Visual Arts

You are what you digitally surf. No mere reflection, you are a screen.

Kristin Lucas bears this message in an array of new-media forms at And/Or Gallery, including photographs mounted like creepy advertisements on light boxes, a three-channel video projected on plywood boards and an ersatz computer, and framed documentation of two trips to court in Alameda, Calif., to legally change her name from Kristin Sue Lucas to Kristin Sue Lucas. Yes, she went to the bureaucratic trouble of having her name changed to the same name.

And/Or Gallery

'Kristin Going Static' from Whatever Your Mind Can Conceive

A participant in the 1997 Whitney Biennial, Ms. Lucas combines theatrical performance, narrative and new media in documenting the fiction of a lonely eccentric. She shares good company with Phil Collins, whose "The World Won't Listen" at the Dallas Museum of Art enlists a similar mix of event documentation and high-tech media. Like Mr. Collins, Ms. Lucas embraced a new community for this project, having befriended residents of a small town in Nevada, including the hypnotherapist who appears in the story.

In a six-part text-based piece titled Refresh, Ms. Lucas recorded her adventure in name-changing. Court documents from Sept. 22 and Oct. 5, 2007, reveal a bewildered but thoughtful Frank Roesch, the judge who presided. "The court is not in the business of humor," Judge Roesch told Ms. Lucas on Sept. 22. In a flourish, she replied: "Technology makes the change ... replacing information. The computer erases."

On Oct. 5, the judge wrapped up the case by granting her wishes and telling Ms. Lucas, "So you have changed your name to exactly what it was before in the spirit of refreshing yourself as though you were a webpage."

Whatever Your Mind Can Conceive is made up of three video projections. Working in tandem, the videos tell a broken narrative of a bingo caller, played by Ms. Lucas, who has a mysterious rash.

The first two video projections are separate, one directly on the makeshift wall of a wooden crate, the other cast at an angle on an adjacent plywood panel. They show Ms. Lucas standing in the mountainous and windswept landscape of a Nevada desert. Her mouth moves to almost inaudible effect as sonorous and relaxing music by Geoffrey Morris overtakes the viewer. Complementing the rocky terrain of the projection, Fiberglas-cast rocks and a Fiberglas-cast computer sit on the floor.

The third projection, a video cast on the small faux computer, tells the story of the bingo caller who visits a doctor, a real hypnotherapist in Nevada, because of the bubbling rash on her face. It turns out the rash acts as an antenna for channeling bingo call numbers. The craggy computer looks like a futuristic ruin, propping up Ms. Lucas' fantastic narrative of technology run amok.

In the video projected on the computer-ruin, a deadpan discussion takes place between Ms. Lucas and the doctor. He asks her, "How many fingers do I have up?" The video cuts to Ms. Lucas driving her car through the desert, aping the doctor and talking about how his prescription includes being quarantined to her car.

In the back of the gallery, a group show with work by 22 artists, including gallerist and Dallas-based new-media artist Paul Slocum, provides an added dimension to the work of Ms. Lucas. Though diverse in media, including photography, video, electronic music, drawing and painting, each artist has rendered a particular version of Ms. Lucas' portrait.

Charissa N. Terranova is a Dallas freelance writer.

"Kristin Lucas" is on display through March 1 at And/Or Gallery, 4221 Bryan St., Suite B. Hours: 5 to 8 p.m. Wednesdays and noon to 6 p.m. Thursdays and Saturdays. Free. 214-824-2442, www.andor gallery.com.