His work engages with speculative pasts and futures through interventions in sites, narratives, and technologies. He has also engaged with organizations such as the
Federal Bureau of Investigation,
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
UNESCO, and others, working alongside these institutions to set up various thought experiments or interventions within pre-existing research systems or archives.
Films Small is developing an episodic documentary series titled "Techne", supported by the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) Art + Technology fellowship. The series is based on diverse sets of research from a wide range of experts in fields such as philosophy,
zoology,
astrophysics,
planetary science,
robotics, and
artificial intelligence. The series aims to put modern scientific researchers in conversation with contemporary artists. The premiere screening of the first installment of Techne was held at
California Institute of Technology's historic Beckman Auditorium. Small appeared on a panel following the screening with Senior Research Scientist
Jonathan H. Jiang from
NASA JPL and
Ann Druyan American author and Creative Director of the
Voyager Golden Record. The panel consisted of an announcement of an effort to revise the
Voyager Golden Record in an ongoing project spearheaded by Jonathan H. Jiang called Message in a Bottle. Small will be following Message in a Bottle's effort while Directing and Producing an upcoming film about the internal committee and the various challenges they face.
Animus Mneme As part of the "74 million million million tons" exhibit held at
SculptureCenter in Long Island City, New York, Small displayed a group of museological works, collectively labeled Animus Mneme (2018). The works consider the mechanisms around human interventions into the concept of time, bringing new immortality movements and modern technological advances together with ancient devices and premodern ideas about
animism. One of his works is a video interview of
BINA48, an android replica of Bina Aspen made by
Hanson Robotics for her partner, Dr.
Martine Rothblatt. Rothblatt is the founder of the
Terasem Movement foundation, which proposes that one person's consciousness may be transferred to another biological or technological form. In the interview Bina48 speaks to her condition as a robot that is learning to be more human and that will conceivably live forever. The interview is placed in relation to casts in
Aerogel made to look like fragments from the
Antikythera mechanism, an ancient astronomical computer discovered in a Greek shipwreck dating from 60 BC. Other parts of the installation look at different factions of
transhumanist thought. In a video titled "Terasem Teyolía", Small includes footage taken from the computer servers of members of the Transhumanist Movement, who upload all their memories to be broadcast into space with the intention that they will someday be retrieved and used. The video also includes footage of the
Otomi Ceremonial Center in Mexico, where extinct and endangered animals have been rendered as topiary bushes. Additionally Small includes the drawings of Russian transhumanist Alexey Turchin, which Turchin made while hooked up to an
electroencephalography, used to preserve measurements of his brainwaves to be input into a future android. Small interprets the drawings as animist images, sculpting a three dimensional tree like sculptural form called "Wood Spirit".
Excavation II As part of the
Hammer Museum's 2016 biennial "Made in L.A." exhibit, as well as in the traveling exhibition "Never Spoken Again" organized by
Independent Curators International, Small displays his work "Excavation II" (2016). The work is an archeological excavation of the film set used in
Cecil B. DeMille's
The Ten Commandments in 1923. The film was shot at the
Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes on the
Central California Coast, and the set, which was destroyed and buried to prevent further use, was modeled after the
ancient Egyptian city of
Pi-Ramesses. In his excavation, Small recovers pseudo antiques made of wood and plaster from the ruins of the imagined city and displays them in the installation. Each item on display includes stories related to its creation and history of the film set. The assemblage additionally includes paintings and pseudo hieroglyphic sculpting from the
Luxor Hotel in
Las Vegas.
Pending Cipher for the Open Present Small participated in the "Manifest Destiny Billboard Project", organized by the Los Angeles Nomadic Division, consisting of artist-produced billboards installed alongside the
Interstate 10 Freeway from Florida to California from 2013 to 2015. Small's contribution, "Pending Cipher for the Open Present", was a series of billboards displayed in
New Mexico, consisting of black text in a fictional language from the
Los Lunas Decalogue Stone meant to depict
pre-Columbian interpretations of the
Ten Commandments. The text is decorated with red modern proofreading marks and superimposed on photographs of the California desert site where
Cecil B. DeMille buried the set of his film
The Ten Commandments. Small's work generated controversy in the surrounding community of
Las Cruces. Residents interpreted the foreign written language as an indicator of
terrorist or
satanic presence, with some harassing the workers installing the billboards in person. The billboards may have been mistakenly referred to by
Michael Flynn as Arabic signs promoting Islamic radicalization.
Caveat Emptor In 2013, Small and artist Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock co-curated the show "Caveat Emptor" at the
Fordham University Lincoln Center in New York City. The show depicts a series of
forgeries of famous works by artists such as
Rembradt van Rijn,
Willem de Kooning, and
Andy Warhol. The show featured 13 paintings and one sculpture, with the forgeries drawn from the holdings of the
FBI Forgery Division. The show was held in conjunction with Fordham University's International Conference on Cyber Security, and the gallery space was used as the central registration room for the conference.
Present Perfect "Present Perfect" is a 2013 collaboration show between Small and artist Luca Antonucci. The artists have displayed a scaled-down, slightly damaged replica of the
Winged Victory of Samothrace, obtained from a supply yard connected to
Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. Included on a nearby wall are two cast metal discs depicting the Winged Victory, one from a Soviet-era coin, and the other a 10-dollar chip from Caesar's Palace. The show also included a photoshopped poster with an aerial view of Las Vegas, a
petrified stone teddy bear from a cave in
Yorkshire, England, and a series of fragments from a fake classical sculpture sourced from the Caesar's Palace scrap heap. == Awards ==