Graduate / SOP First Paragraph MFA Application concentration art & social practice [5]

Thanks. I have been trying to figure out a way to compress that bit "clarity/distortion, reality/falsity, displacement/unity, motion/stillness" , but my brain is just not working!!

Graduate / SOP First Paragraph MFA Application concentration art & social practice [5]

Any feedback on the rest would uber helpful. I started out strong but lost it some where. The essay requirements are just to give an artist statement; I tried to tailor the statement to demonstrate past work, future ideas and what I hope to obtain via graduate study for an MFA in Art and Social Practice. Thanks & Holiday Cheers.

-Reese

When stripped of the black and white logic of narrative voice, recollections of the past become equally as challenging and elusive as recounting the events of a dream. Via the digital tools of video art, my work investigates this multi-narrative plane of personal memory. Its prime contextual focus centers on social constructs in agreement, conflict, development and reduction. My creative interests neither lies in the collection nor presentation of the truth, but in exploring methods of remembering. In performing, documenting and digitally manipulating memories of personal history, I have found that what results is less of an accurate, or even abstract, depiction of past events, but more a record of new memory with footing in all tenses of being. Upon entering the practice of video art via self-portraiture, my use of video has shifted away from a process of locating and visualizing remembered experiences, to the performance of memory in a state of collapsed certainty. As an ever-evolving technology, with an inherent ability to simultaneously construct and deconstruct duality in all modes of form and content, video acts on its own as an absolute representation of memory actively performed. Functioning as container, tool and voice, the technological art of video drives my artistic identity and creative possibilities.

Advances in the various technological means by which video art is produced allows for new ways of telling, viewing and feeling the human story. I see my future in video art as existing beyond the single channel and asking for more than just the viewership of the spectator. The level of interactive engagement that I plan to pursue seeks modes of interaction that exceed binary choice. Of its many examples, technological progress makes possible 3D projections, editing in real-time and interactivity triggered by wireless biometric sensors. Merging such interactive technologies with the art of first person storytelling spawns a new narrative engagement concurrently controlled by artist/(author), subject and audience. This interactive exchange further enhances the authenticity of the subject's voice and allows the audience to place themselves in uncharted territories guided by the comfort of their own hand. I do not want to use technology as just a new display case for art, but to assist in carrying the story of art passed institutional / traditional walls and spectator safety zones.

Embodying a diverse array of minority identities, my work will always attend to the flux of those constructs as experienced. However, an internal demand pushes me toward explorations of personal histories outside of my own, experiences that exist between the continuum of alignment and opposition. I wish not only to make art about the lives of others, but also to make art with and for the potential other. Ensuing from this triadic process would be the exhibition of the artist's interpretation, the subject's interpretation and a combined interpretation of artist and subject. Art in both the collaborative and participatory sense still privilege(s) the artist's interpretation over all; my creative ambitions look to further complicate, redefine and expand these artistic practices.

The ideas expressed in this statement act as points of departure toward paving a new course for my artistic practice and thought. Not only do I want to use video for further self exploration, and to critique personal experiences within the larger politics of contemporary society, but also to simply tell stories, create atmospheres and moods, exploit its potentials, and to produce visually sonic and sonically visual all encompassing environments. Video art has served as my entry medium, an impetus that encouraged an in depth study and practice of art in all contexts; but video art does not punctuate the limits of my creative nor my intellectual imagination. In pursuing an MFA in Art and Social Practice at Portland State University, I bring with me more questions than statements about the process and reception of art. Undergraduate courses in the humanities and social sciences have focused my critical eye, where courses in narrative filmmaking, video art, and interactive new media art have guided my creative hand. Life experience coupled with academia catalyzed many unfinished spiraling internal conversations about art's observance of society that only hope to maintain the vigor of thoughts in progress in the pursuit of graduate study.