All My Ideas are in the Cloud
Walk inside and let the clouds take you into the possibilities of where you will go. This site specific installation explores decision making, memories, creative process, making dreams come true. The artist also explores the double entendre “cloud”. Clouds are made of water vapor, yet we now understand digital clouds as data collection. Therefore the title of “All My Ideas are in the Cloud” refers to the cloud of ideas forming in our heads but also the digital collection of ideas found on the computers and devices we use every day
Something From Nothing
Something Out of Nothing Exhibition held in 2018 at the Chastain Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia
Video footage of exhibition.
I am fascinated with the mind; the connections and pathways that develop through experience into convoluted structures. Scientists describe how emotions are imbedded in memories, which make humans “imperfect machines”. Understanding how people make decisions, based on emotional experience, informs my work, how a web of thought develops. My work compares mathematics, or non-emotional problem solving, against the decisions based on opinions. Collective thought forms societal shifts. This is another aspect that I like to grapple with in my work; the power of public opinion.
Process photographs of the exhibition
My process starts in sculpture, beginning with grids, developing patterns into complex structures, until the beginning becomes impossible to find. This is like life, the paths one takes aren’t always anticipated.
The sculptures are used to inform other formats, to continue manipulating the patterns. I am interested in finding mediums to describe the intricacies of the pathways resulting from decisions. Choices are often made on faulty logic because people can’t remember the past as well as they think. The complexities of opinion, how emotions alter rational patterns; the imperfect perceived structures is what the work is about.
“White Lies” at Whitespace 2018
White Lies
The color white connotes pure or harmless, but science has proven that lying, even lies that seems trivial, cause a person’s brain to adapt to a life of dishonesty. Neuroscientists, Garrett, Lazzaro, Ariely and Sharot completed a study showing that
“Dishonesty is an integral part of our social world, influencing domains ranging from finance and politics to personal relationships. Anecdotally, digressions from a moral code are often described as a series of small breaches that grow over time.”
These scientists proved through empirical evidence, including functional MRI, that a gradual escalation of self-serving dishonesty reveal a neural mechanism supporting it. An example played out in recent news, Hope Hicks, the President’s Press Secretary admitted to spreading white lies for President Trump. This installation takes a look at the tangled web of white lies and how they begin, by stretching the binary code of right and wrong, to a complete distortion of order. The question remains, does anyone tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
“Oh! What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”
Marmion, Sir Walter Scot
What Grows in Your Heart
“Alternative descriptions of the same reality evoke different emotions and different associations.”
Daniel Kahneman, Thinking. Fast and Slow
Last year was a year of upheaval for the entire world. This affected my practice as I listened to the unrest outside my studio. While trying to focus on creativity I found that the emotional toll was undeniable.
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