Spatiotemporal Dreams

If I could travel through space and time I would visit a distant planet evolved sans mammals. What would I do with my sovereignty? Find an ocean, sink to the bottom, slit my wrist with a seashell: the first panspermic artist; the planet’s evolution my canvas and my DNA for paint. Dormant some 650 million odd years, eventually my children might bring me to the surface to burn me for energy. Then I would finally see the world I seeded as I floated to the edge of the atmosphere, my will long since transposed into a rhizomatic network of organisms birthed in the embryonic ocean of my youth.

My video Borderlines will be showing on March 29th at The Crisp-Elert Art Museum as part of the 2013 Capture International Video Art Exhibit … :D

New Media Collective Show

New Media Collective (student association) put on a show in the Lightwell earlier this semester. Titled “Processing Translation…” the show lasted one week and was in a progressive installation state for its duration. Daily, three participating artists had 24 hours to respond to the developing gallery space and produce a new work of art. A live, streaming video feed of the artists at work was available 24/7 via uStream. The exhibition’s closing reception was on Thursday, Feb. 7, and was the only time all the works will be on view at once.

My contribution is documented below:

When I arrived at the gallery the show had been in process for 4 or 5 days already. Many artists had already contributed work. The connections they made between each other was mapped by masking tape on the floor. The first thing I did was populate some of the triangles made by masking tape with wooden blocks. Here are pictures from above:

After laying down the wood blocks, and spending some time in the gallery I returned to my studio to rummage through my closet. I found balloons, string, a bouncy ball, tape, and confetti. With it I completed the piece below, titled “Nothing Lasts Forever”.

uStream video of my live stream: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/29030893

The balloons deflated quickly, overnight in fact. The aftermath:

Lots of people came to the closing reception. At that point the gallery was full of all kinds of stuff:

After the show I took a piece from Nothing Lasts Forever and stapled it to a wall in the basement:

Capstone Abstract

Senior Capstone Brief Project Abstract:

experimental treasure mapping
emphasis on generating (random) data
1) collect bacteria sample from mouth
2) let bacteria grow in petri dish with agar
3) transfer sample to microscope slide
4) capture image of slide with usb microscope
5) convert image to blobs and send image to plotter (video below of this step)
6) plot blobs onto a transparency
7) lay transparency over map of the city
8) travel to areas marked by blob(s)
9) use a metal detector to search for buried “treasure”
10) retrieve buried treasure
11) repeat the process beginning w/step 2 using bacteria collected from treasure surface
after the above process is repeated 10x, collect the transparencies created and construct musical instrument (structure TBD)

Step #5 shown below:

Coordinate Retriever wins museum purchase award!

I am amazed to report that last week at the 99th Annual School of Art and Art History Student Exhibition, I received a purchase award for Inside The Land of Gray Matter Part III and its prop, the Coordinate Retriever. These works are now part of the museum’s permanent collection. What an honor!

A few articles about the show and awards presented:

Senior exhibition around the corner.

Can’t believe it, but this is the final semester of my undergrad. Not sure what to do for senior exhibition. I have been scheming up an experimental treasure mapping idea. Perhaps a little too idiosyncratic, but my grad school portfolios are already off, so perhaps this is my best chance to do some treasure hunting before grad school.

IN MY STUDIO (at school):

Ya, I am applying to grad school.

There are nearly seven billion people on the planet. That reminder renders the significance of my prospective art career inconsequential. A diploid cell (I.e. brain, blood, muscle cells), contains approximately six billion DNA base pairs. Perhaps I am to the world what a base pair is to a diploid cell. In that sense, the microscopic connections and interpretations I make on a local level are indeed consequential to the global expression of the human species. This perception is made possible by literacy I obtained from an Art & Technology degree. Working towards graduation I have acquired a set of tools that enable me to see and create the world in a new way everyday (or at least try). Graduate school holds the promise for more insight, experiences, and improved perception. Like my computer’s operating system I am horny for the latest update. I am going to keep popping up until I get the latest download of theory, mediums, language, tools, etc. Learning, discovery, and change bring me to life; working as an artist is a way for me to practice living and transcribe my observations.

Bookshelf:

Spatiotemporal Dreams

Name Change

Grad Program Decision

Borderlines in CAPTURE