Join us for the opening reception of the 24th round of Art on the Marquee on February 29 2018! See nine new videos created specifically for the 80-foot-tall seven screen Marquee! The reception at BCEC is free and open to the public, but please register in advance here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/art-on-the-marquee-opening-reception-round-24-tickets-43105017267

A full list of the works in the 24th Round of Art on the Marquee can be found here: http://www.artonthemarquee.com/artworks/

To learn more about Art on the Marquee visit: http://www.artonthemarquee.com/

This is Just a Test (Self Portrait) is a conceptual, abstract, autobiographical piece created specifically for Boston Cyberarts and the marquee.

People close to me know that I don’t really like to share too much about myself publicly or to use my personal experiences explicitly in my work, so I thought it would be funny if I made a self portrait that was 80 feet tall with my native city as its backdrop.

The way in which this is a self-portrait has a little bit to do with my history as an artist—I moved towards making conceptual and engagement-based work from the experimental film/video world, and while studying anthropology. Two layers of what you are viewing here are related to that experience: The formal focus on video test bars relates to my previous preoccupation with formal elements of film—like the frameline and branding bursts—that we don’t usually pay much attention to, but which can have great influence.

The fleshy color palette here references structural racism encoded in cinematographic color tests (which the field of anthropology perpetuated by incorporating into its fieldwork practices.)

The proportions of the flesh tones in This is Just a Test (Self Portrait), as well as the colors moderating between them and the traditional video test bar palette, were generated by a consumer genetic test. So this is also a report on the results of that test—a data-graphic portrait of my personal genetic history.