Date of Graduation

5-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts in Art (MFA)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Art

Advisor/Mentor

McConnell, Mathew S.

Committee Member

Cassiano Alvarez, Renata

Second Committee Member

Edwards, Vincent A.

Third Committee Member

Posnak, Adam

Keywords

Art; Digital; Domestic; Everyday; Fabrication; Installation

Abstract

Overpowered is a temporary installation of a tiled living room, modeled after my own living room in a rental apartment in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It takes its name from a kind of sci-fi electro-disco love song released in 2007 by Roísín Murphy, who breaks down romantic attraction into preprogrammed meanings, chemical needs and matching data - and her sense of losing control, succumbing to the overwhelming forces at play. My installation is borne from a similar feeling. It is a continuation of a navigation of daily life under the pressures of external forces exerted by the various systems that underpin society and dictate our actions, thoughts and feelings. It invites viewers inside a minimalistic tiled living room in the United States, and surrounds viewers with imagery in the form of lithophanes. The lithophane is an 18th century French light-activated porcelain technology that commonly depicted genre scenes - ordinary people doing ordinary life activities. As viewers enter the space they are positioned inside an inverted lithophane, joining a genre scene, where select imagery is projected at them: trapped animals, emoji paintings, television advertisements and a glowing window. Expanding upon the cultivation theory - that long term effects of television viewing skews our perspective of reality - Overpowered places particular emphasis on the way digital technologies influence our day-to-day reality. It also considers the roles of monopolization, homogenization, nostalgia, and facade as neoliberal Capitalist strategies of control. The installation reflects a time of all time institutional distrust across the Western world, of accelerating technological advancement and of information overload. It questions the notion of agency, and represents an ongoing grapple with existential considerations. It is both contemporary and foreboding, real and speculative, borrowing from popular television programs like Black Mirror and video games like Minecraft and Candy Crush.

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