project statement
for our collaborative project, we sought to explore the intersection of our individual studio practices through the concept of collage. we were excited to take the opportunity offered by collaboration to play with and navigate new, unfamiliar media——of making work with moving imagery in the form of digital video——to investigate ways to bring together expressions of our respective and overlapping interests and ideas.
our collage process has produced a series of experimental encounters and gestures that manifest a conversation. the works embody a practice of interactions and contributions that bring together bits and pieces: elements, views, influences, inspirations, and interpretations, of the surrounding landscape and of our direct and mediated experiences of the material and immaterial world.
the ravenswood generating station is a formidable presence in long island city, and its complicated history and uncertain future served as an icon, a reflection of our current time as well as the focal point of our attention. we made drawings based on: the power-plant stacks; smoke; particles in the atmosphere; tracings of drawings; and aspects of the nearby queensbridge houses, such as building-complex plans, trees, and rubbings of wood benches. we then incorporated smartphone videos of: power lines, power-plant stacks and smoke, midtown manhattan and smoke, and trees near the queensbridge houses. by combining various materials and processes, we visually fused tangible and intangible images that were made with low- and high-tech methods.
our works explore the interaction, interrelationship, and interdependence of the material and immaterial, of parts (typically tangible and visible) and particles (typically intangible and invisible). in our works, we use components that are material and immaterial. some material components are: paper, ink, graphite, water, pigment, wax, tape, computer hardware (devices, connectors, charging blocks), hands, and eyes. some immaterial components are: electricity (although this is material at the particle level), images (moving and still) in analog vision and in digital representation, wireless internet connections, cloud computing, and ideas.
through layering and merging various parts and particles, we created works that synthesize our material and immaterial responses to the textual prompt “matter/of/fact” and our known and felt understandings of that phrase. our art made in collaboration is the product of an unscripted conversation, and the works are not designed to be conclusive in message or intent. they are ephemeral efforts to make discernable, comprehensible, or relatable our essential human endeavors of interpreting and interrelating the complexities and challenges of the world.