Over at BoingBoing, Cory Doctorow has this to say:

Even though a substantial portion of my living comes from the entertainment industry, I don’t think that any amount of “piracy” justifies this kind of depraved indifference to the consequences of one’s actions. Big Content haven’t just declared war on Boing Boing and Reddit and the rest of the “fun” Internet: they’ve declared war on every person who uses the net to publicize police brutality, every oppressed person in the Arab Spring who used the net to organize protests and publicize the blood spilled by their oppressors, every abused kid who used the net to reveal her father as a brutalizer of children, every gay kid who used the net to discover that life is worth living despite the torment she’s experiencing, every grassroots political campaigner who uses the net to make her community a better place — as well as the scientists who collaborate online, the rescue workers who coordinate online, the makers who trade tips online, the people with rare diseases who support each other online, and the independent creators who use the Internet to earn their livings.

The contempt for human rights on display with SOPA and PIPA is more than foolish. Foolishness can be excused. It’s more than greed. Greed is only to be expected. It is evil, and it must be fought.

(Incidentally, under these pieces of legislation, I could potentially face severe legal consequences for quoting Mr. Doctorow here, up to and including having my excellent hosting service forced to blacklist my domain, effectively shutting down this website.)

This video gives an excellent overview of what’s going on, and what’s at stake:

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

If you have a website, I encourage you to join the Strike. If you do not, but the internet plays a significant role in your business or daily life, please take the opportunity to speak out against SOPA/PIPA tomorrow with your friends, family, and colleagues.

Thank you.

At the end, we stood looking over a cool, gray vista. I fumblingly apologized for crowding into her. She looked at me with an incredulously cocked brow, before leaning in and kissing me. I felt rain on my cheek, her hair in my fingers, and, perhaps for the first time, I felt Free.

I woke up, with my heart still racing, gradually slowed by the creeping realization that I would never feel this way again.

I believe this was my sense of Romanticism kissing me Goodbye.

The first in a series of works that explores the interplay and tension between space, dream, and memory. Incandescent bulbs are affixed haphazardly to a wall. Clothesline zig-zags the room, with pages torn from an old book hanging from the line like a forgotten story hung out to dry. A video projector aimed at a wall between the book pages plays Le Voyage dans la Lune on a continuous loop. The viewer moves through the space and among the artifacts as if through a dream- but is it the viewer’s dream, or the room’s?

Once I was in, I would always start with the Renaissance and the Old Masters, where I would marvel at the command of form and texture; then I’d wind my way into Impressionism, getting lost amidst the sea of color; and finally ending up in Contemporary Art, giving myself over to the arresting landscapes of Magritte and Mondrian.

I justified these regular jaunts by saying I learned more in a few hours at the AIC than I would have at school. Which was true.

Now, it’s another rainy, chilly day. It’s early, and I’ve stopped off at Au Bon Pain for coffee (yay for loose change scrounged in my room) on my way to the Art Institute. Except I’m not skipping class. I’m sitting in a graduate art history seminar, where we’re talking about Minimalism.

Life is twisty.

The statement I wrote for SAIC is more focused on my work than me personally (in contrast to, say NYU:ITP or UC-Santa Cruz), but it was a much deeper personal exploration of my work than I was used to. I really had to try to nail down the Whys of my work more than I was accustomed to- and even then, I don’t think I quite nailed it. Still, with a couple of revisions I could probably take what I wrote and make it my Artist’s Statement.

Since I’ve been accepted already, and indeed am getting started on prep tomorrow (and thus can’t quite jinx things), I think I can safely share my statement here. I think it will be good to look back on it in two years after I graduate to see where my work veered off to.

*****

I believe in Truth, and Beauty. I believe these things matter. And I believe that, more than any other human endeavor, art can capture these two ideas into singular artifacts and moments of experience. There’s a lot of uncertainty concerning our existence, and the only thing we know for certain is that our time is limited. But I believe the single greatest danger we face is Death In Life- of being so caught up in pain and banality and irrelevant details that we are isolated from Truth and Beauty. Art frees us from that bondage. Through art, we can know the unknowable, even if for fleeting moments.

Of course, if I walked into an exhibit opening and said that, I’d be laughed right out of the gallery. Even my instructors would shake their head at my naivete. Meanwhile, people outside the exclusive country club that is the “art world” have just plain given up on the power of art. When the Regular Joes of the world think of art, they think of the worst excesses of the 20th Century avant garde. Ceramic blobs propping up G.I Joe action figures. Canvases with a single red square in the corner. An LCD monitor that plays video static on a four-hour loop. And, perhaps the worst offender of them all- performance art. When artists gave up on their charge to inform and inspire, everyone else gave up and found something else to keep them busy.

Artists can forge that connection anew- they can rebuild that bridge. But there has to be a change in approach. Art can no longer simply comment on other art. Artists cannot hide behind “critical inquiry” as a way to avoid saying anything meaningful. Art must be an experiential bridge for the audience, and that bridge must also be sound.

How the artist bridges that gap is an intensely personal journey. Much of the danger that lurks within art is borne out of the uncertainty of how to proceed. Everyone has a different approach to producing meaningful work. For my part, much of my personal work is drawn from an internal conflict between Ecstasy and Transcendence. I want to explore and embrace the world as it is, to revel in sensory input and the temporally sublime; yet also look beyond this world, to understand the transient and impermanent nature of the senses and consciousness.

Our experience is governed in large part by our perception. Change your perception, and you change your world. In this way, through work that explores, hacks, and mutates perception, I create art that necessarily changes the world.

Computers- and, ostensibly, digital media- offer an historically unique opportunity to mediate our perception (and thus, our reality). This leads me to incorporate computer hardware, software, and networked technology as Material to create objects, interfaces, and environments to work towards something akin to a Perceptual Singularity. This idea particularly informs my interest in responsive environments and augmented reality in the context of contemplative spaces or trance-like experiences.

I want to move past some of the experiential limitations that technology imposes (i.e. software should be able to reliably produce the same results again and again, and failure to do so is often noted as a bug) and create work that is Happening-esque in nature- less a solidly-defined piece and more like a loose framework that allows for the emergence of singular, unreproducible personal revelations.

At the same time, my work also reflects a yearning for Connection. As our experience is influenced by our perception, it is also influenced by the perception and projection of others. Connection with other Actors- human or otherwise- invariably lead us to alter our personal experience. A consensus emerges, and we either embrace it or willfully defy it.

Computers and networked technology also shape Connection. This technology creates and contextualizes Connection and Interaction, as well as mediates that Connection. This leads me towards computer-mediated collaborative work where many people- even those separated by space and time- can help shape a singular experience. A recent example of this is #colorwall, which allowed Twitter users to change the colors that lit the walls of a room. A live webcam streamed images from the space onto a website, creating visual feedback that allowed people to interact with and influence the space (and thus, the people in that space) without being spatially or temporally present in that space.

I am also interested in the idea of Sacred Computing. I define this as using computers and digital media in the context of religious worship, meditation, and spiritual communion. My approach to this idea is informed in large part by my background in Western mysticism, and ties back to my interest in perception and consciousness. My recent work includes a work-in-progress that incorporates sound, color, abstract shapes, and user input in a space to attempt to create an altered state of consciousness. My research into Sacred Computing also ties back to my interest in Connection by way of ritual and performance. I’m currently researching how to incorporate these ideas into a computer-mediated space that solicits meaningful acts of worship through user interaction and perceptual feedback.

Because I believe in art that can change the world by way of our perception, I feel an obligation to make art that changes the world for the better. This has led me to consider how to incorporate my work- in particular, my recent work with interventionist performance art- into my social justice activism. If, in the course of my career, I can give people a sense of meaningful Connection with others, and a confidence in their agency over their environment, and thus inspire a renewed sense of Compassion and Social Responsibility, I will consider my work successful.

I believe there’s an intersection between art, technology, and culture, and in that intersection is the potential to grow and amplify the capacity for social good in all three. I don’t entirely know where that intersection lies, or what it looks like. What I hope to gain from study in a graduate program is insight into that intersection. My goals are to get the lay of the land, determine how art, tech and people come together in constructive ways, and carry that insight into my art, research, and pedagogy.

My last full semester- and in particular the last 3-4 weeks- were exhausting. In one 10-day period at the very end, I had a big performance project, a UI redesign project, an installation, and prep for a big professional development event all come due. If it weren’t for friends and housemates helping me out with graduation prep, I probably wouldn’t have any hair left.

But I got it done. The performance was well-received. The UI project was fine (although I want to revisit it). The installation went well, despite some day-of-opening technical hiccups (a guest tore the wires off of my vibe sensor, most likely for the lulz). The professional development event was good, even though I wasn’t really looking for a full-time job. And my graduation shenanigans were a hoot and a holler.

And when it was done, I entered hibernation. I napped. I read. I put a dent in my Netflix queue. I took one last class over the summer. I did a short-term web project. I went for meandering walks (as the weather allowed). I spent a lot of time alone- reflecting, planning.

But I’m starting to get the Itch again. And not a moment too soon. Next week I start my graduate work at SAIC. The tangle of emotions I’m feeling is a bit too high-frequency to adequately parse here, but mostly I’m excited.

As I jump in to high-level research and studio, I think this blog is going to end up being a place to trepan. [Ed. note: I wasn't sure if 'trepan' was actually a word when I wrote it- it totally is!] One common criticism of academics is that they tend to live in their own heads- a problem which I already struggle with. I think getting my thoughts in a printed, widely-distributed format will help me avoid that. Soon I’ll figure out how to re-enable comments (I believe this WordPress theme disables them by default), which will give me an opportunity to let people sanity-check some of what I’m working through.

Right. Time to get to work.

This reactive audio/visual installation is the first of a new series of works exploring ideas of Sacred Computing- spiritual and religious experience as mediated (or interrupted) by digital technology.. A mystic altar, constructed around the element of Water, serves as a focal point for the viewer’s spiritual experience. The centerpiece of the altar is an offering bowl. Behind the altar, swirling video phantasms of a pond and ethereal sounds indicate the presence of a Water Spirit. When an offering is made, the Water Spirit responds with gratitude.

The pond ripples are procedurally generated in Processing, using OpenGL. The ripples are generated based on physical input from a piezo vibration sensor, with an Arduino Uno microcontroller acting as the bridge between sensor and software.

This installation was featured in BITMAP, an exhibition of interactive art that ran in April and May, 2011. It was mounted as part of Manifest, a yearly arts and entertainment festival showcasing the work of graduating students at Columbia College Chicago.

Awesomesauce is an iPad application that delivers web and social media content to users in a hip, stylized interface. Following on the success of applications like Flipboard, the application pulls content from news outlets, blogs, social networks, and other sources and presents them in a stylized magazine format. Where Flipboard venerates a minimalist exaltation of Content over Form, Awesomesauce seeks to evoke an aesthetic more reminiscent of Flavorpill or Ray Gun to marry Content and Form together in a unique, beautiful way.

Portfolio site for a local photographer. A functional site can be found here.

In the Poetic Edda there is a legend about Odin, chief of the Aesir and a principle figure in Norse mythology. The legend tells that Odin, in search of wisdom, hung himself from the World Tree for nine days and nights without food or water. At the end of the ordeal he received wisdom in the form of Runes.

In this piece, A Sacrifice Of Myself To Myself, I performed a long-duration work symbolic of that story. Working with Mark Mandrake, a Chicago-based Neo-Pagan priest, I was ritually possessed by Odin before being bound with rope, which was threaded around pipes in the gallery space like tree branches. I was blindfolded, and denied food and water. Using a combination of rhythmic stave pounding, spoken word, and gesture, I was led through intensive trance-work for nine hours, ritually journeying through each of the Nine Realms of Norse cosmology. The result was a union of sacred ritual and performance art in an emotionally intense experience for both performer and audience.

A Sacrifice Of Myself To Myself was performed as part of PANTS ON FIRE, a showcase of performance and ephemeral art by a group of young emerging artists. The show was mounted at Defibrillator Performance Art Gallery in Chicago in April, 2011.