Biography
After two months in Italy in 1983, I realized that viewing art in the typical “White Cube,” is radically different from the immersive environment of art, architecture, landscape, and street life that was an artist’s arena for most of history. Seeing great works I’d known only as slides within a cultural context was a radicalizing experience. I resolved to devote my career to installation art and to create active, engaged viewers. A transformative moment came in Giotto’s Arena Chapel in Padua. In its time this work was as taboo smashing as anything we see today. Giotto’s big leap into humanism was driven by an ambition to tell a deeper story. The frescoes fill the chapel, enfolding the viewer in world of ideas and emotion. We’re still enmeshed in a world layered with narratives, philosophies and points of view that are rich as well as absurd, confusing and contradictory. My work endeavors to bring these unseen worlds to life in a way that allows viewers to move through them and to interact with them in an intimate way. I build participation into my work, making spaces interactive using electronic media, artist’s books, architecture, and landscapes the viewer is invited to touch and explore. Broader participation is fostered in collaborations outside the art world, such as my investigation of scientific imaging with ornithologist Brett Tobalske; or in working with communities, such as the harvesting of corn at “Travelers’ Rest” by local gleaners. Modern life can rob ordinary people of a sense of agency. I want to viewers to experience themselves as participants in a meaningful cycle of life and shared culture. Increasingly I use art and technology to plumb our common experiences as interactive video becomes a major part of my work. This allows an expanded circle of participants, while maintaining a commitment to the contemporary world. I consider myself a sensualist and conceptualist as I employ lush physical and technical means to convey the ideas that are driving the work.
