Artist Statements

   It seems that artist statements are the part of "art writing" that changes the most, and often in the most drastic ways. As the artist's focus shifts, the statement has to shift accordingly. The following statement is my current artist statement, which goes with the my work in the Midway show.

 

   Games and puzzles are deceptively simple. They use, rely on, and sometimes manipulate, the various social, psychological, and physical systems we use everyday, oftentimes in ways we do not recognize. When we agree to play a game or solve a puzzle, we are engaging with a specific event, often with additional rules to follow. The rules and laws in a game or puzzle keep players within its world, forcing specific player actions at specific times. Players willingly accept these boundaries, with the expectation that fun, excitement, or some reward will come from participating. Likewise, our individual realities are full of similar rules and laws. As a game is built to produce fun, our environments are constructed to produce other actions. While video games are an artistic medium in their own right, I am interested in exploring these games and puzzles, not only as media, but also in the creative potential of the mechanics, visuals, and systems within them, and how they reflect or alter our interpretations of our surroundings. Through re-contextualizing these various systems and mechanics, we can see how they alter our views within them, and thus how they affect our spacial awareness and interaction.