Antinomy and Differánce

My work is about how that which is not present, that which evades articulation, is imagined and given meaning. Dithering … the process through which the gaps are imagined into … and liminality are the chief subjects of my work.

Before slipping into unconsciousness there is a moment when one finds oneself in the in-between. In that state it is difficult to know exactly what is reality and what are the free flowing narratives of our own making, or in fact what might be the miraculous manifestations of another realm … yet in this moment we do not question these perceptions. It is a liminal state, a state of slipping in and out of this world.

My works are abstractions based on information perception. Digital processes inform my work. Dithering is a process through which an algorithm is introduced to fill in gaps between bits of information in order to create a seamless image. Dithering is analogous to the human process of re-imagining the bits of information that go into making our reality. It is this human re-imaging where mystery resides. Day to day we live in degrees of the liminal, dithering into the content of our experience.

As an artist, I work through a variety of approaches including Painting, Video, Performance, Text, and Sound. Each approach employs a strategy of abstraction and fragmentation. The link between these works is an interest in a kind of metaphysics that does not deal with a theology but rather with the matter and conditions which underlie meaning and “truth”. In other words I am interested in the substance of an experience and how we re-imagine that experience to give it meaning. I am exploring the exchange between the external and the internal; the material and the immaterial; the commodity and the ephemeral.

In practical terms these interests manifest themselves in my work through my use of a given medium. The goal is for the medium to be massaged away from direct and clear representation to make room for the viewer to “dither” into the gaps or participate in “matrixing” its surface. I seek to create moments where the information has begun to coalesce but not yet to have attained clarity. The moment deals with the insubstantial and not yet known. Whether working through Paint, Video or other means, I am looking for a surplus, for a tension between the material and the immaterial. Notably I mean for the Paint or the Digital as material to assert themselves so that on close inspection the larger “picture” falls away and the marks and bits become the thing themselves. My Paintings and videos and even my books do this. A close inspection of the video “Cartridge” or any one of the “Dither” Paintings breaks down into the material itself. The result are liminal moments … moments of the in-between …

Concerns which drive my work:

Dithering – the process of filling in the gaps of incomplete information in order to extrapolate and project a meaningful image, sequence or cohesive sound

Epistemology – the study of the nature of knowledge, its possible validity

Metaphysical – an umbrella arching over the physical; extremely abstract or theoretical; without material form or substance; originating not in the physical world but somewhere outside it.

Language - the foundation of text and the material of the mind: frames, calls into being, allows conception, provides meaning. It originates not in the physical world.

Material vs. immaterial; commodity vs. ephemera; real vs. perceived value.

Matrixing – in popular culture, the tendency to ascribe meaning and find patterns in random information as when distortions in a photograph are attributed to “supernatural” causes; or when naturally occurring sounds or sights are determined to be of spiritual origin (source: “Ghost Hunters”)

How blind are we? Scientific American