Perry Hoberman's Suspensions at Postmasters Blends Physical Debris with Virtual Reality

Perry Hoberman's exhibition Suspensions at Postmasters gallery in New York City ran from February 17 to March 31, 2018. The installation featured chains of desert detritus—flattened toys, rusty cans, gears, and transistors—suspended from the ceiling with bungee cords. Each assemblage bore titles like Low Credit Risk and Pinched Nerve Jamboree. Visitors could don virtual reality headsets to experience digital recreations of the physical sculptures, where objects jiggled or swung with simulated gravity against an infinite blue sky or desert panorama. The VR environment included a slideshow and a recurring giant figure representing Hoberman himself, captured via selfie stick. Hoberman, an artist and researcher at the University of Southern California, has worked with simulation technologies since the 1980s and collaborated with Laurie Anderson on projects like the O Superman video. The debris in Suspensions came from abandoned homes near a military base, echoing themes in his earlier multimedia work 29 SpaceTime with Julia Heyward. While the installation lacked Hoberman's typical sound design, incidental audio from Jillian Mayer's adjacent piece provided a soothing electronic score. The exhibition critiques VR's limitations and corporate co-optation, referencing Robert Smithson's concepts of Non-sites and the history of stereoscopic technology dating to Charles Wheatstone's 1838 invention.