Date of Award

Spring 5-16-2014

Author's School

Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

Author Department/Program

Graduate School of Art

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Visual Art

Degree Type

Thesis

Abstract

The moving image exists at the interstice of art and science not only because it acts as a representation of human sight but also because it exemplifies the observational processes related to the scientific gaze. As such, film and video have extended human sense-perception properties by mimicking and manipulating the natural processes of the optic nerve. The capture – and in many cases, the simulation – of movement generated from the progression of images reveals a new sphere of human consciousness as it relates to the dimensions of motion, space, and time.

The conceptualization of the time-element present in film and video has been a prominent feature of film and new media theory since the invention of cinema. Cinematic processes are not only analogues of sight but also companions to the brain’s cognitive function. The camera, therefore, is more than a metaphor. It is an extension of the optic nerve, and as such, it provides new methods of understanding time as it relates to motion and space. Cinema, moreover, has become an integral component of the human consciousness. Because film and video have expanded the understanding of cognitive processes, filmmakers and video artists are charged with the task of utilizing the manipulation techniques inherent to the media in order to enhance the connections between eye and camera and between brain and screen.

The goal of my work is to enable my audience to observe the infinitesimal changes that take place as moments in time are created. Video is a device that I employ to make greater parallels between the absolute and the ordinary. By blurring the lines between artistic practice and scientific process, I strive to create a visual methodology which concerns itself with the construction and documentation of microcosmic environments and events resulting from chemical processes.

Language

English (en)

Program Director

Patricia Olynyk

Program Director's Department

Graduate School of Art

Committee Member

Zlatko Cosic, Lecturer of Art

Committee Member

Zlatko Cosic, Lecturer of Art

Committee Member

Cheryl Wassenaar, Associate Professor of Art

Committee Member

Ila Sheren, Assistant Professor of Art History and Archaeology

Artist's Statement

By combining artistic practice with scientific method, I have created a visual methodology that explores the creation and examination of microcosmic event-formations, and I am interested in the camera and the monitor as agents and mediators of human sense-perception through which I can observe, analyze, and manipulate such information to make greater parallels between the absolute and the ordinary.

As such, the camera acts as both a documentary eye and as a point of reference that allows me to construct competing visual narratives that compare and contrast similar events, while motifs of repetition and variation provide a way to analyze multiple sets of comparable visual information. By extracting and accumulating such elements, I investigate the role of the camera and the monitor as agents of artifice and simulation.

The creation, observation, and documentation of emerging structures and formations within my work are produced from simple biochemical reactions. The transformative properties of the formations created from these processes are indicative of larger environments and events, allowing me to make correlations between the micro and the macro as they relate to instances of emergence and fractalization within the universe. These manifestations and simulations of energy and mass are more than explosions and ruptures. They are expulsive transformations contained in clinical space. They are events in matter – violent, stochastic, emerging forms rooted in the realm of ambiguity and controlled aggression.

Permanent URL: https://doi.org/10.7936/K7QJ7F7F

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