Qualitative Significance and Intensive Relationships in the Digital Age

8/3/2019 Qualitative Significance and Intensive Relationships in the Digital Age

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Qualitative Significance and Intensive Relationships in the Digital Age

Marjorie Albano Renno

MFA Studio Art Program

The University of the ArtsDecember 2011

A thesis submitted to The University of the Arts in partial fulfillment of the requirements for thedegree of Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture


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Fundamental Understandings

There are as many different types of walking artists as there are places to walk. My own

work is rooted in the practice of walking, but the act for me is not the work itself. The act of the

walk is a catalyst, it is an experience I collect and interpret. I do this with the intention of

deconstructing it to its most essential elements, which I then translate into an experience for my

audience. While some of my most significant walks have been in natural environments, my

work is not simply a celebration of nature; it is about a personal practice that I view as a

humanistic response to a technologically driven world. This, by no means, is a rejection of

technology; it is a search for balance between our use of technology and our use of our own

senses to understand the world around us.

I began teaching in the late nineties, but in the last three to five years there has been a

significant shift in the spatial understandings of my art students. We are witnessing a time in

our culture where visits to cyberspace far outweigh visits to open space. I teach high school

students who can effortlessly navigate the complexities of cyberspace from the palm of their

hand. These same students have no concept of personal space as they attempt to transition from

online social networking to actual social interaction. My students can download the entire

history of art in between sending text messages, but when presented with simple raw materials,

they often have no concept of how to begin to play with these materials in order to manipulate

space. Some argue, including me, that the vastness of cyberspace has ironically served to

confine peoples daily physical experiences and fundamental understandings of real space. In

1995, the year many of my current students were born, Stephen Talbott wrote about the impact

of our monitor-driven world on our understanding of perspective and spatial relationships:

The point is that depth is now represented for us by a highly abstract,


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mathematically conceived container-space full of objects related only by

their shared coordinate systeman "extensive" depthwhereas once the

worlds depth was more "intensive," with every object bound

meaningfully to every other (and to us) in a way that our perspective

renders nearly impossible to experience. It is our vision that is flat,

abstract, shallow, governed by surfaces without true insides. It lacks

nothing in quantifiable information, but lacks nearly everything in weight

or qualitativesignificance. (Talbott, p.377)

We live in a world where increasingly our experiences are translated through a flat

screen. We are no longer the translator of our experiences, the screens are. We have become

once, in some cases twice and three times, removed from what in the past would have been a

basic spatial experience (chatting with friends face to face, shopping, even playing sports like

golf can all be done from the comfort of our couch). How do we regain qualitative significance?

We begin by remembering that technology is the practical use of human knowledge, it is simply

a tool. We determine the complexity of our experience, its qualitative significance, by how we

use those tools. I believe that at its very foundation, art communicates the complexity of the

human experience. This complexity is rooted in the qualitative significance of physical

experiences and the intensive relationships that meaningfully bind us to the world.

What was there all along

In response to Francis Als workFairy Tales (fig. 1), I created an artwork entitled The

Knitted Walk(fig. 2) during my first summer in this program. Als is a Belgium-born artist who

is most often associated with Mexico City. He went to school for architecture in Venice. Upon


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completing school, Als was drafted by the Belgium Army. In fulfilling his duty, Als was sent

to work in southern Mexico for non-governmental agencies. In 1989, when his duty was

complete, he found himself in a unique situation. He was unemployed and unable to return home

due to a number of personal and legal matters. He was in a position to both live as a part of a

community and observe a foreign culture. He saw this as an opportunity to try his hand as an

artist and develop what he refers to as the objective narrative (Medina, Ferguson and Fisher).

Als refers to his art as actions. Throughout the breadth of these actions runs a set of

works that he has titled his paseos. He is quick to make clear that his walks are in no way

performances. The strolls themselves are the actions, taking many forms. He first developed

them as living fables, allowing him a way to create social and political satire through the most

common of acts. He consciously pursued the act of walking in 1990 as he developed the action

The Collector. He created an urban toy to drag behind him and collect the metal debris of the

city. This would be how he entered into telling an objective narrative. He made no choices in

the items collected, which would serve to represent the city and what was seen as disposable

(Summers). He went on to walk through the city with leaky paint cans, even a giant block of

melting ice. In 1995, he createdFairy Tales and rambled through the streets of Mexico City,

while his blue sweater unraveled, leaving behind both evidence of his path and a sort of drawing.


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(fig.1) Francis Als, Fairy Tales (Mexico City 1995 & Stockholm 1998)

Photographic documentation of an action

While he created documentation of the unraveling of a blue knitted sweater through his

foreign home of Mexico City, I documented my knitting of a red scarf as I walked through my

foreign home of Philadelphia. I presented my documentation on top of a map of Center City.

Red thread ran from points on the map to points on the scarf, I had walked each day and at each

destination; I had knitted until I dropped a stitch, marked the stitch and then put it away until I

moved again. Along with the scarf and the map were photographs and various notes on the times


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of each stop, their locations and the steps I had taken through the city. In critiques, I was most

questioned on the notes; particularly how I could accurately know the number of steps I had

actually taken. This surprised me since I could probably tell them how many steps I had taken

everyday of the last decade and where and when I had taken them.

(fig. 2) The Knitted Walk, 2009

Documentation of 21,173 steps through Philadelphia

My very earliest memory is of a walk with my grandfather. I can remember us crossing

the street to the stonewall that faced my grandparents house. This short wall started only a few

inches off the ground, rose what seemed a great distance and then tapered back to the cement

sidewalk. I can still recall my grandfather telling me You can walk along the top of the wall


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as long as you promise not to tell your mother. This walk would make me taller and braver than

I had been just moments before. From there, I can draw a timeline of my life based on the

defiant walks that have led me forward. Ive always kept small sketchbooks with the places I

have walked. They contain various information on each walk; recorded using a variety of

technologies. Suddenly, those simple questions of my accuracy had provoked my own

understanding of Als work. His end product, the documentation, was not about creating a

precious art object, but part of an artistic practice that was rooted in recording a common act,

something I had unknowingly been doing for years.

Walking the Line

Linear elements have always played a prominent role in my work, but it was not until I

began focusing on my walks that they became truly relevant. I began to focus on lines powerful

ability to dissect space by considering the lines I was creating as I moved through my daily life.

After completing The Knitted Walk, I formally began a series ofWalk Journals (fig. 3) where I

would record my movements. Some are focused on a period of time, all my movements from the

time I left home to the time I returned each day for two weeks; some are based on place, walking

the same area at different times a day over a period of time; and some are in-depth examinations

of a single walk. These books document a variety of information, my path as I recall it, my path

as recorded on a map or by GPS, sketches of what I viewed or photographs from the walk.


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Walk Journal: Philadelphia, 2009 Walk Journal: Tariffville, 2009

Walk Journal: London, 2010 Walk Journal: Nantucket, 2010

(fig. 3) Walk Journals

Our recorded history dates back thousands of years. What we chose to record speaks to

the experiences we value: births, deaths, wealth, population, genealogy, etc. From Charles

Joseph Minards Tableaux Graphiques et Cartes Figuratives de M. Minard, 1845-1846(fig. 4),

we get a glimpse of what has been referred to as the first Anti-War poster. While there are no

literal images of walking, the last page of Minards portfolio of statistical maps is visually poetic.

This data-map illustrates the compiled losses Napoleon experienced of his French Army as they

attempted to invade Russia. Minards figurative map has minimal descriptions and a simple

color code brown representing the men who entered Russia and black representing those who

survived the winter march long enough to exit. The losses on both sides were estimated


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somewhere between 700,00 and 1,000,000 men. This analytical map of their walking path

overwhelms the viewer with its neutral presentation of loss (Tufte). The walking path

represented by this group of men is a metaphor for the futility of war rooted in the value

humanity attaches to a single life.

(fig. 4) Charles Joseph Minard, Carte figurative des pertes successives en hommes de l'Arme Franaisedans la campagne de Russie 1812-1813

While the information in my Walk Journals teeters on statistical abstraction, they are

grounded in the blog I began writing to accompany them as a narrative response. That is where

the metaphor for my walks as works of art is rooted. Through my WalkBooks I record and

analyze my experiences until I can distill them to their very essence. The key is that they are a

record made possible by technology, not defined by technology. Minard used the technology of

his time to develop his charts measuring distance and temperature while I am using my GPS to


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record my paths and my camera to document my experience. Each of us using data to subtly

document the human experience behind quantitative information.

Qualitative Significance

While my walk journals served as documents of my experience, the question always came

down to Why? Why collect that information? Why those pictures? What began as

questioning the purpose of my records evolved into trying to distill their very essence. What was

the most important element of that experience? How could my audience connect through the

shared experience of my work?

This is a question that countless other artists have engaged. In 2004, Janet Cardiff took

participants on an audio tour through Central Park that stayed true to her narrative style. For this

audio tour entitledHer Long Black Hair(fig. 5), the public was invited to pick up an audio

player, map and packet of photographs from a kiosk at 6th Avenue and Central Park South. From

that point, listeners were taken on a site-specific walk through historic Central Park, under the

illusion of following the path of a mysterious woman with long black hair. Cardiffs voice

guided listeners on this walk. Occasionally, she would instruct those listening to pull

photographs out of the packet. The photographs would be taken from the point of view of the

very spot they were now standing on. The picture often included what they were looking at with

the back of the woman with dark hair walking away. This added a new layer to the sensory

experience and created a connection between the listeners and the speaker in this specific place.

Participants were guided through Central Parks historic pathways by Cardiff on a journey that

was part mysterious adventure and part retracing the path of the mysterious woman (Cardiff).


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(fig. 5) Janet Cardiff,Her Long Black Hair, 2004

46-minute audio tour with photographs

The tour was more about one side of a conversation than instructional steps. Sounds from

the past experience on this path by the artist are layered with the sounds being experienced in the

present by participants to create a new and complex reality for the listener. By deconstructing

her own walk into its essential sounds and images, Cardiff invites viewers to investigate this

place and come to know it through their own re-discovery.

In the spring of 2010, I began focusing on translating the essence of my recorded walks

into a shared experience for my viewers. I had been spending time walking along the

Farmington River near my studio in Connecticut. In the end, it came down to communicating

one single moment on that daily hour long purposeful walk. For my installation, entitledBe Still.

(fig. 6 & 7), The viewer would be presented with actual documentation of this place through the

video footage and my own recollection of this place through my manipulation of the video. I

experimented with the scale, position and projection of the video to create the same physical


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sensation of being overwhelmed by the movement of the water that is experienced at this point

on the walk.

(fig. 6) Initial models forBe Still. 12x 14 x14, Spring 2010

(fig. 7) Final Installation forBe Still.

January 2011, Sharjah Art Museum, UAE

During the following summer (2010), I continued with this exploration of translating my

documented walks into shared experiences with my audiences. I reflected on the time I was

splitting between my studio in rural Connecticut and my studio at the University of the Arts in


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Center City Philadelphia when I began to consider the paths I walked near each of them. The

imagery in the resulting series of video installations, referred to asNight Installations (fig. 8a &

8b), was from documentation of walks near my studio in Connecticut. The filmed footage was

manipulated to more closely reflect my memory of those spaces. The videos were installed in

windows in buildings along the path I was taking each day to and from my studio in

Philadelphia. My art practice was evolving around me paying more attention to the spaces I was

moving through. The act of transplanting this imagery was intended to instigate a subtle

awareness of these spaces. Unknowing passersby, who were moving through these spaces on

their daily routine, caught a glimpse of images that were intended to make them rethink their

surroundings in many of the same ways I was now rethinking my own.

(fig. 8a)Night Installations, 2010

Documentation of projection #2


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(fig. 8b)Night Installations, 2010

Documentation of projection #3

Pushing further into this idea of distilling my work and engaging my audience, I turned

my attention toward breaking the physical boundaries the window installations had created

between my audience and my work. Could I get my audience to physically step into my work

without being expressly instructed to? No one was telling me where to step, that seemed an

important element of the experience, so how could I re-create the essence of this experience to

include intuition? Could I guide my viewers to investigate my work the way Cardiff had? My

next two major installations in the fall of 2010 and spring of 2011 would explore this.

Created in the fall of 2010, Vast Confines (fig. 9 & 10) was developed after walks on the

small island of Nantucket. This historic fishing village, paved with uneven cobblestones, sits 30

miles off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Once the sun sets, the darkness seems to go on

endlessly, as the edge of the island and the edge of the sea blur into one another. The blackness


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of the night sky against the quiet sea seems to extend the space and erase all sense of

depth. Each step becomes slower as the edge is eventually approached.

(fig. 9) Installation view ofVast Confines, 2010

500lbs stone, 6 yds. black cloth, 2 floor level video panels,

video projection with sound loop


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(fig. 10) Detail view of stone path

from Vast Confines

Using 500 pounds of stone, I created a pathway for the viewer to walk along. Embedded

in the stone path, which mimicked the unstable cobblestone, were two video monitors. The path

began at one end of the room and lead to a screen with a back projection, so the viewer walking

up it would not interrupt the moving imagery. The essence of this walk was its uneasiness. My

footing was unsure on the weathered cobblestone streets and the darkness skewed all sense of

depth. The water and the night enveloped me. Viewers were presented with an uneven path and

altered sense of depth as they stepped on the stone and saw the video of water lulling with the

moons reflection both below them and ahead of them. They may never have walked along this

Nantucket path, but they have been presented with its essence. While many stood at the edge,

none stepped on the piece without first asking permission which became my newest issue to

address.


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In the spring of 2011, I created the installationA Mile in her Shoes (fig. 11). The

difference between this installation and the stone path was that it no longer gave the viewer a

choice - to enter the room was to step on the artwork. Painted on the floor was an enlarged map

of the area in Dubai I had walked with the actual path of my movements highlighted in red. This

work examined my role as both an artist and observer on an everyday walk through a foreign

city. The video imagery, filmed in Dubai City and neighboring Sharjah on the Arabian Gulf,

asked the viewer to consider the patterns of their own daily journeys as it moved between the

rhythm of the woman walking and the rolling water. This was the first walk where I was not a

leader, but a follower. My own unconscious thoughts included a certain level of anxiety, as I

was not in control. Viewers were forced to enter the work and by the uncomfortable means of

stepping on the art become more aware of their own movements.

(fig. 11)A Mile in Her Shoes, 2011


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2 Views - Documentation of Video Installation with Floor Map

The Search for Poetics

The body of work I was developing had many components; there were my Walk Journals

filled with collected data, their accompanying blog entries, countless linear drawings that grew

out of each of those paths I had moved through and the installations that distilled each of those

experiences in an attempt for my viewers to be more aware of their own movements. Each work

had its successes and its awkward areas that presented me with new questions to pursue. As I

entered into my thesis work, I was struggling to determine how all my various elements could

truly integrate, a common question (which took many different forms) arose in my critiques:

Where were the poetics? If my work was ever going to honestly communicate the complexity

of my human experience, I would have to take the risk of integrating more of myself into it.

In four out of every five of my critiques someone inevitably mentioned Richard Long. I

will admit that I often tuned that part out. The unfortunate part was that I was fixated on the

walking part of his work. With his art being the walk itself and my work using the walk as a

catalyst, I mistook the significance of a connection between our works as ending there. Now, on

my search for the integration of both my recorded information and my experience, Longs work

presented insight through its poetics.

Richard Longs work seeks to stimulate both the minds ability to imagine and to

analyze. Through his use of scale, texture and material in the sculptures that commemorate his

walks, our imaginations are engaged. The minds ability to analyze is provoked as he often

aligns his walks to coincide with cosmic phenomenon. Long approaches his work with the

sensibilities of a sculptor, looking to leave remnants of his having passed through a particular

space at a particular point in time. He makes it very clear that his work is neither conceptual nor


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based on illusion, but that it is about using the world as he finds it in a very real way, in a very

real place at a very specific point in time (Costa).

Long might best be illustrated with the example of his work entitled Crossing Stones.

While he has never specified when, at some point during 1987, Long stood on the beach at

Aldeburgh on the English east coast and selected a single pebble. There is no documentation,

record or photograph of this pebble. At some point, he then walked more than three hundred

miles, in ten days, to the beach in Aberystwyth on the Welsh west coast. Here, he placed the

pebble he had carried some three hundred miles among the millions on this beach. He then

selected a new pebble from this beach, again with no record of its description, placed it in his

pocket and began his walk back to Aldeburgh. Twenty days and more than six hundred miles

after first leaving Aldeburgh, he returned to place the stone from Aberystwyth among the

millions of pebbles on this beach. Long did not painstakingly document this walk. There is no

photographic evidence, object measurements or specifics recorded about dates or times. Even

his exact walking path is not known. Instead, Long simply created the text workCrossing Stones

(fig. 12) in which he poetically framed the walk in forty-five words (Daniel-McElroy, Dalton and

Evens).

(fig. 12) Richard Long Crossing Stones, 1987


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Longs use of walks as a metaphor for humanity is directed toward how very delicately

humanity is intertwined with nature through shared experiences. His intentional documentation

may not be as specific as Minards, but it is no less valid. He committed an intentional

intervention and used the physical act of walking to execute it. Even though it leaves no trace, it

resonates through its dialogue of how we are each bound to the natural world around us.

Where were my poetics? They were in all those blog entries that existed safely

somewhere out in cyberspace. When my artwork was being critiqued I could be confident it was

technical art issues to resolve, but if my writings were included the feedback would suddenly be

far more personal. I was hiding behind the abstract nature of my installations, holding my

audience at arms length. Text had been playing a role in my work all along; my challenge now

was to find a way to integrate it as an entry point for the viewer, not a narration.

This shift in my thinking opened the door to the three works that I would develop for my

thesis show. The first work,Her Ferocious Strength (fig. 13 & 14), is a response to a walk along

the coast at Beavertail State Park in 2010 after tropical storm Earl had made its way up the East

Coast. A one-minute video loop is projected onto the gallerys large window on Broad Street.

The video imagery depicts the ferocious beating of the waves on the rocks, all of which were

covered in rich foam from this relentlessly violent act. The color has been saturated with vibrant

yellows in response to how sharply the sun shined that day, every video and photo I took has

streaks of yellow and red of glares from the sun. Along the inside of the window is paper

crumpled up to depict the foam-covered rocks surrounding this place. Integrated behind and

between these rocks are the words from my blog entry, designed to draw the viewer in to this

place to take a closer look.


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(fig. 13)Her Ferocious Strength, 2011 (Interior View as installed in my studio)

(fig. 14)Her Ferocious Strength, 2011 (Exterior View as installed in my studio)


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The video is intended to confront the viewer head-on with my experience of feeling very

small in the face of this overwhelming and violent body of water. At night, the video shines

brightly; from outside the placement of the paper creates silhouettes of the rocks and the

landscape I was overlooking. During the day, with the sun shining through the window, the

video is less intense and at times barely visible. This speaks to the idea that in our modern

technologically driven world, we have a false sense of comfort. Just because we do not see the

storm, does not mean it is not there, it is inevitable. Natures fury returns, just like the video at

nightfall. The integration of the text began as a tool to engage the audience, as they recognized

pieces of words, they stepped into the work this time without asking permission.

Having granted myself the freedom to incorporate the text that accompanied many of my

walks, my process took on a new dimension. After confronting the viewer with a large,

aggressive work inHer Ferocious Strength, I now wondered if I could create that same invitation

to physically engage my work on a much less grand scale. The resulting set of works are entitled

The Elders Echo (fig. 15a & b) and Walk Path: Denali (fig. 15c), based on a walk taken in

Alaskas Denali National Park in August 2010.

These two works are installed in close proximity of one another. The first, Walk Path:

Denali, is an eight-foot tall map of the path I walked, marked with 500 white map tacks,

climbing the wall. Those tacks barely raise 1/2 an inch from the walls surface, camouflaged by

their matching color to the wall paint, they quietly wait for their shadow to be noticed. Not far

from them, again camouflaged in white, is a shadow box where surface paint has been scraped

away to reveal an image. This image is from one particular point on the walk as the trail I took

brought me to Echo Lake. It takes a moment, but the viewer realizes there is something not quite


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right. The image is not quite focused, it has been stripped of its color and it then has a soft

wobble. There is also the faint sound of birds, but again it is not quite right. The sound has been

slowed to the point of still being recognizable, but prompting the viewer to investigate. The

wobble on the screen reveals itself to be a video loop as letters come across the screen, at first

not recognizable as words. These letter combinations are the original saying in Yupik Eskimo,

they fade to their English translation: What you do not see, do not hear, do not experience, you

will never really know.

This quote had been part of a Smithsonian exhibit in Anchorage that I had seen on this

trip. The essence of this walk was about profoundly understanding this concept. These places

that I walk and record and translate are not done to help the viewer understand them. They are

not a travel journal meant to romanticize the environments I explore. My walks are simply the

catalyst for asking viewers to reconsider their own movements through the world. The shared

experiences I look to create with these installations involve sharing the essence communicated

by the works, not sharing in a place they have never traveled. Had I simply hung the original

photo of this picturesque lake surrounded by breathtaking mountains, it would have been passed

by because we all have seen that, or some version of that, before. The manipulation of the video

is intended to make the viewer stop and question what they are seeing. If Long had put one of

the stones on display from Crossing Stones, the discussion would have focused on the qualities

of the stone and not the implications of his actions. My video brings the viewer no closer to

experiencing this point on the earth than the neighboring map tack piece that runs up alongside

it. However, both ask the viewer to consider how they have moved through their own space and

what they have experienced.


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(fig. 15a) The Elders Echo, 2011

9 x 12 Shadow Box with Video Loop & Sound

(fig. 15b) Video Still from The Elders Echo, 2011


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(fig. 15c) Walk Path: Denali, 2011500 Map Tacks

96 x 24 x

The final work presented as part of my thesis exhibition explores the underlying roles of

meditation and imagery of water that surface in many of my works. A Small Patient Act(fig.

16a, b & c) is comprised of a circle of dirt, 60 in diameter and 4 high, with a small video

monitor and two foot prints embedded in it. Running on the video screen is the rushing water

that carved out the granite basin from this walk in Franconia State Park in the White Mountains

of New Hampshire. This is a place I have walked for years. Its essence is instilled in me. These


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are the six lines, one at a time, that trail across the screen as you stand before this alter-like

mound:

A small patient act, from that same sun above, once took down a glacial giant.

A small patient act, from water long ago released, bore through the granite that

stood in her way.

A small patient act, from the tiniest grain of sand, polished the inside of this

ancient bowl.

A small patient act has led me to a place as old as time,

where with soft earth beneath my feet I bear witness to water

who does simultaneously create and destroy.

(fig. 16a)A Small Patient Act, 2011

earth mound with video monitor, 60 diameter


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(fig. 16b) Detail View ofA Small Patient Act, 2011

(fig. 16c) Two Video Stills fromA Small Patient Act, 2011

Rhythmic elements, particularly water, reoccur throughout my work. The physical

sensation created by the moving water around me, often surfaces as I refine the substance of each

experience. I see many parallels between the technologies I employ and the bodies of water I

navigate, particularly both their potential to simultaneously serve as connecting and dividing


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forces. These bodies of water put my own physicality into a frame of reference, as I determine

the level of risk I am comfortable with and my own limitations in traversing them. I must make

conscious decisions in how I relate to and move around them. Their fluidity and movement can

be hypnotic, so I must maintain a heightened awareness around them or they will determine my

path. This is much the way technology can be hypnotic in its fluidity and ease of use, but I must

maintain an awareness of its role as a simple tool or it too could determine my path.

Standing before this mound, with only the moving water and text, I am asking if a

meditative moment can be created in a public forum such as a gallery. The essence of the place I

walked was just that, a public, open space filled with people in a state park, yet each person who

stands before the swirling emerald waters of The Basin seems to have at least a moment of

introspection as they witness the power of a small patient act. The placement of the moving

water on the mound invites the viewer to look down and visually block out the room. The

moving water is meant to entrance the viewer as the words very slowly move in and out of the

frame. Can we slow down in a world where most people converse in the short bursts of text

messages? What could we find if we had the patience to look inward for just the length of this

video loop? How aware might we become of ourselves and the space we occupy in that brief

moment? Imagine if that awareness followed us beyond that moment.

The Ties that Bind

My investigations in art have lead me to questioning the poetic notion of space namely

whose space is it? How can a viewer find his or her own space within mine? I am

deconstructing my experiences and creating shared realities for my viewers. I have begun to

initiate a mindfulness of an individuals own physical experiences in how they relate to the


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world. Now, what about my students - the ones who first made it clear to me that virtual reality

was impacting our ability to navigate actual reality? Well, this fall they took a walk. Thanks in

part to a grant from the Greater Hartford Council on the Arts and local curator Christina Vida,

we walked right out of the classroom and through the historic district of our town. Each fall I

begin my students with art challenges that ask them to draw on the visual impacts of our

community. No matter how much I stress the need for them to go out and collect their own

images through photos and sketching, they inevitably wait until the last minute and search online

for images they can compile to inform their designs. In those cases, technology was not a mere

tool, but a driving force as it presented them with images and perspectives that had nothing to do

with them. This fall changed all that as we walked through the town and collected images. From

under bridges to up embankments, they were now informing their own work and technology

became simply a tool to help record those decisions. Each student was suddenly meaningfully

bound to the work they were producing.

I believe that at its very foundation, art communicates the complexity of the human

experience. This complexity is rooted in the qualitative significance of physical experiences and

the intensive relationships that meaningfully bind us to the world. This begins, much like my

work, by using technology to connect to the world around us, rather than disconnect. Through

subtle promptings of becoming aware of our surroundings, my work serves to highlight and

remind people of the physicality of the world around them as they are connected to the others

who also pass through this space. That is where I end this program and begin the next chapter in

my artistic journey, with those people who I have been quietly asking to pay attention. The

viewer has evolved into a component in my work, so my newest question lies within how I might


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design my future installations with that in mind what sensory experiences will I need to create

in order for my audience to happen on their own artistic process?


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Works Cited

Cardiff, Janet. (2005) Her Long Black Hair: An audio walk in Central Park. New York: PublicArt Fund. http://www.cardiffmiller.com/artworks/walks/longhair.html

Costa, Vanina. "Long, Richard." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. 20 Nov. 2011 .

Daniel-McElroy, Susan, Andrew Dalton and Peter Evens. Richard Long: A Moving World.

Cornwall: Tate, 2002.

Medina, Cuauhtemoc, Russell Ferguson and Jean Fisher. Francis Als. London: Phaidon, 2007.

Summers, Francis. "Als, Francis." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. 20 Nov. 2011.

Talbott, Stephen L. (1995). The Future Does Not Compute: Transcending the Machines in Our

Midst. Sebastopol, Calf.: O'Reilly & Associates.

Tufte, Edward. Beautiful Evidence. Cheshire, CT. Graphics Press. 2006

Documents

Qualitative Significance and Intensive Relationships in the Digital Age