Processing Sketches
2021
Artist Statement
New media is used to extend our senses by amplifying the information that we are able to perceive. I use media to reframe how we see ourselves, the environments that we live in, and how we are currently reframing computer vision. It is also effective in terms of data visualization, translating measurable information found within the environment into effective visual imagery. This deeper look into the environments that we inhabit allows for a deeper look at the quality of our habitat, its past, and our involvement in our future. This practice is both socially informed in order to share the work with my community beyond the gallery system and is a means of organizing themes throughout my creative research.
My work seeks to question the intersection of digital and organic elements by exploring natural processes of growth and computer aided processes of growth. I look at impersonal code through the lens of our senses and seek to blur the lines between mechanical action and what we experience or observe as natural. Rather than prioritize industrial production or existing ecologies I am interested in studying the balance and relationship between our actions, interfaces and the environment. I seek to explore the relationship of data to specific organic and handmade processes, considering the intersection between elements as a sculptural and media based system rather than presenting a picture that is symbolic of a system or idea.
In editing I rely on evolving processes ranging from precise, computer aided design to hand drawn animation. My video and real time sensor based work documents how our senses perceive changes in the landscape. Videos are contextualized within installations whose materials are considered for their natural properties to illustrate the structural and aesthetic potential of engineered versus organic development. The intersection of these processes make it difficult to distinguish which elements in the system are produced digitally and which elements are produced by hand. Through these processes I aim to create specific works which are both iterative and immersive.
In my current project I am hacking old Gameboys, analog toys and walkie talkies to create recorded soundscapes of radio waves in the built environment. I am blending my knowledge of coding, hardware hacking and digital fabrication to produce these musical instruments that can be used to triangulate space and sounds from my childhood and the fragmented interactions of city circuits. These recordings and data drawings explore the space of the outer world and the mediated world of memory and identity.
Artist Bio
Marianna Dixon Williams attended Brown University and received a BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design before completing an MFA with a concentration in Time Based and Interactive Media at the University of Pennsylvania. Currently they are an Assistant Professor of New Media at Augusta University.
Williams builds technologies that make systems in our environment more visible, using sensory devices within media installations to augment or reframe space. Often hand-built electronic devices are used to collect data within sites directly, allowing the artist to translate audio or visual material as an index of a given place. The relationships presented through this translation push against themes of loss, place making, navigation, and sustainability.