05/31/2026
Cameron Cameron’s “Tell me why the sky’s so blue” is open today 1-5pm
I am thinking about circulation. The circuits of organic matter. Fluids in our bodies moving, moving all the time. This condition keeps us alive.
A box fan circulates the air in a space. Its work is immediate. It cools, briefly. It accumulates nothing, except dust on the blades during cooler months.
Cameron Cameron’s box fans group together like gossiping friends (circulation of information). They draw in and expel breath (circulation of oxygen).
When I was a child, with childish imagination, and childish boredom, the cheap plastic box fan in my bedroom could transport me. Sitting cross-legged, leaning toward it, my voice turned garbled and metallic. Closing my eyes, I pictured myself on the prow of a ship, wind striking my face.
Mental images circulate at the speed of thought.
The bodies of Cameron’s fans are printed with pictures from her cellphone. Daily, quotidian photos enclose wheeling blades. The fans become a way for the images to take on physical form.
Soft blue, sheer like memory, they become the surface I see and see through. Double exposures: a chandelier swinging, a spider in a web. Two small animal heads, superimposed, mouths open.
Following Tina M. Campt, the quotidian image is not only seen, but sensed through quiet sonic fre-quencies, “like the vibrato of a hum felt more in the throat than in the ear.”
These fans insist on a frequency that can be felt. They emit a whirr that raises goosebumps, a vibration that moves between bodies.
Cameron knows how to listen to quiet frequencies. She locates the value in disposable, mass-produced objects. She tenderly encases their little k***s in silver foil. The k***s turn. Now: a low hum that softens outside noise, a balm against summer heat.
Consider circulation as an economic metaphor. Artists circulate within global markets; the value of a work of art accrues (or diminishes) through movement. Fans circulate air, which is free, using electric-ity, which is not.
And what does it mean that the fans can be plugged in, that they can still do their jobs? For an object to have an occupation...is that the point?
