Between Private and Public: The Artist in Flux

This thesis essay explores my growth as an artist over the course of the MAA, Visual Arts Stream. Initially, I investigate a conventional private studio practice that explores ritual (Bataille), subjectivity (Baudrillard), defamiliarization (Viktor Schlovsky) and the act of looking (Mark Lewis). Later, it documents a shifting towards a practice that is collaborative, participatory, or otherwise open to others and that borrows techniques and tropes from community art (Betsy Damon, Suzanne Lacy), social practice (Anthony Schrag, Claire Bishop) and dialogical practice (Grant Kester, Stephen Willats). The thesis art work explored in the essay includes various video projects from the first year of the MAA which demonstrate my explorations of ritual and subjectivity (Waver Dither Falter, Water Oil Wine, Benny). I also explore an ongoing series of projects from the second year of my MAA, which incorporate participation and collaboration with others as a means of experimenting with the possibilities of an open practice (The We Sessions). Though all the works result in immersive video installations around the subject of ritual, the process changes in the latter work. Specifically, The We Sessions, combined with the research essay, question the implications of these changes from historical, artistic, and critical viewpoints, both for myself and also for the art-world at large.