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The At Any Given Moment series explores issues of perception, specifically our relationship to technologically mediated nature. In At Any Given Moment, Grass 1, the repetitive rhythm, tight cropping, and large-scale image emphasize the work’s particular organizational logic in time and space, and assemble a more compact environment, one that the body can engage with physically. The cross-rhythmic tensions between simple elements—a blade of grass modulated by variable speed and variable light conditions—create visual difference and reveal the patterns that one simple element produces through relationships and complex organization. The large-scale projection with its engulfing force and meditative recurring cycles, enter in relation with our own human rhythms, resulting in a seemingly mutual modulation. This phenomenological approach allows us to view ourselves from the outside—as part of the representation—and thus to learn about ourselves and challenge preconceptions of our surroundings, specifically of the nature of matter. Nothing exists in the natural world that does not manifest itself as a vibratory or rhythmic phenomenon. Through this artwork series I affirm what composer Karl Heinz Stockhausen said: “We are all transistors, in the literal sense. People always think they are in the world, but they never realize they are the world.”

At Any Given Moment series was filmed in Iceland between 2006 and 2008, and Grass 2 in Northern California in 2009, with a Bolex H16 Reflex 16mm film camera and transferred to high-definition video. Sound composed by Drew Schnurr.

“The Sound conception for the At Any Given Moment series focuses on the visceral internal experience, its multiplicity, and modulation of focus. Layers of the visual component are drawn out sonically in sequence by gradually isolating varied regions of frequency from the original audio recording. Subtle musical layers are woven into the underlying texture.” —Drew Schnurr.






At Any Given Moment, Grass 1, 2009; video projection:16mm film screened as single-channel video projected at architectural scale, color, sound by Drew Schnurr; continuous loop, 5 minutes.




At Any Given Moment, Grass 1, 2009; video projection:16mm film screened as single-channel video projected at architectural scale, color, sound by Drew Schnurr; continuous loop, 5 minutes. Installation view at ‘Rebeca Méndez: At Any Given Moment, Grass 1,’ Environment Furniture, Los Angeles, 2009.




Rebeca shooting At Any Given Moment, Grass 1 in Iceland, 2006.







Exhibition History:
Rebeca Méndez: Each Day at Noon, Hammer Museum, Cafe Hammer Monitors, Los Angeles, California, April 24–May 30, 2012, curated by Elizabeth Cline (solo).

Rebeca Méndez: At Any Given Moment, Grass 1; Environment Furniture, Los Angeles. California. March 5, 2009–present, curated by Camilla Trigano. Permanent video art projection.

Intersecciones, X Bienal de Arte, parallel exhibition, Cuenca, Ecuador, October 22–December 4, 2009, general curator Manuel Noceda, parallel exhibition curator Arsenio Garcia Monsalve.