Curt Cloninger, 2000-ongoing
Curt Cloninger’s garden is a multi-sensory, multi-media experience to behold. By clicking through the 121 different parts of the work, Cloninger’s interests and patterns begin to emerge though not entirely coherently. Through the barrage of images, gifs, videos, and sounds the viewer is sure to find something to latch onto. Will you read the text when it appears? Where will the spot to click to the next part appear? The work engages the viewer and forces them to be more than just a passive observer. How long is spent on each part is entirely determined by the user, and with each click bringing the viewer into another entirely different piece worthy of analysis on its own, the temptation to stay on one part is strong. Equally strong however is the alluring mystery of what the next page will look like. As a whole the piece swirls together into a concoction of the meaningful and meaningless, and what is what is up to the viewer. Garden can only exist on the screen on the internet, without the motion of the images and having to move the mouse to click to the next part, the experience would not be complete.