I LEAVE THAT TO YOU...

i've been asked from time to time to define my art practice. i never know how to respond to this.  perhaps it is because i am a product of this particular moment where we are seeing the mass amateurization of everything. 

i'm not a pedigreed photographer.  i do, however, own several cameras - two of them Polaroid-  and went to considerable expense to stockpile Polaroid film after it was announced that there'd be no more.  

i'm not a filmmaker nor a video artist per se.  i do, however, film nearly every piece that I make as well as edit the footage, in the past on IMovie and now Final Cut Pro.  though, as yet, i've been unsure what to do with the majority of that footage.

i'm not a performer.  i do, however, have several years of training as an actor and have "performed" in various ways in my own work and the work of others.

i could borrow from language used to discuss of the works of Bruce Nauman and others, "Geoffrey works in various media to blah blah blah," but i fear drawing any sort of comparison to those as great as Nauman. in truth, my influences and my practice are as much drawn from Nauman or Andy Warhol as from Nipsey Russel or any other figure public or private who has infiltrated popular culture/consciousness.  

the best i can say is that i make what moves me and to this question of where that work might fit...i leave that to you.

this is where i used to live

this is where i used to live, a public art piece in which I returned to my hometown and the site of my childhood home. Some years ago the house was torn down. I recreated the ground plan from memory with furniture. As night fell, I sat on a couch and watched the movie, "Stripes". Over the week leading up this event, I recorded over 30 hours of footage including interviews with family and other residents.

this is where i used to live (2008)

gross national product

Gross National Product, a project born of some recent travelling abroad. I was put in that familiar position of critic and at other times defender of America. I came back wanting to engage myself and others in a dialogue asking... just what is our national identity? How do we see ourselves and how are we seen by others? In other words, what exactly are we exporting? I cast the net as wide as I could (facebook) and encouraged people to respond by answering in one word, the following question: what would you say is a Gross National Product? I took the submitted words, translated them into images and snapped polaroid photos using the submitted word to title each work.

ideology (2008)

whites only

whites only (2007), video piece in which I took the familiar symbol sign for a drinking fountain and turned it into a series of still images. Next I manipulated each frame until the image had degraded into nothing. I knit the resultant frames together to create this short animation.