Statement on Creative Work and Research

As both an artist and creative professional, I work across many media–interactive art, video, wearables, computer-aided visualization, and augmented reality–but regardless of the tools or materials I’m using to create, I always find that it’s the process that makes the work special. It is in the process that I discover the most valuable aspects of a work. For me, this is where the true learning and meaning-making takes place.

I work mostly with digital fabrication and wearable design because these mediums are what light me up. Plain and simple, there is just an abundance of energy for which I can work with. My obsession with the process and the learning opportunities involved has manifested itself not only in my production work, but also in my research interests in bioenergetics and collective behavior. Most often materialized through multi-participant interactive installation.

It is in the process that I get to take the most risks, which is an aspect I find to be of extreme importance to any meaning-making involved. The many roadblocks that arise during the creative process and the respective failures and successes are often what keep me coming back to making work. I make the pieces I make in order to understand and move through personal experiences and the emotions therein. It’s pure catharsis. The opportunity to share the work with others and give them a chance to make their own meaning is just a bonus for me—or maybe it’s the final step in the healing journey.

These journeys also present a wonderful opportunity to consider the relationships to my methods and materials. I am most definitely someone who loves their toys, especially the technological ones. I truly enjoy experimenting with all the newest gear in order to find the edge, but also to understand our connection to the current iteration of technology. Furthermore, to reiterate points made by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, we live in a globalized society where technology is the language of said globalization. Each and every person is already having a technological experience. “Working with technology is inevitable and it is normal, it is natural.” Integrating technology as a tool into the creative process allows one to meet people where they are, while at the same time addressing concepts that may or may not be technologically influenced.

As a new media artist, I exercise my creativity in order to take the time to explore opportunities for understanding. Fortunately, these opportunities have the potential to take many different forms. Most of the time, it’s the opportunity to understand the fundamental reasons why a certain experience transpired and then use that understanding to move through any and all relevant blocks, as in S.O.A.N. #2, which is a video installment in an ongoing self-portrait series that provided a much needed outlet to process the internal commotion and aversion towards the emotions of the outside world. Other times, it’s the chance to experiment with a new process, technology, or material. Or it could be an opportunity to create an experience to share beliefs I feel passionate about with participants, as in Collective Attunement, which is an interactive sculpture that invites viewers to contribute to a unified light and color-based visual representation of our shared collective resonance. Sometimes, it’s using the technology at hand to create seemingly magical experiences for participants to enjoy and contemplate, as in my interactive pop-up installation, Particle Portrait, which invites participants to interact with and guide a particle-based portrait of their auric energy while listening to a customized sound bath. Other times it’s the opportunity to create work that challenges my skills in order to foster learning, as in my digitally fabricated project, Infinity Solids, which required me to push my knowledge of circuits in order to solder together the five Platonic Solids. Or it might be the opportunity to examine specific bioenergetically informed exercises, like my portrait series Vital Movements, which is a set of five portraits, based on high quality motion capture data, that visually represent the dynamic flow of energy through the human body during specific intentional breathing and movement exercises. I also make work to explore the possibilities of technology to help researchers in the field, as in M.C.S.G., which is a wearable system for use by scientific researchers, citizen-scientists, wilderness patrollers, and first responders to passively gather and process relevant data.

I hope that through my work I can became more whole as a person and bring all the aspects of my being into their natural vibrational resonance. And by doing so, arrive at the point in my existence where I can both fully give my gifts to the world and encourage others to do the same.