Mark Fingerhut
June 24th, around 7pm. An eager audience piled into the basement of Mery Gates gallery in Brooklyn. We're here to view the debut of Mark Fingerhut's newest piece of software, Halcyon.exe. We're seated on folding chairs, facing a 43 inch TV screen mounted on the wall. Mark stands in the back right corner next to his desktop, which is hooked up to the main
screen. During the 25 minute performance, Halcyon is programmed to exhibit mutating visuals, sounds and poetry, all while Mark interacts with his pre-written software in real-time.
We see: Screenshots of an apartment, snacks, subway grates, bedsheets, showers. A pc terminal begins to write. References to shipping containers, routines, buzzing. Where are we
being taken? Saxophones clamor and we start to tap our feet. Then we're rocked forever.
In Halcyon’s world, we are wanderers, abandoned and lost but still perceiving tumultuous states of being. We desperately follow along, hoping to regain a sense of purpose.
Mark’s works consistently depict the indescribable fragmented moments in interpersonal relationships. The lines prompt emotional memories. Repeated patterns of non-committal interchange, mourning the death of wiser predecessors. Love for someone so intense you feel psychotic, aching and begging for purpose. These sensations become insurmountable,
bottomless, and welling. We are stuck in an infinitely recursive loop of our feelings, and it's painful.
All major sessions of withholding eventually release, and we come to the final chapter. This finale however, in Mark’s signature fashion, isn't gentle, or quietly beautiful. It is gutted; it
throws you around. The sound is warm, and invigorating. At last we can take comfort in the facts of what Halcyon has led us to. We are back on the path, directed, solemn, and unwavering in our love for and from our friends. Nothing is certain. Halcyon is survival, Halcyon is wailing and alive.
-JCB June 2022