Project Description

Portfolio | Exhibitions

Appetites / Anxieties

Appetites/ Anxieties is a body of work that looks at gestures of intimacy and their psychological and affective implications. The work, a sculptural installation with sound elements, a kinetic interactive sculpture, 3 interstitial castings, and an interactive sound installation are driven by considerations of how intimate gestures frame, distort, and mediate raw emotion. They represent and mimic gestures of negotiation and desire while manipulating viewers’ body language by repeating and distorting sculptural and aural phrases.

A Block and Tackle of Lures, Reels, and Rods is a sculptural installation with sound elements that explores the relationship between the experience and performance of emotion, as well as how culture mediates between the two. This piece draws viewers into its proscenium like space with the seductive tones of a woman’s voice. Seven life cast mouths, captured in a moment of speech, are arranged around the inside of the sculpture. They invite the viewer to put their ear to the lips of the casts to better hear the woman’s seductions played back in 5 channels of audio that create a call and response effect.

A Fine and Private Place is an interactive kinetic sculpture made of steel and epoxy. Viewers are invited to enter and exit the sculpture. They may entrust their entrapment and release to a partner via the crank mechanism.

Siren Song is an interactive sonic installation that uses viewer’s movements through space to change a soundscape from melodic and harmonic to distorted and jarring.  The soundscape is composed of performances by interdisciplinary artist Laura Curry and Dutch experimental music duo Siti Bauw. The soundscape plays via 4 channels of audio delivered through a collection of speakers hung on the wall. As viewers approach the speakers their distance is detected by ultrasonic sensors and the open source software Pure Data uses this information to shift the soundscape from harmonic enticements to come closer to distorted admonishments to move away.

Coercions are three interstitial castings of people engaged in intimate gestures of persuasion. Suggest and Persuade are the interstitial space of one person’s hand on the small of another’s back. Strong-arm is the interstitial space between two people as one grabs the other’s hand and pulls.

Special Thanks to Siti Bauw, Laura Curry, Kate Gaudy, Ruby Merritt, Sergio Nieto, John Rickus, &  J.T. Rinker.