I come from a generation who has grown up on television. As a child, I would watch cartoons without a care in the world. Today I find myself relating everyday experiences to what I have seen on TV.  Shows seep into my consciousness as a way to relate to what is taking place.  As experience comes and goes, I find it comfortable to relate to others by saying “it is just like in the Simpsons when….”. I think this is a natural way of experiencing for someone who has grown up with television as a permanent fixture in our lives.   It becomes a way to relate to others: we have all had very similar experiences through watching the same television shows, or have seen the same images in newspapers and magazines. Having media as universal makes it easy to use forms of media as a way to relate to, and understand our own experiences.  The universals in television are built over time through watching and talking about TV as if it were real experiences, and convincing ourselves they are a meaningful part of our lives. My work is trying to connect the way that I remember and relate to television/media, and how my relationship to media helps me create narrative to connect with others.  Also how others build a similar but separate experiences out of the same moments.

Much of my recent work revolves around the idea of television as a tool to relate to the everyday and create definition within language and communication.  I have been saving countless screen captures (photographs) of my favorite shows, then taking tiny slivers of the original image to create new images which represent my way of remembering. I build up understanding of a show layer by layer, and remember it within the confines of the other media interests at the time. Many of the slivers are unrecognizable while others give away their original nature. The slivers of television images give the opportunity to not see what is visible, then slowly come to the realization of the TV image by the more obvious pieces. The viewer can then have the opportunity for a narrative to be built upon the abstract, and then be reconstructed based on past experience and memory attached to the television show.  This is the same way I communicate with others. When first meeting a person everything is hidden over many interactions with a person I start to understand how they relate themselves and meaning to the words they choose to communicate, after time the past is built upon and mixed with the present, the abstract past is defined by a shared present. I then assume that the meanings of the words that are being used to communicate are the same, but there is never any determination that our dialog is successful, unlike television there is not a defined space experience can be recreated through.  When using television, or any form of popular imagery/text as a reference point for comparison to experience it creates a point of mutual understanding in communication, a place where a memory can be re-experienced and reevaluated in the context of American society.

I want to show that every image that is created can be translated into something new, nothing stays stagnant, and everything evolves with each reiteration and viewing. I also want to create a photograph that is not as precious, it is not a sacred object.