Term of Award

Fall 2008

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.)

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (open access)

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Department of Art

Committee Chair

Jessica Hines

Committee Member 1

Julie McGuire

Committee Member 2

Leigh Thomson

Abstract

The challenge of the human condition is to bear the loss that comes with every second, moving forward, breathing without thinking; moving forward, through moments that pass so uneventfully that we will not recall them, along with moments that we experience so profoundly that we begin to use them as landmarks in our personal histories. My view of time is of something that surrounds me and becomes a part of my identity. Yet, as I contemplate what it means to BE, I must face the constancy with which that being also changes. Regardless of the things that I remember, or that I forget, gravity perpetuates the movement of time. Thus, gravity becomes our greatest burden. Through my writing and research, I explore the dual nature of being, and the transient natures of both the intellectual and physical self. In my thesis exhibition, The Lightness of Being and The Burden of Gravity, I employed the medium of video installation in order to provide a space that evoked both the ephemeral and the physical sense of being. In my support paper, I discuss this exhibition in depth, as well as my conceptual connections to literary and artistic influences, such as the writings of Milan Kundera and Jorge Luis Borges, and the work of artists Masao Yamamoto, James Turrell, and Ann Hamilton.

Research Data and Supplementary Material

No

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