My work is an anthropological process that fuses the tactics of documentary filmmaking and DJ mixing. My video projects explore how technologies of representation are utilized to (re)construct cultural histories in public spaces, from the built environment to virtual space. By referencing past methods of representation, I intend to heighten awareness of the latent residual effects of cultural perception that continue to haunt our collective memory. Tourist spectacles, consumer environments, and spaces of vicarious experience provide the safe thrills of an affluent society continually reassured by deeply imbedded notions of imperialism, the exotic other, the natural world, and the belief in progress through technological advancement and consumption.
I am also interested in how sampling can function as both a tool of liberation and cultural imperialism, freeing the original source material from audience preconceptions while stripping it of its authorial control. My audio work focuses attention on the signifiers of particular music genres and the implicit qualities embedded in vinyl audio recordings (their materiality as well as their practiced studio techniques). This foregrounding of the tropes and techniques behind the song form is designed to shift listener perception and reframe cultural memory.
These explorations in video installation and live audio performance have fueled the direction for one of my current projects, The Collection Agency, a web-based repository for ethnographic research. The Collection Agency uses the language and taxonomic methods of museum practice as a strategy for institutional critique, while also referencing the obsessive nature of personal collection in technologically-mediated spaces such as the web. Encompassing personal photo documentation and online image search results, The Collection Agency is a photoblog, a research center, a revisionist text, a media sampler, and a cultural snapshot. www.the-collection-agency.org
