EXHIBITION ANNOUNCEMENT: The body of work in Data Experience is an invitation to you – I invite you to become a participant and collaborator.  The core of my collaborative plea is our desperate need to reconsider the data at the root of our daily lives that we constantly consume and generate — iconography, conversations, our routines, etc.

I admit I should have invited you sooner – before the production of these systems for analysis, contemplation and creation.  Needless to say, these systems are not of much value unlessthey are put to use, tested and interrogated. Your efforts and contributionswill give each system and body of data meaning and life

The works in Data Experience include a number of entry points for collaboration and participation including (but not limited to): playing a game, scanning QR codes, telling stories, sensory input and initiating a dialogue.

StoryQuilt installed @ Pixilerations v.8

Check out the short film documenting the installation process. I make a cameo about 2/3 of the way in!

View from outside of the Huret & Spector Gallery at Emerson College.

Story told on August 5, during the New Media Reception.

A story told on August 5.

StoryQuilt. 2011. Installed in Studio.

University Film and Video Association
Annual Conference New Media Exhibition.

August 3 – August 6, 2011

Emerson College: Huret & Spector Gallery
Tufte Performance and Production Center
10 Boylston Place, Sixth Floor
Boston, MA

Reception: 6-8pm on August 5, 2011

View documentation (including video) of StoryQuilt.

“Tell me a story, and I will make you a quilt.”

StoryQuilt. 2011. Detail. Side View of Quilt.

StoryQuilt. 2011. Installed in Studio.

StoryQuilter. 2011. Lasercut acrylic and custom decals.

Participants are invited to sit at the StoryQuilter (the sewing machine) and tell it a story. Once the participant finishes her story, the StoryQuilter will generate a personalized quilt (projection on a quilted screen) based on the participant’s story. The more the participant “gives” the StoryQuilter vocally, the more the StoryQuilter will put into the participant’s quilt.

Story quilts have often supported an oral history tradition within families. The quilts are regarded as narratives, as interpreted and imaged by the quilter. In this case the quilter is a piece of software, which only understands and interprets measurable components of the participant’s oral story. The software then uses that information to choose fabric colors, the level of detail of the quilt, the pattern to be used, and the scale to be used. If the participant tells the same overarching story in different ways, the resulting quilt will reflect these variations.

StoryQuilt. 2011. Installed in Studio.

Installation Schematic from the Front

Installation Schematic from Above

See Recent Quilts

2004. Software Still - Word Creator

2004 Software Still - Home Page

Language is a philosophical system that differs from culture to culture. Each language has words, grammars and constructs that are unique to the way people who use it think, analyze and classify the world. Dictionary: A Semiotic Experiment is an attempt to create an artificial language within an established virtual culture.

“Dictionary” re-visualizes the construct of language. This experiment looks at pictographic, standard and computer languages as a platform for analysis. The rigid structure of computer languages is adopted to create a formulaic grammar that is easily learned and described. The alphabet is constructed from a hybrid ideology from verbal and pictographic languages, where the alphabet visualizes the labial, velar and dental points of articulation for each pronounced sound. “Dictionary” utilizes user-created images as definitions. Opening the experiment to include an international audience magnifies the arbitrary, vague and elusive nature of language and its use. If each individual is allowed to create a word and visual definition from her own experience, the arbitrary and unique thinking patterns from cultures worldwide are forced to co-exist in an artificially unified space, where language as a dysfunctional concept becomes a hyper reality.

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)

“Identity theft” is one of the most popular memes of the day. It is a sad phrase; one that strips our cultural understanding of identity down to a handful of information. Our individual identities are reduced to a couple of facts: name, date of birth, ethnicity, address, phone number, social security number, credit history and email address. This information is meant to locate us literally and statistically; it is not meant to “know us” personally.

The purpose of Self-Disclosed is to help us understand our relationship with this so-called “personal” information. Today this “personal” information is a medium of exchanged used to gain access to data, email, information, coupons, friends/chat online, etc. Because we don’t think of this information as currency, we don’t keep systematic records of where/who we have “paid.” Self-Disclosed provides a visual platform to track and register these transactions (think of it as analagous to a checking account register, but much more graphic).

Self-Disclosed 2.0 is a software program designed with Javascript, PHP, mySQL, HTML, CSS and Processing.

2012. Self-Disclosed Tote. Custom fabric.

2012. Self-Disclosed Wallet. Custom Fabric and Custom Cards.

Self Disclosed 1.0. Mounted Archival Print. 2009. 24" x 36".

Self-Disclosed 1.0. Detail.

Self-Disclosed 1.0 is a pre-cursor to the Self-Disclosed 2.0 software. This archival print represents my own information flow over a a two year period.