A project by
Biolunar L
(a.k.a. Robin Hill and Ulla Warchol)

Left to Chance: In Search of the Accidental Book Art,
Curated by Hanna Regev
February 13 - May 12, 2012
San Francisco Center for the Book
375 Rhode Island St, San Francisco, CA 94103

What We Talk About When We Talk About Art by Meredith Tromble

Object Lessons, 2012

by Biolunar L  
(a.k.a. Robin Hill and Ulla Warchol)

For Object Lessons, Biolunar L (a.k.a. Robin Hill and Ulla Warchol) enacted a cross-country Skype conversation in which each artist simultaneously held up an object for the other to view. With no discussion allowed beyond physical descriptions of weight, size, texture, smell, taste, color etc. the artists sought to simply see what was being shown. Twelve sets of two objects were meeting for the first time, in real time, in a virtual space, introduced by their artist finder. Once the introductions were complete, and screen shots of the objects’ pairings captured, the artists began a solitary process of transformation of their individual objects. The only guideline was that each artist integrate an aspect, quality, or attribute of the other’s object into her own.

Upon Warchol’s arrival in California the artists structured an unpacking session in Hill’s Woodland studio, in which the transformed objects faced each other for the first time. What emerged was a tender and surprising experience of reciprocity. From Biolunar L ’s point of view, the success of their project has as much to do with the template it provides for jumpstarting one’s creative process, for questioning authorship and shared provenance, for seeing things in a new way for expanding the landscape of one’s work habits (as in when to think and stop making, and when to make and stop thinking), for versatility and adaptability, for allowing chance encounters to prompt future actions, for alleviating the pressure of hermetic models of production, for engaging in improvisation and collaboration, and for connecting parts of the whole, as it does with the actual work they produced.   Biolunar L  , 2012

The Accidental Book Art,  curated by Hanna Regev
San Francisco Center for the Book
February 2012

Art and Shadows by Meredith Tromble