Our society is obsessed with surface appearance. We are bombarded by images that are presented as more important than real objects and events. The presentation of these images is designed to motivate self-identification and mimicry. Any imitation of these images results in an artificial and disposable sense of self because the images themselves are extremely temporary. Sealed for Your Protection is a call and response to our disposable culture. The show is divided between an animation and a set of prints. The animation, entitled Surface Value, depicts the exploration and dismantling of a female android, and serves as a critique of the artificiality of modern femininity. Surface Value appropriates the same visual language that is used to promote consumerism, but displays these methods in a much darker context. The prints, collectively entitled Hybrid Flow, are a response to the animation. Rather than subvert feminine stereotypes to address unrealistic expectations, Hybrid Flow creates a positive portrayal of the modern female digital archetype that is both intimate and inherently female without resorting to mainstream representations of women in electronic media.
Doing some new screens for a game for Tilt Factor. The game is called Layoff and surprisingly… it deals with our current economic situation. Making pixel art is actually a lot more work than I thought it would be. I think my business man looks a lot like Tommy Lee Jones for some reason, although completely unintended. Maybe he doesn’t. maybe it’s just late and i should sleep.. Maybe.
The film Soldiers without Swords revealed a unique aspect of media production that I had not considered before. Black journalists developed their own styles and journalistic tactics, instead of allowing their content and methodology to be dictated by the standards of an institution that frequently discriminated against them. These standards allowed the Black Press to produce content that was not only relevant to its readers, but also resonated with the voices of the black community.
Today, in my experience very little media of this nature is being produced, which is a problem. I do not wish to deny the importance and validity of reactionary media however; issue with reactionary media is that while it raises important questions and issues, it often offers no conceptual point of continuation for its viewers. Media that originates from the practices of those who absorb it has the ability to inform and, more importantly illuminate the possibility of an alternative.
With these issues in mind, I have developed these images. The pieces I have finished are a direct response to the work I did for my first project, Surface Value. Surface Value addressed artificiality of feminine portrayal in modern digital media. The relationship between femininity and images is a dynamic that is at the core of many of my pieces. Surface value critiques the idealized artificiality that has been imposed over the female form, but it does so with the imagery and language of this artificiality itself. Through this method, issues are raised, but no positive alternative is presented. The two images I have created for my final piece reject the idea of subversion. They instead represent an attempt to create a positive, unique embodiment of the modern female digital archetype. The images are representations of systems- both in the manner in which they were generated and the flow of the images themselves. These systems defy the conventional structure of logic and control that is superimposed over the majority of our media, and instead present a dense visual conglomeration that is designed to conceal understanding. To me they remain distinctly female, yet they do not rely on any recognizable female forms in order to remove the context of female stereotypes and associations.
My goal behind this piece was to create something new and different that embodied the values I carry as an artist and a woman, but spoke to those values in a language that was not derived from an external aesthetic that has portrayed women in a negative context in the past. My greatest concern in creating this piece is that I believe it will only be relevant to me in terms of its positive female aesthetic, though the imagery may bring up different, equally valid associations with other viewers. At the very least however, I hope the images themselves allow for the conceptualization of something new and different. That is what they symbolize for me.
(to view full size click image)
Plants.. People… What mysteries will be unveiled when scientists explore the mysteries of the botanical world of Extrasensory Perception. Find out now.
Walk Lola Walk is a flash game I recently created centered on the character and themes from the movie Run Lola Run. While still in a developmental phase, the game is set between the time Lola fails her “mission” and the time she begins anew. The game is designed to be the opposite of the active parts of the movie in that it is not timed and is a puzzle activity rather than an interaction based on immediate reaction. Keep in mind when playing it that Run Lola Run, the movie centers around a number….
play the game here
Digitally Amalgamated Panoramas or DAP DAP is a collaborative street/interactive piece i’ve been working on with fellow artists Dylan Gauthier and Elizabeth Knafo. The piece is designed around a set of stencils placed around the brooklyn, queens and manhattan that contain a url and a number to text. The text number is attached to a gateway that relays a message to the user’s phone with instructions. These instruct the participant to take a photo at the location of the stencil and email it to a specific address. The url, dapdap.org included on the stencil and in the images takes the participant to a site we built that pulls up a menu of the most recent images taken from each location. When one of the image is clicked, the site creates a dynamic composition of the 5 most recent images from that specific location with varying degrees of opacity for each image, based on their date. The result is a constantly changing image that shows the selective views of different individuals as they pass through that location.
The site is designed using the flickr api so all of the images are actually uploaded, stored and accessed from a flickr account. The site utilizes a modified version of the php from Steve Lambert’s whytheyhate.us. The site also includes a version of the stencil for download so that users can create their own sites. The code of dapdap constantly searches for new tags, so any new spaces containing the stencil added will automatically be added to the site if someone uploads a photo from them.
Surface Value is work that addresses the relationship between femininity and surface value. Since the advent of photography, the nature of the object has undergone constant change. In many respects, images now take precedence over objects, experiences and events. These images are pervasive in nature and dictate a new value system in which worth is determined through constant accumulation and revision. This value structure is becoming inscribed on us as individuals wherein we take the perceived value of the images we surround ourselves with as an indicator of our own worth. As a result, our identities are becoming as disposable as these projections. Surface Value uses the archetype of the android as a metaphor to explore this condition. As the piece progresses a roving camera, meticulously explores the central character, a female android. As an object, the android is purely surface. Its interiors are as accessible as its exteriors and both have been crafted with the expectation that they will be closely examined and evaluated. While these surfaces are beautiful, they are also two-dimensional. The android is not more than the sum of its parts as indicated by the fact that we never see all of it at once. Because it is artificial, the android while appearing valuable will inevitably be dismantled and discarded through the scrutiny it is meant to withstand.
Another question from a group member on the piece:
One thing that jumps out at me about what I’ve seen of the piece so far is that the images are very “female.” I don’t know if this is something you’d address in your piece or not, but I wonder about the connection between having an android have gendered characteristics (like painted fingernails and lipstick) and ideas around “surface” and artificiality of identity.
I’m glad you said something about the markers of femininity i’ve placed throughout the piece and i probably should have addressed them before hand. The selection of these images- made-up lips, painted nails etc, and the gender of the android as a female are very deliberate choices. I want to make a clear association between this type of false identity and a woman because i believe that women more than men are valued for their surface appearance, and discarded just as quickly. My animation attempts to associate this process with destruction and violence. A big part of my inspiration behind this piece was my reading of Jon Berger’s Ways of Seeing. The book examines western cultural aesthetics and talks about the idea of “the male gaze” and how it shapes art and advertising. One passage that resonates with my piece specifically talks about how a man’s presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you, while a woman’s presence expresses her attitude towards herself and defines what can and cannot be done to her. Berger says that a woman must continually survey herself because how she appears to others is ultimately what will determine her success. As a result of this idea, the concept of the value of surface in our culture holds more weight when addressed in terms of the feminine.
This question was raised about the concept behind my piece:
I just finished looking at your updated blog and I was really captured by your last statement that you made “At its core I am attempting to address this question:
As the surfaces of our culture become more ubiquitous and intimately tied to our definitions of ourselves, what will be the end result when they are discarded?”
which really caught my attention because it made me wonder if our culture would ever get discarded. If anything I believe that it would be added on since it would need a basis…unless I misinterpreted your sentence. Why would you think it would get discarded?
I’ll try to answer your question as best i can. I’m not suggesting that culture as a whole is something that can be erased instantaneously. Cultural shifts are a gradual and amalgamated process. It appears to me that the rate at which cultural icons and trends are emerging and subsequently being cast off is increasing rapidly. My piece is meant to portray an exaggeration or type of symbolism of the end result of this accelerated cycle. There will be, i believe a breaking point Eventually something will have to change in how we process our culture and furthermore, who dictates our culture to us. I’m very interested to see what that will be.
