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I often search for the bigger picture. And at the same time, I look inward. Internal thoughts and time need to be slowed down and reduced in scale in order to achieve a greater perspective… -on life… -on Art. Meditation helps. Staring at a (computer) screen helps. Video and TV media provide an encyclopedia of sample sound and visual bites of the larger world, of a reality that nobody actually needs to experience in person. Especially downloads from YouTube. There is an oddly universal psychic memory and thread of the story of late 20th century and present day when one plugs into it via binge watching YouTube.
Meditation, Dharma Talk to Self, and FORTY (since 1974) is a trio of video works which reflect an intense familiarity and nostalgia for historical events and media imagery. These videos whether projected or mediated through a television source allow the viewer to simultaneously internalize and externalize emotions and memory when going from voyeur to voyeur perspective.
Originally exhibited in installation form - two projections against opposing walls. Two Channels - one forward and the other reverse. Soundtrack is not synced in any particular way to the video. This video serves as documentation of the original showing of this piece.
Video Installation comprised of 40 televisions constructed into a 10 foot sculpture. 4 Channel video display of scenes from a landfill, poetry and lyrics from Mahler's Resurrection Symphony, and audio of St. Louis symphony orchestra performing Mahler's symphony.
originally composed electroacoustic music scores a montage of visuals which symbolize space travel and a dream like state
A meta-cognitive exercise of interviewing myself about the use of critique within my own work. I question and interrogate myself on a Charlie Rose-esque show and reference another performance piece of mine entitled Critenactment. That performance involved using some of my art school friends to reenact a critique session in an improvised setting. This interview deconstructs my work and elicits meaning from self-reflection and criticism.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.” - Carl Sagan
an installed go pro attached to a turntable which was flipped upside down and suspended from a tall ladder on a plank. "Mandala" is the footage from this camera setup while my ten year old daughter and I placed a circular wood piece on the floor and created a mandala using Gel chalk pens. Footage includes the destruction and dismantling of the mandala.
Street interviews with attendants at the 125th St. M1 bus stop area. Volunteers answered four questions - 1) What are you waiting for? 2) Where are you headed? 3) What are you waiting for in life? 4) Where do you think you are headed in life?
A split screen video projection piece. Appropriated footage from A River Runs Through It. This structural and experimental video is a study on time based media and the expectation of climax and drama in one particular scene of a blockbuster movie.
inspired by Peter Campus' groundbreaking work in a TV broadcasting studio, this piece envisions the preparation of a space for green screen operation while a monk like character labors over this process and spawns clones of himself in real time.
an experimental and structuralist video exercise deconstructing Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Ab Incunabulis et Amor Fati - the first two chapters of a 13 chapter epic video poem (using a handheld digital camcorder) encapsulating the good life or the Stoic life from a contemporary and historical American perspective.
Tranquillam Libertatem et E Pluribus Unum - the third and fourth chapters of a 13 chapter epic video poem (using a handheld digital camcorder) encapsulating the good life or the Stoic life from a contemporary and historical American perspective.
OMNIA VINCIT AMOR - the fifth chapter of a 13 chapter epic video poem (using a handheld digital camcorder) encapsulating the good life or the Stoic life from a contemporary and historical American perspective.
Esto Vir/Let Us Have Peace - the sixth chapter of a 13 chapter epic video poem (using a handheld digital camcorder) encapsulating the good life or the Stoic life from a contemporary and historical American perspective.
Intermission 9-11 - the first intermission of a 13 chapter epic video poem (using a handheld digital camcorder) encapsulating the good life or the Stoic life from a contemporary and historical American perspective.
Annuit Coeptis - the seventh chapter of a 13 chapter epic video poem (using a handheld digital camcorder) encapsulating the good life or the Stoic life from a contemporary and historical American perspective.
VENI VIDI VICI - the eighth chapter of a 13 chapter epic video poem (using a handheld digital camcorder) encapsulating the good life or the Stoic life from a contemporary and historical American perspective.
Sapere Aude et Tempus Fugit - the ninth and tenth chapters of a 13 chapter epic video poem (using a handheld digital camcorder) encapsulating the good life or the Stoic life from a contemporary and historical American perspective.
Public Service Announcement - a PSA within the 13 chapter epic video poem (using a handheld digital camcorder) encapsulating the good life or the Stoic life from a contemporary and historical American perspective.
Novus Ordo Seclorum - the eleventh chapter of a 13 chapter epic video poem (using a handheld digital camcorder) encapsulating the good life or the Stoic life from a contemporary and historical American perspective.
Memento Mori - the twelfth chapter of a 13 chapter epic video poem (using a handheld digital camcorder) encapsulating the good life or the Stoic life from a contemporary and historical American perspective.
In Paradisum - the last chapter of a 13 chapter epic video poem (using a handheld digital camcorder) encapsulating the good life or the Stoic life from a contemporary and historical American perspective. Includes an excerpt from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations
A cheap Walmart copy on fake parchment paper of the Declaration of Independence half shredded and framed in a second hand store bought fancy frame.
Artist Need Not Be Present
This performance piece was conducted during my second year Public Critique (the stop gap assessment to the final thesis show for MFA students) in which six faculty members and a guest artist were the main panel of critics. As the week of crits progressed it was my turn on a Wednesday afternoon and I had prior set it up that I would be last to go on that day. I had had a casual meeting with the moderator, and assistant dept chair of the Public Crits for him to be the initiator of my performance in which he read a scripted letter in front of the group. I had however already left the room to meditate for about an hour in my studio and was not present for my own crit. Along the wall of the exhibit space I installed over 60+ note cards in an Ellsworth Kelly sort of spectrum color arrangement, paper clipped to the wall with the names of most of the people I knew would be there. The moderator announced that the piece was called Artist Need Not Be Present and was not made aware that I would not be there. He read it aloud to my relief and as planned and conducted the performance for me. All guests were invited to come up to the wall, find their name and handwritten note, read it to themselves, respond to it if they wanted to and return to the wall, or keep the note. After this was announced the guests were all thanked for their being present for the critique and were told that they had the choice to leave (be dismissed) or to strike up a conversation with someone next to them. The audio as heard in the video was graciously recorded by a friend/MFA colleague of mine who recorded the entire dialogue during that performance because he had a gut notion to do so. Now… what happened during my absence was only conveyed to me by friends, colleagues, and teachers and I can share the results with you upon request. I only heard the conversation and the audio recording months later when he decided to reveal it to me.
complete audio track of the critique dialogue of a performance piece of mine titled, "Artist Need Not Be Present". All mention of names and personal information have been censored and edited from this track for confidentiality sake. At 20:26 to 21:26 one of the professors and critics talks about the piece's relevance to Marina Abramovic's retrospective and monumental MoMA piece of the name, "Artist is Present".
My installation pieces are active environments often filled with pedagogical experiments, guided meditation sessions, analog television episodes, teaching environments, and video projections.
digitally faked slide projector demonstration from scenes of Critenactment are displayed on walls, and visitors are asked to participate in mini group discussions about the educational information presented to them. Complete transcripts from symposium session titled Situation: Art School (Pratt Institute campus 2015) - six hour symposium featuring New York educators and artists discussing the merits of an art education. Also included on a podium sculpture with a television screen installed into it - Interview with Self.
Meditation sessions, chrysalis to butterfly habitat installed in gallery space, TV set filming of audition to The Fall, one day session where I only typed out my thoughts and projected them against the wall connected through my laptop. This was the programming for the entire week of my anti-thesis, in which I produced nothing new for the "show". And kept the gallery fairly empty most of the time. I came in to tend to the butterflies. I came in to film a TV episode on one day. I came in to meditate for the entire 8 hour sitting schedule on another and conducted guided meditations for friends and visitors. On a critique day, I spoke not one word the whole entire day while I typed out real time thoughts and communicated with visitors only through these membrane.
In a space that I occupied in the basement of an academic building and for a site specific installation class, I filmed myself meditating for hours at a time within the space (without windows) and a completely empty space. This television video display was the culminating installation showing a frontal and face view of my breathing and meditation sped up. Words appear across my face to indicate the emotions that arise as I meditated in the space for about a solid two weeks time.
A video projection piece where an elevated monk character hovers over still images of 1970's Hong Kong, Thai Buddhist temple, the intersection of 6th Ave and 23rd street aerial view, and a generic aircraft flying through clouds. There is no sound in this piece, but the monk character is reciting a personalized Dharma Talk to Self. Various parts of the video are subtitled in Chinese.
This piece is titled "W _ _ _ Conceptual Radio Pledge Drive". The underscore dashes indicate the breathing in and breathing out of meditation practice and form the non letters of the radio station's usual call letters.
Originally conceived as an installation piece with the boombox floating in an enclosed aquarium on a metal stand, the artwork has now been preserved in video demonstration. The artist welded the metal stand and constructed a thick glass aquarium box as well as a netted cover on top. Powerful magnets were concealed within the boombox and below the bottom of the aquarium to essentially float the boombox in mid-air. Joe also soldered and constructed his own am radio frequency transmitter in hopes to actually broadcast the audio to the boombox from a remote or detached and hidden location.
an electro acoustic piece which scores the video of movement toggling between two New York city subway stations and the infinite blackness of the space.
I think, therefore I am a conceptual artist.
This derivative piece is called "Open Gasket: or what DS could have painted instead" After about a whole morning of reading up on Emmet Till and also Dana Schutz's background and also about Carolyn Bryant Donham (the woman who accused Emmett Till of whistling and violently accosting her) - I came up with this digital conceptual piece titled "Open Gasket: or what DS could have painted instead". The face of Carolyn Bryant's own child (probably six or seven at time of it being published in white magazines) is digitally collaged into the painting by Dana Schutz - the child's face is appropriated from the photo of Bryant with the murderous husband and two children in their laps (LIFE pictures/Getty Images) at the hearing/courtroom. And the book in the coffin with the body is the book that inspired Bryant, then 72 (and just 10 years ago), to call up Timothy Tyson, after having read his book Blood Done Sign My Name (Tyson is white and teaches Afro American history), and to confess that she had lied. So - it's in my opinion that If Dana Schutz's claim is that she was relating empathy to the death of a child via a mother's perspective, then I think my digital remake of her painting here is more fitting to the white mother experience. If not for Tyson's (and one should read up on this author's amazing critical research in terms of race relations in America and unsolved civil rights murders, etc.) then we would not have known about the 72 yr old Bryant's confession to lying about the facts of Emmet Till's demise and her near confession of guilt. “When Carolyn herself [later] lost one of her sons, she thought about the grief that Mamie must have felt and grieved all the more.” - this in my opinion is where the DS painting lacks the appropriate empathy and critical stance that would put her in the forefront of questioning her own privilege in the racial context we live in.
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In the process of writing scripts for potential TV episodes (whether only in concept and never produced or realized), I use hyperbole, exaggeration, cliche, humor, and life lessons to construct a plot which mimics, mocks, emotionalizes real life.
The actual script given to professional auditioners/actors who attended my audition call in Fall 2014 off book and not expecting to be credited with being in the actual video piece/film.
"All of the significant art of today stems from Conceptual art. This includes the art of installation, political, feminist and socially directed art." ~ Sol LeWitt
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/conceptual_art.html
