Meditations of Whoa
After years figuring out ways of entering Keanu Reeves into serious school essays (ie Dudecartes, Bill and Ted’s Ontological Journey, and Nosferat2k:A New Media Monster Reenvisioned Through the Early Internet Aesthetics of Late 90s), I realized that Keanu, was what allowed me to keep my sense of humor through a series of drab philosophy assignments. However, I ended up drinking my own poison and realized that Keanu Reeves truly is the perfect post modern action hero and more importantly- he is my spirit animal. He is all genres and no genres, all emotions and no emotions, and he is both hollywood superstar and down to earth guy with real problems. Realizing what a perfect symbol of both yin and yang- I made a Zen garden dedicated to him, so that I could share this experience with everyone. On the rocks are famous Keanuisms from his movies and the audio is me doing an impression of Keanu and reciting real life Keanu Reeves quotes.
The NO FAIR
For the Chicago’s Next Art Fair 2011, I was the only undergraduate students selected by Student Union Galleries to transform a booth-space into an interactive art installation. So I decided to turn my booth into a failed fair-combining my love of carnies and my horrible adventures at clown camp. Here is my write-up:
The “No Fair” is a celebration of failed fairs. By reinterpreting the art fair into the language of county fairs and transforming fair props into melancholy minimal art this fair exists within the high brow of conceptual art and the low brow of PTA meetings. Through out the day there will be a variety of games to play and performances to watch. Purchasing raffle tickets enables you to feel what it feels like to fail to communicate, fail to understand, fail to create and fail make an impression.
Videos Made For Talent Show
“Talent Show”
“What Kind of Fool Am I”
Eclipse
For the show Space Cases, I created an installation dealing with the idea of making my own Solar Eclipse. Liking the idea that something so far away could permanently damage your retina, I set out to make my own cosmic peephole. Viewers who courageously looked inside the words ‘Do I Dare Disturb The Universe’ from T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock was burned into their eyes. The idea being that whenever they blinked, this ephemeral idea was always staring back.
Crystal Blog
The Crystal Blog Table is an interactive art object used to connect people to their past, present, and future as well as interact with spirits from beyond. The table was handmade, lathed legs and all to counteract the sterility of the technology involved as well as the interaction. People approach the table expecting their fortunes to be told and instead are given google results to fix their problems, free astrology readings from the internet or viral youtube clips. The message of the piece is quite ominous, stating even though we have the information of world at our fingertips we still will never avoid death.
Wishing Well
This is an interactive Wishing Well. However, instead of people having their wishes fulfilled the well askes for its own wishes of people. Inside the well there is a video of me asking for things and dreams to be fulfilled and by the audience contributing their loose change they are slowly contributing to my dreams coming true. The music appropriately comes from Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
Blushing Wall
This is an interactive light installation, where my art reacts to people. Being a fairly blush-y person, this piece acts as a self-portrait that gauges my emotional response rather than physical presence.
Take One
This is an interactive installation displayed in the halls at School for the Art Institute of Chicago. The videos in the monitors would lean in and out of frame sharing a never ending secret. The box next to the display case is filled with observations that elicit a feeling of paranoia. The audience is invited to take these notes and carry them out of institute to be pondered and found in coat pockets later on. The audio is of paper being crumpled.
Dear Diary
This is a video installation in which my 7th grade journal is on display. Even though the artifact is on display, the audience is put on the spot with a video of myself walking in on them reading it. However, in the course of the video more and more information about what’s written in the journal. The viewer is caught in a pickle between taking advantage of someone’s privacy and being bombarded with too much information. The video itself is projected on obsessive drawings of my preteen crush Sean Biggerstaff with passages from the journal on each page.
Video that was projected on the screen: