Date of Award

Spring 5-15-2015

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

This essay examines the urban experience in postmodern cities and mediated reality. Modernity brought a change in perception that altered the experience of the city. This shift was registered through cinema which disrupted the fixity of classical space and provided an aesthetic reception similar to the gaze the flaneur. With the transition into postmodernism came the idea of the Heterotopia, a city that is capable of juxtaposing multiple temporalities and spaces that are themselves incompatible. The postmodern city developed with the exponential growth of mass communication and consumption immersing us in mediated reality.

My projective works make use of collage techniques to produce images that match the way in which we perceive, interact, and navigate mediated reality. My sequence makes use of cinematic qualities to immerse viewers in the imaginary spaces portrayed. The postmodern city is experienced as a territory in which we simultaneously inhabit a multiplicity of spaces, both digital and physical. These intertwined realities give the postmodern city a phantasmagoric character, one of undefined spatiality.

Language

English (en)

Program Director

Patricia Olynyk

Program Director's Department

Graduate School of Art

Committee Member

Michael Byron

Committee Member

Michael Byron

Committee Member

Jamie Adams

Committee Member

Arny Nadler

Committee Member

Heather Bennett

Artist's Statement

My work portrays environments of the urban experience in postmodern cities. We live in a time of embodied virtuality, where computers and data technologies have become more and more integrated into our daily lives, thus furthering our immersion into mediated reality. The Postmodern city accumulates, it embraces multiple temporalities and compresses them into a totality. These intertwined realities give the Postmodern city a phantasmagoric character, one of undefined spatiality.

I create sequential projective works that incorporate my collage practice. Using physical and digital collage techniques I select and recombine source material through multiple iterations. Making use of fragmentation, appropriation, juxtaposition, and recombination, my collage techniques produce images that match the way in which we perceive, interact, and navigate mediated reality. My images make use of cinematic qualities to heighten the Postmodern city as imaginary space; as a complex object where all spatial reality is as described. The final sequences are projected at a large scale with audio to immerse the viewers in these imaginary spaces.

Link to video: https://vimeo.com/124374291

Permanent URL: https://doi.org/10.7936/K798856K

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