Last night I went to Geekdown. It was essentially and ITP event, with a few guest artist/performers, one of which was Sxip Shiree, who I saw play at the Lincoln Center with Tod Reynolds and Laurie Anderson a few days ago. I like following ITP: they doing interesting things: like Alex Vessels and Mindy Tchieu’s We Flashy, and Nick Yulman’s Song Cabinet.

A few friends of mine (also from ITP) launched the iPhone app, Badger, Friday (featured in the NY Times). Good documentation of the event can be found under the Geekdown badge.

Yesterday, two of my favorite violinist/performance technologists, Laurie Anderson and Todd Reynolds, shared a stage at Lincoln Center in a free outdoor concert. Todd played with Sxip Shirey, who I didn’t know of before, but I’m glad I do now. Lou Reed came out for Laurie’s last song. This is why I’ll miss New York.

I just read an article from Wired, titled “Are Your Co-Workers Killing You?” It is a common opinion that stress kills, and that jobs are stressful. What this article points out is that stress that a person has no control over kills more than stress that one can control. A high-status administrator may have more responsibility, and therefore more stress, than a typist… yet the typist has no control of her duties or the results of her work, and therefore she describes it as “soul-destroying.” The article points out that in general, low status workers die earlier than high-status workers, and attributes this to the degree of control one has over their work.

It is also noted, however that while men in high positions fare better, women don’t. They attribute this to work/family conflict: women in high positions experience more guilt for putting work before family and children then men do, which compounds their stress.

To me, a girl who likes to have control of her work, this information is a bit stressful. The original feminist question arises: can a woman have a family and a good career? According to this, yes, but the stress may kill you.

Collaborative multimedia dance performance created for Brooklyn College’s M.F.A. Program in Performance and Interactive Media Art, based loosely on the story of Mathematician Paul Erdos. Video: Sara Wentworth, Audio: Gocha Tsinadze, Choreography/Dance: Bryon Carr, Choreography/Script: Emily Morse

Time flies on restless pinions – constant never. -Friedrich Schiller

A multimedia play about a man faceing a terminal illness as well as his own personal demons. Created in collaboration with Art House Productions

Interactive Video Performance
Little Theater at Dixon Place, April 2010

Developed in collaboration with Art House Productions (Michael Flinck, Christine Goodman, and Jack Halpin), ImPrinted explores communication in a technological age. We have more means of connecting with others than ever before, yet none have the intimacy of in-person, face to face contact. This piece draws from Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” to portray the loss of ‘aura’ of a person in digitized communication.

The video for this piece, built with Processing, takes live feed from three cameras; one inside the printer, one sitting on the printer tray facing the printer’s output, and one taking an overview of the stage. The program rotates through the camera angeles according to spikes in the audio.

Interactive video installation
dimensions vary
built with Processing

Kal.eye.desc.optic creates a kaleidescope image from live video input. Originally installed in the Empire-Fulton State Park in the 2009 DUMBO Art Under the Bridge Festival, the image was projected on a custom 4.5 foot hexagonal projection screen, with battery-powered LEDs dispersed in front of the camera to add color to the image.

Interactive video, projected
dimensions vary
built with Processing

Your credit cards. Your driver’s license. Your library card. Your Blockbuster card.

We live in a society in which it is normal to carry our identities, encoded in plastic, with us wherever we go. Purchasing everyday items, checking out books, going out to eat and drink, we trust this information with countless strangers over the course of our lives.

What exactly is encoded in our cards? How is this information processed and used? Is it used for one transaction and then discarded? Or is it stored for future use? How would we know?

Go ahead. Swipe anything. Your information is safe with me.

With Swipe, viewers are able to swipe any card with a magnetic strip, and see what information it holds. The data is displayed; then dispersed and transformed to create collage of all participants’ information. Time slowly fades the characters.

Installed at Es Oro Polymedia, Jersey City, NJ, September 2009 (Video)

Multimedia Play

In collaboration with Art House Productions, I created and operated background projections representing the character’s mind in a play about the human life cycle. The play, which premiered May 2009, incorporated dance, poetry, and an original musical score performed live by an eight piece orchestra using instruments ranging from laptop computers to bubbles blown in cups of water.

::Press::

Dysmorphia: pathological preoccupation with an imagined or slight physical defect of one’s body to the point of causing significant stress or behavioral impairment in several areas

‘Dysmorphia’ attempts to portray anxiety caused by maladjusted body image, referencing how distorted media images can effect the way we see ourselves. Using live video feed, each second propels a continuous cycle of distortion and normalcy.