JAMES WAITE
James Waite engages in a process of “world debuilding.” On the screens of Falling Rocks 01, Falling Rocks 02, and Falling Rocks 03, chunks of rock, silicon, quartz, coal, and icons appear to pelt the LCD barrier, almost as if in an attempt to break out and spill into the material world. The live JavaScript program Waite developed for this show randomly generates a velocity for each object, which determines whether or not it produces a scratch on the screen along with the sound of a crashing thud upon impact. While they hold a certificate from Case Western Reserve University for completing a six-month Fullstack Coding Bootcamp, Waite is, in many ways, self-taught and embraces working through problems as they arise while using programming as a roundabout process for mark making.
With Falling Rocks, Waite urges a consideration of screens as both digital and physical objects. Their chosen screens, some cracked, none new, are e-waste donated by friends and Ohio State University. In an effort not to limit viewers’ understanding of the screen to the image it displays, Waite removed these monitors from their casings, exposing their circuitry and other internal components. The precariously suspended Falling Rocks 01 and Falling Rocks 02 force the viewer to gaze upwards and acknowledge the infrastructure necessary for their support, while the waist-level Falling Rocks 03 offers a clearer view of the inside of the screen while simultaneously challenging the viewer to contort if they wish to witness the plummeting objects.
Waite’s accompanying wall diagram highlights a key element of their practice: the connection between drawing and programming. Directly on the wall, they conceptually chart, through iconographic means, the extraction of rare materials necessary for the production of screens, the gas and coal Ohio relies on for electricity, and the growing problem of where all this e-waste must go. Like the devices Waite investigates, this diagram has a shelf life, as it will be destroyed when the show is taken down. In parallel, as this exhibition continues, the Falling Rocks screens will become increasingly covered in cracks, scratches, and chunks of dead pixels. Only as they lose their function as images can one gain a sharper focus of their very objectness.
— April Riddle, OSU Department of History of Art, PhD Candidate
EXHIBITION DOCUMENTATION BY SAM LO, OSU MFA PHOTOGRAPHY 2026