Formation

This series references my formative influences and their culmination in the present. Using media and technology, I call upon my early experiences of realizations about media and technology.

Spoiler Alert

If you would like to know more about this series, read on. But it depends if you’re the type of viewer who wants to have more context provided by the maker or let the work alone speak. I’ve polled Facebook friends on this idea and the results, as expected, are mixed. On one hand I think having an explanation or having the work put in societal context can be helpful to enhance appreciation of the work. On the other hand I sometimes think that there shouldn’t even be title placards next to the work because that does not allow the viewer to let the work speak for itself–their impressions are tainted by the ideas expressed in the title words.

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The first in the series gives the viewer instructions. The other three reference some specific moments that eventually, years later, led up to this series.

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This references my first experimentation with media and technology. One of the first computers my dad brought home was a Commodore 64. The software and files were stored on data storage tapes which happened to be identical to audio cassettes. I wondered what would happen if I put a data cassette into an audio cassette player. It made a marvelous and excruciating noise, the sound of data. I was so inspired by this that I insisted that I be allowed to use it as sound effects during a 6th grade poetry reading where a classmate was read a poem about computers. It thrilled me but I was (in hindsight) oblivious that no one else there “got it”.

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This references my all-time favorite movie, “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”. This movie made a dramatic impact on me and still does. It is wonderous, beautiful, imaginative, dystopic and creepy all at the same time. Creatively, this film resonates with me after all these years. I reference a part of the story that, again, addresses technology and media. The film happens to have been made in the year of my birth.

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The fourth painting references an educational show I saw during college which stuck with me called “The Secret Life of Machines”, where they demonstrate how recorded media works.