EPISTEME

Digital, 2013 - SLIDESHOW

"Episteme" is a perfect bound full color book of photography and video stills, including a 7″ vinyl record of processed phonography by John Davis and Collin McKelvey. Included is an introduction by Jess Brier, former Associate Curator of Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and an interview of the artists by Maggie Haas.

This collaborative project interpreted workplace interiors, specifically within The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art where both Collin and John also work. As the museum neared its closure for a major expansion and physical transformation, all traces of habitation and day-to-day occupation would be obliterated. As such, the project aimed to capture those traces through poetic response, highlighting fragments of workspace environments, human labor and the passage of time. Published by Little Paper Planes

Interview with Collin McKelvey and John Davis by Maggie Haas at the LITTLE PAPER PLANES BLOG. Review of the book by the SF ART ENTHUSIAST.

CHISINAU, MOLDOVA

Digital, 2006/2007 - SLIDESHOW

I could see the westward gaze everywhere, and no doubt it must be hard to resist, with neighboring Romania having just entered the EU, and consumerism raging throughout most of the former USSR. As I witnessed the country cautiously ponder its identity on the one hand, and hurtle towards consumerism on the other, I sensed a schism between the two primary cultural factions I percieved; those who identify as Russian, and the other who identify as Romanian. Interestingly, it was the Russian Moldovans who spoke the best English and seemed poised to embrace the Western onslaught, while Romanian Moldovans, typically speaking little or no English, appeared cautious, more committed to coming to terms with what it means to be Moldovan. When the Moldovan economy stabilizes, and the country becomes more politically viable, I can only hope that as world financial markets stagger, Moldova will stave off the pitfalls of consumer-capitalist mania, and remain grounded in its forging independence.

These digital photographs were taken while I was visiting as an artist in residence during the Fall of 2006, and while teaching the Found Footage Workshop during the Fall of 2007 at the K:SAK Center for Contemporary art in Chisinau.

LIFE OF SIGNS

Optical, 2003 - SLIDESHOW

"It is not a new cryptography that we need, especially when it consists of replacing one cipher by another less intelligible, but a new diagnostics, a science that can determine the meaning of things for the life that surrounds them. It will have, of course, to be trained on signification, not pathology, and treat with ideas, not with symptoms. But by connecting incised statues, pigmented sago palms, frescoed walls, and chanted verse to jungle clearing, totem rites, commercial inference, or street argument, it can perhaps begin at last to locate in the tenor of their setting the sources of their spell" - Clifford Geertz

These photographs were taken with an optical 35mm point and shoot camera.

SPIRIT IN DESIRE

Polaroid SX-70, 2001 - SLIDESHOW

These photos investigate the interplay between meaning and material culture. A Polaroied SX-70 camera was used for it's immediacy and hyper-saturated look, reinforcing the temporal gratification inherent in consumerism.