ARTIST STATEMENT_PHOTOGRAPHY
My photographs stem from a passion I have for the new ways in which we can collectively see the contemporary world we live in. Via our quickly evolving technological tools we can see as far as deep-space with the Hubble telescope, and as close as our own genetic code. We are stripping away the mysteries of the once unseen. My interest lies in creating new mysteries via visionary photographs; of fictitious, abstract, technological, temporary sculptural spaces.
I begin by building temporary sculptures created from translucent and colored plastics, reflective metals, mirrors, and glass, embedded with and illuminated internally by L.E.D’s and fiber optics. The temporary nature of the set allows for an improvisational approach to its construction and easily allows for myriads of iterations. The compositions are photographed in complete darkness with a long exposure, while the shutter is open I physically hand light the sculptural set and turn on-off the L.E.D’s and video projections. The resulting avant-guarde photographs appear to be computer generated images but actually are created using very traditional photographic techniques. Each photograph is simply one-snap of the shutter.
ARTIST STATEMENT_”Obscure Sexual Habit of Wireless Data” 2005
The series titled “Obscure Sexual Habits of Wireless Data” are unique hybrids inspired by my pursuit to visualize and create the possible aesthetics of wireless data, and the invisible complex systems of overlapping networks.The data that propels our daily lives, such as cell phone conversations,WIFI hot spots, and digital television programming broadcast from satellites, are attached to organic wave forms in specific frequencies called carrier waves. This a launching point for my visionary effort to make these systems visible. Where does the organic nature cease to exist in the merging, linking, dissemination, duplication, and dispersion of data? I imagine how data interfaces with each other; do terms like “sexual” or “asexual ” data reproduction apply? Does it look like a tangled web of pornographic flesh caught in the acts of perversion? My works experiment from various vantage points and sizes,even focusing on the macro imagery of single pieces of data interfacing. I envision and focus on reinterpreting the chaotic, swirling vortexes and clusters of data spewing from cell phone antennas,what I loosely term”communication graffiti”. The complex layers upon layers of data systems and networks; filling our skies; voluminous with information and their undecipherable visual complexities.
I also am passionately inspired by what I loosely call the ‘pre-future’.A time period in which is the most tumultuous in terms of quickly changing technologies to date. We have become test subjects for technologies with unknown effects to humans in the long-term,and by the time these technologies reach the consumer level they are already outdated and obsolete. I use the antiquated hardware, but to dream a Utopian future, one that is green,clean,healthy and soft. Not the pre-future where artists still live breathing lead dust,asbestos,and un-burnt gasoline,while muddling through the litter,pollution and by-products of a hyper-economic lifestyle. The works I create are visionary in concept but still rooted in the pre-future ,in the NOW,and created with the low-tech materials and methods of the NOW;acrylic paints and brush, construction materials of the NOW such as aluminum, plexi-glass, plastics, high-density polyethylene’s, photographic films,and antiquated computers and ink-jet printers.
Some technology companies have made a shallow attempt at creating some icons to depict the motion of wireless data. For instance,T-mobile has copyrighted the concentric red circles to symbolize hot spots or wireless hubs and Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft have been using colored arrows in motion to depict traveling wireless data. They strip down the complexities and focus on the lowest common denominator of symbols,symbols which modern man can easily accept,and these symbols are used solely for the purpose of marketing and branding their products for the marketplace. My focus is the exact opposite.In times when truths are unclear hidden in detritus and society and its networks are chaotically overlapped in undecipherable complexity I want to convey these frenzied,snarled webs for what they are. Systems over-layed upon systems dependent on each other, ad-hoc networks patched together never clearly planned for the future just clumsily improvising day to day.Temporary and short sighted solutions for permanent problems primarily guided by economic decision making.
[_PLEASE NOTE_]
[the photographs are created using very traditional photographic techniques. Each photograph is simply one-snap of the shutter. ]