Simply Smashing, 150 water-filled glasses, installation: Chelsea, 2005

Rebecca Cummins explores the sculptural, experiential and sometimes humorous possibilities of light and natural phenomena, often referencing the history of optics. She frequently incorporates obsolete technologies such as camera obscuras, phantasmagoria and periscopes, often in combination with newer media, such as video, computers, photography and digital imaging.

IInstallations have incorporated a rainbow machine, camera obscura / fibre-optic journey through the center of the earth, paranoid dinner-table devices ('Liquid Scrutiny' referenced a 17th century Czech camera obscura goblet), an interactive computer/video rifle ('To Fall Standing' updated French physiologist E.J.Marey’s photographic rifle of 1882), portable camera obscuras and a periscope birdbath.

Recent photographic and sculptural projects record the movement of shadows (in daylight and moonlight) over regular intervals of time, including large scale sundials (“Aperture Skylight Sundial” opened recently at the new Montlake Public Library).

She received her doctorate at the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia, in 2003and is an associate professor at the University of Washington.

Recent exhibitions include the Shanghai Biennale, China; Toronto Images Festival, Canada; Alan Klotz Gallery, New York City; KIASMA Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland; the South Australia Biennale of Australian Art, Adelaide; Performance Space, Sydney; I Space, Chicago; and the Exploratorium, San Francisco.