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Destini Trancer / Reactive Video Installation / 2011
The subject of this work is "Sunnette Spies," a prominent member of an Internet cult known as Destini. As a self-proclaimed "interdimensional portal," Spies is seen here breathing in and out of trance states in which she channels a variety of humans and objects, from Hitler to spiders to Elvis as a demon.
To experience the full force of Destini enlightenment, viewers are invited to manipulate the video image of Spies by laying hands on the trance controller module.
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America's Toughest Jukebox
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America's Toughest Jukebox / Mixed Media, Animation, Electronics / 2010
America's Toughest Jukebox "takes requests." It plays a selection of cover songs performed by Joe Arpaio, whose identity has been fictionally re-cast from notorious sheriff to gruff lounge singer. In this alternate existence, Mr. Arpaio is a questionable crooner whose repertoire includes a number of unforgettable tunes. America's Toughest Jukebox affords customers a special opportunity to consider how things might have been if Sheriff Joe had chosen a different "calling," and to contemplate his sociopolitical impact in a poetic, casual, and humorous light. The Scopitone, a film-based jukebox popular in Europe in the 1950s and 1960s, provides inspiration for the overall aesthetic of America's Toughest Jukebox.
Note: This project was created for an exhibition at the Arizona State University Art Museum called Open for Business. The artists in the show were asked to work collaboratively with a local business of their choice to create an artwork. The business I chose, a diner called Sucker Punch Sally's, went under during construction of the piece. Other businesses were reluctant to incorporate America's Toughest Jukebox into their decor, so it ended up in the museum (as seen here).
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Dead Reckoning / Interactive Video Installation / 2010
Dead reckoning is an outmoded marine navigation system in which new directions are calculated from previous positions. One of the problems with this form of way-finding is that errors in the process build on one another, often leading to drastic disorientation.
This interactive video installation employs the strategy of dead reckoning to explore the current state of the fictional pirate Long John Silver, who has transmogrified over the past 100 years from an iconic rogue into the largest fast food seafood chain in the world. Landlubbers are dared to steer the plastic captain's wheel and get lost in an apocalyptically banal sea of over 100 videos indebted to the fabled seamanstaurant.
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simupathy / interactive video (augmented reality) / 2009
Simupathy "Simupathy" is the phenomenon of people attempting to use internet video as a therapeutic device for healing their psychoses. This augmented reality work "materializes" the compulsive act of seeking anonymous help via webcam and the mystifying experience of witnessing the anti-catharsis. Multiple video portraits from obscure "internet therapy" sessions struggle to establish pathogenic relationships with live video of the viewer in the gallery space.
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Snake Medicine / Interactive Video Installation / 2008
Viewer proximity to projection screen causes a disjointed remix of psychiatric advice from a hack internet healer.
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gelding / video installation (custom rotating projection system) / 2007
Gelding is a sideways galloping/falling horse
simulation in orbital limbo.
This work
proposes a metaphor
for the impulse that has driven
expansion here and the
psychogeographicalessness
that has resulted.
The audio is a remix of samples from Ennio Morricone's The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly record.
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new omens from an empty house / interactive video installation / 2007
A collaborative (ASU Arts, Media, and Engineering and Metro Arts High School) interactive video project installed at the Arizona State University Art Museum. This work is a response to Edward Hopper's "House by a Road" (c. 1942) from the Museum's permanent collection. I built a navigable 3D interface based on the house in the painting, and worked with students from Metro Arts to create rooms and sounds based on their own domestic experiences.
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giant desires / video installation and 15 digital images on sintra / 2007
I doubt that I would have thought about it as much as I did had it not been for the nauseating pink light that filled my apartment and kept me awake at night. Brightly illuminated and standing 30 feet tall, this colossal pink gorilla had taken up temporary residence atop the sporting goods store across the street. My initial feelings about it, born out of contempt for the absurdity of the marketing tactic, slowly gave way to a kind of obsession with others like it: massive ogres, smiling dragons, mystical wizards. Intrigued by the pervasive use of blow-ups for advertisement, I began to photograph them.
Giant Desires removes the blow-ups from their natural habitats (car lots, furniture stores, etc.) so that their purpose becomes murky, at best. The large scale images reveal each object's high degree of detail and craftsmanship, a mysterious phenomenon as most blow-ups receive only a glance from people speeding by in their vehicles. Equally puzzling is the embodiment of culturally loaded symbols and tropes, such as nationalism, aggression, fantasy, power, race, and sex, in these generic plastic forms. It is difficult to say whether they are laughable or offensive, but one thing is clear: These monstrosities are here to stay, so we may as well get used to them. Oh wait, we already are.
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prosthesis for whispering to myself / wearable rapid prototype / 2006
Corrective appliance for overly dispersed inner monologues.
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stereoperiscopic optical stimulator / wearable rapid prototype / 2006
One eye surveils the other and uneasy enlightenment ensues.
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generic sneakers with olfactory augmentation / wearable rapid prototype / 2006
To smell the pleroma in the parking lot without burning your nose.
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carapace / video installation in a uhaul / 2005
Video based on images taken from sites around downtown Phoenix. Inspired by the voided, transitional, hollowed-out vibe of the cityscape.
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doublepenetration / video installation / 2004
Public video projection depicts erotic boredom. The spectacle is compared to an audio feed of a bombing campaign in Fallujah broadcast through a megaphone onto the street.
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a conversation that I threw down a well / buried video installation / 2004
Buried video showing footage from a camera being lowered into a well can be viewed through a 5 foot pvc pipe in the ground. Audio mix based on phone conversations is dispersed through underground hoses.
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grandma's anxious landscape / moving mixed media / 2004
Motion detector triggers a shivering living room. A reflection on the landscapes of fear emblematized by gated communities. Included in the book "Phoenix: 21st Century City."
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rhythm of drowning yourself / moving mixed media / 2004
Rocking chair moves to a wrecking ball metronome mirrored by swaying synthetic seaweed.
