Images from the performance courtesy of the Bloomington Playwrights Project and photographer Thomas Miller.

Dreaming of Forests

I was commissioned to make this video by playwright Doug Bedwell for his play Dreaming of Forests as a companion piece to be shown as a dialogue and/or critique of the play in between its three acts. In the play, Charlie, an artist, must decide whether or not to create work that supports a governmental push to build a coal plant in part of a national forest. A dark comedy, the play explores alternative martial and sexual relations as well as responsibilities towards the planet and art.

Environments

"I have always suffered from…the uneasiness of being a subject torn between two languages, one expressive, one critical" - Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida

This series looks at three non-physical, memory-based environments which, though they are difficult to define, shape the daily life of an individual. Everything, All At Once considers the environment of a family structure, and the feelings of abandonment and empowerment a young person feels upon remembering that environment's imperfections; Dreaming of Forests (video), which accompanied the play Dreaming of Forests by Doug Bedwell, looks at the physical environment, and the struggle of balancing the responsibility to a larger cause against the desire of personal interests; and Dissolve, a collaboration with composer Jonathan Sokol, struggles with memories and the past, and how their repeating and changing nature constantly creates an environment the individual lives in.

This three year project is composed of three thirty-minute videos, each of which uses expressive and introspective imagery, animations, found footage, and digital video to explore alternate environments created by memories. Each shared the same goal of taking a closer look at the non-physical, intensely personalized environments that inform our personal daily decisions in our shared environments.