Process: Collaging Time

This page explores how some of my materials have evolved into various projects. Showing the interplay between Burnin Man projects, staged photography sets, and sculptural works.

Belts

I made a project called Merry Go Down for Burning Man (2008 & 2009). The fringe of the ride was made of plastic belts.

Later the belts became a medium for photography sets, assemblage and sculpture. I like them because they evoke many things, among them Elvis in his Vegas heyday, tawdriness and disposable culture (like the ever-disappearing casinos of the strip), and personal memories like those people whirling on the Merry Go Down on the playa.

Added to this is the fact that some of the sculptures have been stored outside and the desert heat has curdled, melted, and eroded the material, which is strangely beautiful in its own way.

Here in staged photography:

Here fresh belts and assemblages of more brittle belts are installed at Core Gallery in 2024:

Whiffle Balls

Whiffleballs first became a medium for me decorating the second Merry Go Down, but with The Jigglator for Burning Man 2010 I really explored them as both tactile and visual medium.

They too found another life in my photographic sets, like here in pieces from the Recreational Genetics series:

TITLE

The whiffle balls are now sculptural assemblages. They are hung outside, which invites the sun and heat to co-evolve the medium. Now they capture something about aging / evolution ephemerality of plastic toys bla bla.

TITLE, here installed at Sahara West Gallery

It’s a co-creation with the Las Vegas heat and weather.

Lizards & Snakes

The plastic lizards and snakes came into my life for a Burning Man project called Kill The Earth.

They became an key part of my staged photography and assemblages:

And a inspiration for large scale sculptures:

TITLE, here installed at Sahara West Gallery

And a inspiration for large scale sculptures:

Whiffle balls, snakes and belts installed at Sahara West Gallery

“One other thing he was collaging: time. The pieces engage with multiple time signatures at once — the spontaneity of the moment the shutter snaps + the much longer period spent building the sets + the years weathered into the items as they sat around his yard. In Bondi’s collage theology, every time shift further mutates the original meaning of elements he’s already adapted from their original function.”

—Scott Dickensheets in Double Scoop: Arts in Nevada April 2023