Sabrina Raaf at Klein Art Works - Chicago

Art in America, March, 2004 by Susan Snodgrass

A basic preoccupation of science fiction is the often troubled relationship between humanity and other life-forms and, by extension, the role played by technology in the struggle for power and control. Similar concerns engage Sabrina Raaf, whose photographs and multimedia installations, here collectively titled "Roving," fuse fantasy and technological innovation to comment on systems of mobility, the body and paranoia.

Searchstoretrash parodies the language and means by which one navigates the Internet. The "information superhighway" is literalized in a 150-foot track constructed from a steel armature covered with nylon fabric coated with rubber. This labyrinthine structure, a work of sculpture in its own right, exists in real time and space, although it is observed via video monitor. Using a remote control, the viewer guides a small, wireless vehicle over the track's dips and curves until it dead-ends in two small domes housing trash bins. Humor and nihilism also haunt Lost (A Tribute to the Polar Lander). Contained within a large crater is a pool of black magnetic fluid; a tiny rover and several sea-urchin-like forms writhe and bubble just beneath the surface in endless pursuit.

Raaf's installations are impressive for their ambition and technological savvy, as well as for her sensitivity to her materials, however unconventional. Her photographs (inkjet prints) depict strange scenarios, staged encounters that mix live actors with fabricated creatures, as in Never Alone, where miniature astronauts invade the bathroom of a numbed young man, who sits, eyes half-closed, holding a cup of tea and a stalk of sugarcane. In other works, humans sprout prosthetic limbs made of wheels--as in WheelAdapter's Rash--and assume insectlike characteristics or employ bizarre contraptions to harness their own bodily substances, such as fat and belly button lint, to extraordinary ends. These photographs project an air of cool objectivity, and with their serial format (most are either diptychs or triptychs), they read like films--B-movies in particular.

The disturbing piece Saturday lent a serious note to Raaf's other wise playful enterprise. Using surveillance equipment, the artist recorded conversations--a drug deal, a call for a cab--taking place within a four-block radius of her home. The resulting audio document was then transmitted through a bone conductor wrapped within the fingers of a glove held to the listener's head. Here, Raaf presents an engaging quagmire of issues related to technology's use and misuse, inserting a bite of cold reality into her world of fantasy.