Project 06 Video Self Portrait
Project 05 Locative Sound
“Body Pieces”, 2011, Video, 02’19
Body Pieces is a video composite of several looping clips of individual body parts. The work is made to visually explore the creation of a digital body, whose existence is entirely dependent upon a digital world. Through recombining a variety of looping fractions of both sound and image the piece begins to access a kind of hypnotic effect through its repetition and looks at a kind of digital inundation and repetition of images materials.
In referencing the work of Gary Hill, the piece examines the body in a disjointed manner to access of different reading of embodiment itself. Body Pieces relies on making apparent the awkward discourse between the digital realm and the accurate representation of the individual or the self. Through inundation, repetition and division the video brings up issues of a creation of a new fragmented self that exists within a non physical realm.
Project 05 Locative Sound
"The Attack" 2011, Audio Recording, 2:03
“The Attack” is a sound piece based on the artist’s personal childhood experience. The narrative of this work revolves around seagulls attacking the artist when he was a child. The piece uses the genre of 50’s radio dramas with a mix of, voice over, sound effects, environmental noises, and musical accompaniment. In using this style the work becomes a satirical examination of events we deem traumatic and important as children and how they can be reflected upon with a more light hearted view.
This piece references the work of Janet Cardiff in taking advantage of the possibility of enriching an area through the use of narrative. By providing a site-specific story the location itself becomes enriched and is given a personal sense of history. The work is meant to allow an investigation into both the shared history of a place along with a better understanding of possibilities for future interactions. Through a comedic narrative the listeners are able to enter into a new means of looking at both their own history and a shared history of the space.
Project 4 Digital Derive
"Wall Space", 2011, Google Earth and Photos, 6:03
“Wall Space” is a virtual tour of some of Vancouver’s more prolific graffiti murals. The tour explores a variety of types of pieces, including illegal, commissioned and city funded competition walls. It centers around stadium station and is able to be completed in 20 minutes if physically walking in the space. Looking at the politics of art in the public sphere, this tour attempts to redeem graffiti or street art as a valid form of expression. This tour holds even more relevance within the current Vancouver dialogue about social art due to increasingly stringent restrictions emplaced to control art in the public sphere.
In working in the Situationist style of creating a Derive to reactivate public space “Wall Space” reactivates the backstreets and alleyways allowing them to be viewed an visually rich areas to explore, in part due to the work of street artists. Through showing more elaborate impressive pieces of street art than is normally seen in the city, this tour contrasts the understanding many people have of graffiti as solely an act of vandalizing walls. The tour itself is meant to allow contemplation about a person’s relationship to the space and visual landscape that surrounds them and allow them to reconsider their ideas about graffiti as an artistic expression.
Project 3- Urban Intervention
"I don't get it" 2011, Vinyl Installation, 5"X15"
“I don’t get it” is a vinyl installation meant to question the snobbish stigma that surrounds art and art making. The piece is composed of a vinyl cut of thick-rimmed glasses and a pipe includes the ambiguous statement “You’ll understand after 4 years here”. The pipe within the piece reference Saussure’s famous work “The Treachery of Images” while the glasses make reference to both the intellectual and current art school fashion. The ambiguous sentence is made to confuse the viewer and create an apparent illusive meaning, which could only be understood by an “insider”.
This piece uses situationist ideas of intervening within the normal flow of life. It was installed on a glass door of Emily Carr University. This location gave the piece the context it needed to be relevant (an art making institution) as well as creating possibility of interaction. Students exiting the building would have the glasses and the pipe super imposed onto their face making them apart of the work. This involvement simultaneously uses the students as the models for these ideas along with reminding them of the dynamics involved within their own world art world.Project 3-Urban Intervention
Mock Up
“Maillardville; Age 6-12”, 2011, Digital Print, 7”x56”
“Maillardville; Age 6-12” gives an examination of the effects of urban surroundings and how they play into the development of the individual. This image is shows a block within Maillardville, a low-income community known locally for its relation to drugs and prostitution. The juxtaposition of residential, commercial and private structures within the scene creates a dialogue about the dynamics that exist within this community and its effects on the residents of the area.
This work was made in reference to Stan Douglas’ “Every Building on 100 West Hastings Street” which deals with both gentrification and the examination of the past of a space. Maillardville has undergone several changes in its recent history and has slowly been transformed as commercial and pseudo criminal elements have entered and forced out lower income residents. The visible decay within the scene gives a glimpse of the ethos that the area truly embodies in its current state.
