Saturday, March 1, 2008


What you see here...

I remember from a very young age looking out onto the drive through the kitchen screen door of my Grandparents house. I must have stood there for some time; this memory is always present... I remember thinking intensely on the idea of my mortality, and I had this fear inside that prompt me to ask, "Grandma, when am I going to die…?" She looked at me, smiled softly and said, "Not for a very long time my dear!" This question has never subsided. This commonality we all share, and it's in this, that these images hold their weight. I feel that even though we struggle with the inundation of ideas and multi mediafication of mind numbing entertainment, this question still finds its way to the surface. In light of recent events here at NIU, the concept of foraging on is plastered all throughout the community. This will inevitably happen, and the curatorial presention deals with a way in which this occurs.


My work is about mortality. The images representing individuals in sterile clinical spaces subvert the original intention of what were medical journals/industry advertisements into the read of who is doing what to whom and why are they doing it; giving life or taking it? They also bring to mind the ongoing debate of Social Security, as well as; are we secure and should we trust those in our social spaces?

When we think of social spaces, we cannot leave out the online communities. And we must assume that these new communities are being forced to deal with the issues of mortality in a real way as well as the mortality of this artificial realm. The Myspace drawings are from an unaltered profile of a Myspace user that has died of a drunk driving accident in which she was driving. The full scope of this project is not so much about her, but about the way in which her online friends deal with their loss.


Their grief is self-voyeurism as it oddly reflects the communication they had with her via "Comments" while she was alive.

As it goes with most ideas about this human dilemma, people avoid or people gravitate towards a fix. Here I offer up the perfect blend. Masters of The Universe, my favorite childhood cartoon.


He-Man "The Most Powerful Man in the Universe" and the diametric "Evil Lord of Destruction" Skeletor allegorically mimic the (after-life) Judaeo-Christian tradition of good and evil. They embody the power we wish to hold over our mortality while offering an entertaining alternative to directly dealing with questions similar to that of, "Grandma, when am I going to die…?"