Artist Statement

How can sculpture and performance affect the viewer in a deep, personal way? How can the viewer be moved from a passive position to a state of engagement and communal experience? I've been working with these concerns since I started graduate school, and my practice has transformed from studio artist, to include collaborator, facilitator and producer as I investigate these questions.

My first pieces made using technology were sculptures in the “Earthquake and Afterlife” series. Light reflecting from robotic mirror sculptures provided spatial orientation for viewers in an otherwise dark room. Subtle shaking of the reflected light disturbed the viewer's equilibrium, causing a contradictory physical experience: viewers were firmly planted on the ground, but the optical effect of the light produced a queasy sense of instability. With these pieces, I attempted to reverse the role of the viewer and object -- rather than an active audience regarding a passive sculpture, the sculptures literally acted upon the subject's perception of physical space.

In my work with C-level, I have created game performances as powerful demonstrations of the further possibilities of expanding the performative relationship with the viewer. Projects such as Tekken Torture Tournament and Cockfight Arena involve the participants and audience in ways that are unexpected and spontaneous. In both pieces, highly-structured, theatrical events provide explicit opportunities for the audience to become the performers. By donning costumes or literally strapping themselves into sculptural installations, the participants create a new spectacle, and their experience is the final manifestation of the work.

My current role as curator/facilitator/producer at Machine has allowed me to expand the scale and approach to these ideas. Working directly and collaboratively with the gallery artists such as Jessica Hutchins, Brody Condon, David Burns and Matias Viegener, I facilitate and produce ongoing investigations in these questions. Under my direction, Machine functions as a research laboratory -- investigating performance, sculpture and installation as lived experience for the viewer.