Angela Bulloch

Angela Bulloch’s work is complex and multifaceted, yet based on a substantive interest in societal structures. Who decides which rules apply within a given system? What happens when people follow or violate those rules? How does technology operate within established protocols? Rules and systems are at the heart of Bulloch's oeuvre, from everyday guidelines to the applied logical reasoning of computers and machines.

The systems she persistently questions are constantly in flux – much like her own work, which has no fixed form. In addition to light installations and sculptures, Bulloch also makes interactive drawing machines, series of texts, videos, murals and music projects, always in the medium that best befits the concept.

Participation and cooperation play an important role in her work. She has collaborated on numerous works with designers, technicians and DJs, not only to gain their expertise but to bring nuance to the idea of the artist as sole creator. The visitor, for their part, is not always a passive spectator: they also become a participant whose movements activate certain elements of the installation. 

For Bulloch, technology is not an end unto itself, but rather a means of giving tangible form to abstract ideas. The glowing coloured cubes of her Pixel Boxes (see for example: Macroworld: One Hours3 and Canned) refer to the underlying logic of digital images, as well as to minimalism and conceptual art. The Night Sky works (see: Night Sky: Saturn North from Earth) show constellations of stars as seen from a place beyond our planet we will never be able to reach.

All these works were inspired by one fundamental question: what system do we use to make sense of the world, and who chooses that method?