Trading Card - "G"

2005. Brochure.

“Comfortable Space” was a collaborative research project with three undergraduate students, one graduate student (me) and the LGBT Resource Center at Syracuse University. The project was facilitated through the Boundaries in Syracuse course taught by Lori Brown & Alison Mountz. The main focus of the research was on how the university LGBT community defines comfortable space.

There were two large outcomes of this project. First there was a close examination of hetero-normative spaces on campus, particularly bathrooms. A number of students are not perceived as belonging to the gender dichotomy of male and female, therefore a directory of single stall bathrooms, along with specific details about safety and the current labeling of the bathrooms was compiled. That compilation is available as a webpage off of the SU LGBT Resource Center website and as a printed brochure.The project also included installation at Company Gallery that looks at comfortable and uncomfortable space through physical space, video, audio and maps.

A set of 6 “trading cards” that point out hetero-normative space and the many locations and spatial situations heterosexuals take for granted. These cards are used as a way to initiate the conversation outside of the installation, or as a continuation of the installation.

Stalled Decisions article about the project in the Daily Orange

Students continue to lobby for gender-neutral spaces.  A 2009 report in the Daily Orange indicates that the University plans to build at least one gender-neutral single-stall bathroom in each building.

2006. Video Still.

Scribe is the result of a creative experiment exploring the relationships between texture, movement and sound. Could seemingly disparate sounds, textures and images become unified? We discovered that with a moderate level of consistency between specific movements and sounds, and between particular images and sounds an audio-visual vernacular developed. Analogous to how a child might begin to associate words with meaning, the viewer begins to feel like they understand the conversation, even if they cannot articulate specific audio-visual definitions. Advertising often deploys similar tricks– as we have the desire to assume that simultaneous sounds, images and concepts are interdependent.

2005. Installation @ Syracuse University

2005. Installation @ Syracuse University

2005. Installation @ Syracuse University Detail

“Borders” is a fabric hallway that existed for a week in the Quad of Syracuse University. The hallway brought attention to ways of seeing, ways of framing, and ways of blinding within our space. The walls blocked our normal physical perspective and viewpoints and drew attention to other ways of physically seeing the world. In five large “windows” were removable patches that provided a semiotic system provoking reflection on our understanding of borders, fields of vision, and mediation on our campus, in our lives and in our society.

Still photograph from the 1st section of Spatial Dialogues. Performance on December, 12, 2009 @ Marymount Manhattan College

Still photograph of 3rd section of Spatial Dialogues. Performance on December, 12, 2009 @ Marymount Manhattan College

“Spatial Dialogues” investigates perceptions of space, such as the relationships between exterior and interior or public and private space. Creating in the intersection between new media, choreography and set design, the three collaborators were interested in an exploration of the impact of space on physicality and movement and its representation through technology.

Funded with a Sokol Grant from Marymount Manhattan College.

*Premiered at Marymount Manhattan College’s Theresa Lang Theatre on December 12, 2009 (shows ran through 12/14/09)