eyes of the Other

Drive Cube Instructions:

1. Take a key from the cube in the center of the room. 

2. Find the box it unlocks, and take the sculpture it contains and in exchange… 

3. Place your phone inside the box set to record video with the camera facing through the clear window out towards the guests for 1 hour.  Upload video to QR code dropbox link: https://www.dropbox.com/request/8aZ9NZsLbCJ9lFGjLjuk

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In "eyes of the Other," Stephen Benedicto explores the evolution of human inquiry, shifting the discourse from "Who is watching me?" to "What is watching me?" and begs the follow up question, “what does it want from me?”  The embedded presupposition of this inquiry, is that something that is qualified as a “what” rather than a “who” even has the capacity to desire in the first place.

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At the exhibition's center lies a concrete box, embedded with 20 unique brass padlocks, key holes facing out, each pierced by its corresponding key. These keys unlock 20 individual boxes arrayed around the room's periphery, each containing a replica of Benedicto's ear. Guests are encouraged to engage in a unique economy: by selecting a key from the central cube, locating its corresponding box, and sacrificing their smartphones—set to record video for one hour—they  can they claim both the silver ear sculpture within the box and the  video recording of the exhibition, captured on their personal device.

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This experience elicits a dialogue with two seemingly contradictory concepts: the existentialist Jean Paul Sartre’s statement, “Hell is other people” and the biblical figure of the Ophanim, an angel depicted as nested concentric rings of celestial eyes. Through this, we can imagine the point at which we breach the threshold of the sublime and pass into the realm of the monstrous.