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NYU MFA 2016 Thesis exhibition at 80WSE Gallery | April 27 - May 18, 2016
This page shows documentation of the exhibition installation that included a large vinyl wall print, 6 digital prints, 3 videos on monitors, and 1 video projection.
To view the individual works navigate though the 'work' menu.
EXHIBITION TEXT: Floating in an infinite digital landscape we hide behind the veil of written text and instantaneity, pressing the send button and seemingly absolving ourselves of any further consequence, holding no accountability for the impact these actions assume in the physical world.
The other is erased from your autobiography with the instant ‘block’ function, and the fictional characters of your mind are sent back into outer space and completely ‘deleted’ from existence.
Weaving in and out of individual imagination, strangers collide and disperse in a fractured society. Miscommunication runs rampant, numbers are deleted and names are forgotten. Lovers are ephemeral and become disposable foggy memories made up of a thousand blurry pixels.
It is a fantasy world and you are returned to the Disneyland of childhood, having been handed the opportunity to ‘choose your own adventure’ by chopping and changing the storyline depending on your flip-flopping conflicted states.
We begin as strangers. We end as strangers.
Installation view. Back wall piece: Digital Landscape This piece can function as one work with three components, however they also function as individual works.
Individual titles: 1. Yosemite 4, 2016, vinyl wall print, 18'x12' 2. Have a nice life Bonnie, 2016, Digital print face mounted on plexi, 42"x26" 3. Head on Bed, 2015, HD Video, 00:12:00
2016, Digital print face mounted on plexi, 42"x26"
The digital print is a screenshot that captures a narrative correspondence that occurs over 2 dayswith an assumed to be ex-lover. In the top left corner ‘Emilio’ tells Bonnie through text messages that he will sue her if she doesn’t delete the photos she took of him. The background shows his facebook page where he has updated his ‘profile picture’ the following day (after the texts) to the photograph she took of him in her apartment, sitting on her bed, cradling her paper mache sculpture of James Franco's head. The bottom left shows a video being edited at the time of the same sculpture laying on the same bed.
2015, HD Video, 00:12:00
In the 3-part video work a fictional narrative is constructed between two characters solely in the virtual (part 1); the physical act of the meeting is then documented (part 2) and then presented by the artist to video artist/film-maker/mentor Michel Auder (part 3).
The video documents video artist/film-maker Michel Auder and I as we watch and discuss the entire 30 minutes of raw footage used to create The Act [is done] (Part 2) that was performed in my studio. The audio from the footage can be heard, as well as our discussion of aesthetics, logistics, performance of both characters, video as documentation, and ethical and legal complications . It is obvious we are watching a sexual act though there are no explicit visuals.
EXHIBITION TEXT: “I want to…” “I can’t stop thinking about…” “If I was with you right now I would…”
A surge of energy runs through the thumb as it swipes and types ferociously back and forth. Consumed by the never-ending vibration that buzzes on the floor, on the table, on the couch, on my thigh.
More is More is More is More.
But you cannot ignore your physicality any longer.
You are still a body.
What happens when you can no longer hide behind the cold screen, the perfectly curated selfies, your best side, a sucked in stomach, and the poetic texts that amplify desire.
How can you get everything you want when the other starts to exist as real? It is no longer only you and your orchestrated relationship of selfish desires.
How do you deal with the meeting of the real?
2015, HD Video, 00:23:55 (short excerpt shown)
Installation documentation at 80WSE Gallery. November 2015.
Installation documentation at 80WSE Gallery. November 2015.
Installation documentation at 80WSE Gallery. November 2015.
The Act [is done] documents the 9-minute postcoital conversation between two characters in an undisclosed setting.
Filmed directly from the artist’s computer camera, ethical questions of consent and ownership over ones own identity and self-image in the digital age arise with the most imperative being “did he know you were filming him?”
The Act [is done] illustrates the ordinary stark reality that inevitably occurs after an unachievable elaborate narrative was developed in the virtual between the two characters.
2015, HD Video, 00:04:36
Video still
ADULT CONTENT 18+
2016, HD Video, 00:04:08
Install shot at 80WSE Gallery
Show me what I asked for - video still
Series of digital prints (ongoing project)
2016, Digital print, 9"x50", Edition of 5
2016, Digital print, 42"x23", Edition of 5
Good Boy (detial)
2016, Digital Print, 35"x21", Edition of 5 (detail)
2016, Digital Print, 35"x21", Edition of 5 (detail)
2016, Digital print, 9"x50", Edition of 5
2016, 42"x42", Digital Print, Edition of 5 (gird of 28 images)
Video triptych (third video currently in production REGRET (for Sugar Daddy))
2016, HD Video, 00:04:23 (exerpt shown)
2016, HD Video, 00:04:05
Video series (ongoing collection)
Each component (audio, foreground image, background image) in the individual video pieces in the Delirium & Ecstasy series are recorded within the space of 24 hours in my apartment alone. The works layer multiple extreme states of being in a single day, creating a map of conflict in which the inner, outer, virtual, and physical of one individual are documented.
2016, HD video
2014, Performance/living sculpture, 20 minutes
Upon entering the room the audience is confronted with a young man’s body that appears like a hyper-realist sculpture. The naked body is seen without a head when first entering the room, as his head hangs off the opposite end of the table. He stays completely still for the duration of the performance.
