johnslep.net

Welcome to johnslep.net. As with all web sites, this site is continually in progress. Please check back periodically for updates.

Update
Upcoming exhibitions include a solo show, "(un)natural" at Catharine Clark Gallery opening January 10th, 2009, and works in "Natural Blunders" at the De Saisset Museum in Santa Clara, CA, opening January 24th, 2009, and "Imaginary Menagerie" at the Palo Alto Arts Center, opening January 25th, 2009.

The video page has been updated with three new pieces from the upcoming exhibition, "(un)natural".

Statement
For the last six years, my project has been to create digitally generated photographs, video installations, and interactive computer installations that investigate what it is that makes us feel human—something that in this world of rapidly advancing, and often paradigm-shifting, technologies, it is becoming harder and harder to delineate. Through the use of some of these very same technologies (3D computer graphics and interactive programming, in particular), I have created a series of works depicting organic forms that are apparently derived from the human body. Though enormously simplified, they exhibit identifiable gestures and behaviors. These virtual objects are clearly fictitious, yet they can inspire empathy, disgust, and fascination. They are intended to elicit an awareness of the disjunctions that can occur between one's emotional and intellectual reactions, and thereby provoke in the viewer a consideration of the process through which we come to identify with the objects of our gaze.

Currently, I am fascinated by idea that our conception of "nature" is socially constructed. There is no "nature" without "culture" with which to compare it. And... most of our ideas about nature (that it is completely other, and untouched by human existence, that it is powerful and wild, and in a kind of unchanging harmony) really began in the 19th century, i.e. quite recently. Nature used to represent difficult uncontrollable phenomenon for most people, many of whom were actively struggling to master it. What I hope to do with the body of work in "(un)natural" is explore that idea, and the way that technology (interactive computer programming, digital imaging, stereography, etc.) can mediate our experience of the "natural" world and reflect our construction of it.

-- john slepian