Performances and video documentation

›› Creator, Director, Performer ››

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

“Data Humanization” is a term I coined to describe a performance-based practice that plays against and with the increasingly important field of data visualization. In the Data Humanization series, I re-assert the connection of data to human scale and context. The project emerges alongside the field of data visualization and big data analytics, in which large and complex datasets are presented through visual effects that render it “readable.”

In contrast to this trend toward distilling big data, each of my 'data humanization' performances seek to physically “translate” a single data point so that it can be more fully comprehended by myself and others. Chosen data points are numbers that trouble or baffle me, and that I seek to imprint within my body. I invite my audiences to serve as witnesses and aids.

As US culture and power are increasingly militarized, I have observed that much real data is increasingly hidden. Even when it is visible, it is hard to take in – for example, the 120,000+ Iraqi civilian deaths as the result of the (now widely disparaged) Iraq war, the enormity of the destruction wreaked by a bomb with a blast radius that runs a mile in each direction, or the 80+ hours of sleep deprivation detailed in CIA documents that came to light in the declassified summary of the US Senate torture report.

The project series encompasses a number of pieces: 3 Days of Counting (7 years of war), 56 Hours: NOT IN MY NAME, The Sky is Falling… and BLAST RADIUS and The Earth Will Catch Us, The Drum Will Lift Us. With each work, I experiment with new forms of encounter and engagement and understand more about the impact of the practice and its resonance with audiences.

Selected programs and exhibitions:

International Festival of Video art, Madrid, SPAIN
Channels Festival, Melbourne, AUS
The 2017 Global Peace Film Festival, Orlando, Florida
“A Matter of Public Record” Durden+Ray Gallery, LosAngeles, CA
“Sustain& Decay” exhibition, IEEE (Institute of Electrical and ElectronicsEngineers)
“ENERGY CHARGE: Connecting to Ana Mendieta” ASU Art Museum
"In This Together” travelling exhibit honoring the ACLU’s 60th Anniversary in Arizona.

With this series, I am committed to pursuing effective and provocative ways to represent complex interdependencies within and between ecological, socio-technical, political, and urban systems.