weekly May 2007

“And what of planet technology? Multimedia artist Carl Diehl is more than willing to bring visitors from the land of the new to the ghosty world of “residual media” like a Mac Classic near reams of hard-shelled floppy disks residing in a flip-through disk container. The desk on which the tiny-screened computer rests contains motherboards, dismembered cell phones and other e-waste, and the whole thing is part of Diehl’s elaborate Paranormal Mechanisms display. With old-school Dymo labels stuck all over the place, instructions firmly telling viewers to slip some of that “DAMNED DATA” on the floppies into the open drive or to “TAKE ONE” of the CDs that connect to Diehl’s websites, the display wanders in a self-referential world of classification and organization that threatens to destabilize what humans know about the “progress” of technology. I deeply enjoyed this work with its walk-the-line-of-insanity techno ghost world.”