digital audio and video composed from found elements, deriving from the 1950s and a series of 100 index cards with charcoal, oil, electric tape, ink and paint variations of x patterns. worked on while attending cranbrook academy of art's 2d design department 2006.
titled: domestic tragedy
artist statement:
December 14 2005
(for critique at cranbrook academy of art)
This project was realized when i discovered the objects presented. These objects had been discarded and forgotten about for some time. The area in which i found them looked as if it hadn't been walked over for many years. It was the undisturbed home of our capitalistic trash.
I began looking at the objects as content. Narrative content. These objects had stories to tell. The exact story wasn't important to me. What was important was that these objects were yelling. The years of abandonment spoke.
All of the re-appropriated elements were taken from media created within the timeframe i traced the objects back to. Being one of its weaknesses, the classic film footage, was constructed and edited to the audio track on the left side. This side of the movie illustrates in what circumstances the objects may have been used. An argument between children over a tricycle that would be later be forgotten and trashed, never to be fought over again. A cup and a saucer used over a meal between an emotional couple, later broken and pitched. Some colored glass bottles of medicine used once to treat sickness, now hidden deep in the woods. The license plate of a car involved in a major accident, now bent and corroded under an oak tree far from any road. The rusted metal containers, the ones made from overseas natural materials, used to package our food and cleaners, now finds its home on a small hill after the overgrowth of plants in a large expansive wooded area of the rural United States. The right side of the piece, composed mainly of rhythmic distortion, illustrates the reality of our disregard for our surroundings and how the production, use and disposal of these utilitarian objects leads to a buildup of unwanted man-made material.
Together, the right side and the left side produce a single split screen delivery and a single split audio signal. Very disorienting and chaotic, the product fights with itself. It challenges the viewer and their perception. The message is experienced.
Once an area of woods and wild animals, now a hidden time capsule of trash. Trash produced in the 50s and still here today.
Wherever we go, it seems we leave our mark.