The Object Permanence series explores our perception of the existence of objects over time, which is fundamental to how we experience the world and our place in it. By exploiting the perceptual effect of object permanence through the use of graphics, computers and robotically-controlled sculpture, the viewer perceives objects over time which do not in fact exist. The “virtual” objects in the works behave as physical objects, thus impacting the gallery’s and viewer’s corporeal space.

In this third piece on the series, "Non-Dual”, a 4½ minute choreography plays out in a dialog between the virtual forms and the sculptures. Changes in orientation form new compositions, and behaviors emerge which may be perceived as breathing, intimidation or embrace.

"One of the more sensuous techno-organic creations in the show is Mr. Pinter's "Object Permanence: Non-Dual," another video/screen-based riddle with a notably and strangely graceful schematic and interactive visual design. Mr. Pinter, who has worked with live video elements and robotics in his experimental and artistic pursuits, here presents a motion-sensed dance of elements, from the monochromatic, Jean Arp-y amorphous blobs oozing across three screens, and, in contrast, the purely physical aspect of antler-like objects in motion. As the artist explains in his comments, this work, like others in his ongoing series, seeks to "exploit the perceptual effect of object permanence," and the lack thereof. Like the other pieces in the unusually engaging art experience that is "Ruckus," this specific perceptual and digitally-machinating puzzle leaves we, the viewer, with an odd sense of direct involvement in the art before and somehow within us. We have been upgraded, beyond the realm of the passive beholder."

- Santa Barbara News Press, Scene Magazine, July 2014.

Wired magazine online feature on the series (2012):
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-01/27/kinetic-sculptures-object-permanence


At the show's opening in Santa Barbara in July of 2014, dancers staged an intervention with the piece. Video documentation of the intervention was shown in Dubai in conjunction with the physical sculpture: