I am a metalsmith interested in extending the tradition of jewelry and body adornment by incorporating wearable technologies that either affects the viewer or allows the viewer to affect their environment. These wearable machines reinterpret our everyday interactions, and address ideas of control and vulnerability. I build these retro futuristic adornments based off of ancient armor reinterpreted with cyborgian themes.
The history of body adornment is such, that it has long been used for both decorative and defensive purposes. Historically metal was a symbol of both wealth and power. It is power that my work comments on. Throughout human history people who have been in power used metal products they controlled to wield it. Today, though metal is still important to power, silicone and semiconductors are now just as, if not more important. This is why my work blends these two diverse mediums, it is a natural progression of what defensive body adornment has and will become. The time we live in where global conflict, increased surveillance, and a culture fed fear the work comments on these aspects of contemporary life.
I attempt to translate these ideas in many different ways and with many themes, but I always make pieces that are also body adornments. Working from my disciplines history of wearability updated with modern technology, I work both electronically and mechanically to have a diverse range of functions and motion. I work in an intermedia fashion, merging different media and using many materials including plastics, silicones, fabric, and found objects. I always incorporate metal in my work. I also now use a great deal of electronic media including wireless cameras, closed circuit television, programmable chips, as well as "hacked" circuits from many components gleaned from the every day. In addition there is a performative aspect to my work. I use these as well as knowledge in mechanical movement to translate my ideas into a finished work.
As an artist it is my objective that the work makes the viewer or participant see as though they are in a world like those seen in science fiction literature and film. The work is often made to mirror actual technology in use by military forces today, or develop new systems for future defense. It is my intention to help the viewer to realize the conceptual world created in dystopian fiction, and allow the participant to enter it, even if only for a moment. My curiosity in these themes has grown from the times we live in. Technology is developing exponentially and becoming smaller, and more ubiquitous. The military, research institutions, and corporations, all push us forward into what was once the realm of science fiction. As reality now mirrors yesterday's fiction, today's science fiction allows me to dream up new incarnations of potential devices from the future. Though I do not know what this future will look like, in my work I come at it from a darker outlook. Dystopian themes play heavily in my work as much modern sci-fi has a dystopian view of the future and of technology.