The art of new media is one that encourages aesthetic innovation, attention to social, political, and cultural contexts, and community collaboration. These directives of new media guide the ways I think about, teach, and create art.
I use art and technology for intercultural communication and community building. I'm interested in ethnographic and documentary methods of inquiry. I use tools such as video and audio, animation, photography and fibers to communicate personal stories of identity and transition. While working as a resident artist in Rosario, Argentina, I created a multi-media exhibit on the local and national significance of the Tango. I explored a similar theme in Embody, a multi-media installation and live-cinema performance using percussive dance as a vehicle to explore cultural identity, history, and empowerment in generations of women.
Social awareness, personal narratives and poetry are apparent in my work. A video installation, Memories of Cardamom explores issues of identity, sexuality, and nationality through the narrative of a child orphaned in India and raised in Wisconsin. I collaborated with the subject of the piece, Reji Kinn, to give voice to this compelling and socially relevant story.
Music is omnipresent in my life and my art. As a photographer and a musician, new technologies allow me to align my visual and audio interests into one exciting practice. In addition to several live audio/visual performances, I recently collaborated with the University of Denver's Lamont Wind ensemble to create a visual narrative for Roger Cichy's musical homage to the Galilean Moons of Jupiter. A live cinema performance, (re)Turning incorporated ethnographic story telling with interactive video and live and pre-recorded music to create a sensual account of the Tango.