I am interested in the exchange of information and knowledge within informal contexts. During the past four years I have explored possibilities surrounding public participation and collaborative art projects.
The value of this type of work is in the experience of learning and art making and not as much in the final material result. Often these projects are in the format of site-specific community workshops.
The participants, topics, and methodology for these workshops varies according to local resources and the needs of a specific community. Inexpensive recycled materials and fun are important components of the workshop experience.
I like to organize events that motivate groups to use inexpensive, free, or recycled media to develop art projects. Some of the activities instruct others in the use of open source software or simple electronics for creative or artistic purposes.
Through these workshops I want to make technologies and art methods approachable to non-artistic communities and spaces.
In the near future, I want to continue collaborating with communities and doing research on interactive systems and circuit bending. I’ve been working on interfacing micro-controllers with the computer and I would like to incorporate this knowledge in my event-based and participatory work.
My Teaching Philosophy: fun but productive
Every morning I go to my students, I want to generate a friendly environment for communicating ideas and being creative. I think teaching and learning art should be a fun process and a very personal experience.
My role as a teacher is to keep groups and individuals motivated.
I have developed exercises that train students in the use of software, studio work and art concepts without limiting their personal interests. For example developing the "shape sheet" a two-dimensional visual game that introduces the topic of composition and negative space.
My group critiques are meaningful learning experience by the use of participatory methods and fomenting discussion of the projects presented.
I bring to my studio classes examples from art history that deal with the specific conceptual or media problems that are assigned in the classroom.
In one of the teaching evaluations one of my students described my class as "fun but productive", I never thought of it in that way, but I like the idea of making others enjoy the art making process.
