[ISEA2015] Artists Statement: Sarah Lahti & Jesse Gonzalez — Decoration as a Form of Disruption

Artists Statement

This talk is about both a work of art that I am currently creating, its process, challenges, and moments of success, as well as, very briefly, how this current work fits into my own body of work as an artist. I am in the process of creating an interactive Arduino/ Raspberry Pi based LED light board piece, that hangs on the wall like a painting, and responds to viewer input. As an artist, I really started out making paintings, and I bring a painters sense of light and color to my multimedia process and final pieces. Painters are inspired by different things; me, I love light and color. So it was all the colored lighting, in all its various forms (OLED, LED, Vacuum tube, etc. etc.) that finally pulled me into working with interactive electronic art.
The concept behind this piece is that the act of creating decorative art pieces can be a meaningful activity that is inherently disruptive. It can disrupt the status quo of the artist, by revealing the workings of the artist’s unconscious mind. I cannot state strongly enough how central that disruptive process is towards meaningful growth as an artist. I also believe that once an artist shares their work with an audience, that work then has the power to disrupt (and thereby enhance) whatever particular discourse is going on, and thereby change that discourse.
The practice of making interactive electronic art is so satisfying to me because I feel like I am using very contemporary tools to express myself, and, in the process, learning about different technology systems. There is also something very satisfying about conquering a given set of technologies and understanding them, be it the electrical wiring on the power supply of a certain component, and getting it right. There is also something satisfying about seeing a gallery audience member interact with your piece, and seem to come away with a positive experience.
I also love artwork that has a strong sense of play in it, there is an entertainment value in physically interacting with an artwork, and gallery viewers perhaps like to be entertained. However, as most artwork traditionally is not meant to be touched, I also find a disruptive quality to interactive electronic work simply in its nature, within the fine art viewing paradigm, because it turns that idea of “look, don’t touch” inside out. So, for me, decorative electronic art is disruptive in several key ways, and it is these ways that have become very interesting to explore and create work around.

For a similar electronic work from ISEA2014, whose concepts form the jumping off point for this 2015 piece, see:
Ben Bogart, Sarah Lahti & Christian Kantner — Picturing El Nido (Paradise on Earth) 

Video: Paradise on Earth, 2014

  • Sarah Lahti, Associate Professor CACE, Zayed University, Dubai, UAE. sarahlahti.com
  • Jesse Gonzalez