Grad Research Artist Statement

Through years of self-deceptive practice I have been creating work which, while grounded in theory and “so called” universal ideas, has secretly been a discussion of my personal story. Without confronting this fear of turning the camera on myself, my work has suffered from a hazy lack of focus. Past works about gender, video games, and cancer have each individually told a small interesting story of my life. The flaw of these previous works is that those stories were hidden; hidden behind talks of gender identity, violence of the video game culture, and the construction of grandiose intellectual themes from academia.

With this understanding I have turned the camera onto myself. While still discussing the subject of cancer, I have begun to look at the ethical questions of creating this body of work. Through the use of personal video dairies and recorded conversations with the participants of the work I hope to create a video that looks at the process an artist must go through while at the same time documenting my own personal struggle with the subject matter. With this new shift I will create a more interesting story while still engaging in a critical dialogue on art making.