ARTIST STATEMENT: Using multiple media from video to photographs, interactive media to beads, my work is conceptual, project based and often takes the form of installations. Through the collection and visualization of information, it explores the absurdity and the poetry within the process of exhaustive study. The overarching themes are the notion of portrait and self-portrait rendered in a contemporary context.
As a child, I was obsessed with the idea of drawing every single thing that exists in the world. Despite its naive quality, the feeling of embarking on this vast quest was so powerful that it still infuses my work today. The recurrent and consuming desire to catalog, up to the absurd, is a way to understand and order the world around me as well as interface with it. The systematization and hierachization that ensue can both help communicate (poetry) and alienate (absurdity).
Computer technology, like an extension of our brain, offers great tools to archive, organize, and visualize information, yet its limitations betray our own. I find the restrictions and the flaws of recent technologies to have aesthetical qualities and meanings that deny the perfection we want machines to emulate. They reconnect us with a sense of mystery tied to our human condition, especially as we are detaching ourselves further and further from the natural world.
I am interested in exploring the confrontation between the human and the technological. By way of practices and rituals like taking a picture a day, monitoring a building’s entrance, cataloging every object I own, or documenting long-distance conversations -- each project confronts intimate and subjective data with the mechanization of actions, the systematization of technology and the codifications of cognitive sciences.
By emulating the processes of technology and by working with it directly, my work aspires to render the systems and patterns that describe a contemporary character. The resulting portraits or self-portraits reveal in turn the intimately technological and the systematically human.
Elsa -Tel Aviv - 04/19/09 - 01:02:46 2010 C-print Part of a larger series called Slow Portraits, this print takes advantage of the strange beauty of technological mishaps. This computer screen, captured while conversing online, depicts a moment when
Screened Calls & Slow Portraits (concept drawing) 2010 digital file Concept drawing for the installation "Screened Calls & Slow Portraits".
This installation documents and deconstructs 77 long-distance conversations conducted online with 7 individuals t
Screened Calls & Slow Portraits 2010 1 projected animation, 7 framed C-Prints Partial view of Screened Calls & Slow Portraits. This installation documents and deconstructs 77 long-distance conversations conducted online with 7 individuals throughout 2009. An interactive ser
Moods 2010 framed digital print This chart presents an aspect of the 77 online conversations that took place within a year with 7 interlocutors. It visualizes the fluctuation of the mood within each conversation with each person thr
Elsa - TelAviv - 03/05/09 - 08:19 2010 C-print Part of a larger series called Slow Portraits, this print takes advantage of the strange beauty of technological mishaps. This computer screen, captured while conversing online, depicts a moment when
Garland - Springfield - 03/11/09 - 20:07 2010 C-print Part of a larger series called Slow Portraits, this print takes advantage of the strange beauty of technological mishaps. This computer screen, captured while conversing online, depicts a moment when
The immortals (simulation) 2009 Digital file Simulation of an installation presenting a series of 1440 photographs cataloging every object I owned over 10 years.
The project exposes the complexity and the absurdity of our relationship with mate
The immortals 2009 1440 digital prints in cellophane bags This installation presented at the CAS Arts Center (NY) displays a series of 1440 photographs cataloging every object I owned over 10 years. The project exposes the complexity and the absurdity of our
The immortals 2009 Digital prints in cellophane bags Detail view of "The immortlas", an installation presented at the CAS Arts Center (NY) displays a series of 1440 photographs cataloging every object I owned over 10 years. The project exposes
The immortals 2009 4 Digital prints Detail of "The immortals", an installation presented at the CAS Arts Center (NY) displays a series of 1440 photographs cataloging every object I owned over 10 years. The project exposes the
48 tenants (simulation) 2009 Digital file The project presents, through a series of 48 portraits, the exhaustive number of people video-monitored in and out of the same building. For a year I became a manual surveillance system activated by t
Tenant #25 2006-2010 Digital print, glass beads This piece is part of the series "48 Tenants". The project presents, through a series of 48 portraits, the exhaustive number of people video-monitored in and out of the same building. For a
Tenant #22 2006-2010 Digital print, glass beads This piece is part of the series "48 Tenants". The project presents, through a series of 48 portraits, the exhaustive number of people video-monitored in and out of the same building. For a
Tenant #17 2006-2010 Digital print, glass beads This piece is part of the series "48 Tenants". The project presents, through a series of 48 portraits, the exhaustive number of people video-monitored in and out of the same building. For a
Medusa 2004 C-Print mounted on Plexiglass This print is part of a series called "Space Available" which presents stills extracted from a year-long surveillance of the transitory space of a building’s entrance. I became a manua
Beauty 104 2003 C-Print mounted on Plexiglass This print is part of a series called "Space Available" which presents stills extracted from a year-long surveillance of the transitory space of a building’s entrance. I became a manua
Boy A Car 2005 C-Print This print is part of a series called "Space Available" which presents stills extracted from a year-long surveillance of the transitory space of a building’s entrance. I became a manua
10 Years, a user manual 2000 website Main interface of the website: 10 YEARS A USERS MANUAL. The site utilizes the Internet to store, organize, and display autobiographical information entered in a database. Through the interaction with
10 Years, a user manual 2000 website Sub-section of the website: 10 YEARS A USERS MANUAL. The site utilizes the Internet to store, organize, and display autobiographical information entered in a database. Through the interaction with the
36 boxes 1999 website Main interface for the site 36 boxes which presents the exhaustive content of 36 boxes left in an attic in France upon my departure for the United States. The viewer can explore the content of each bo