<p> More so than any other time in history, humans are being exposed to an enormity of digital images every day. The internet, combined with accompanying technological advancements in cellular communication has created an exceptionally chaotic visual experience within the daily lives of millions of people. Through the use of digital photomontage, my artwork attempts to quantify and evaluate the impact that thousands of digital images may have on the emotional and psychological state of human beings. Concurrently, I am in interested exploring the mental repercussions of visual overload, specifically, how chaotic digital experiences may impact the quality of the human condition as a whole. I use the internet to recontextualize found images through a variety of digital manipulation methods to create a system of aesthetic and conceptual relationships. Each collage is comprised equally from images I have produced myself, and appropriated images found on the internet to indicate the increasingly ambiguous boundary between our physical and virtual realities. I often use images that imply a war-like opposition between our natural and technological environments. I believe such images are indicative of the conflicts that take place on a psychological plane of consciousness within our minds every day as we strive to cope with our new digital reality brought forth by rapid technological advancement.</p>

<p>This research project analyzes the history between fashion and art and investigates several recent collaborations between designers and artists, with the intention to distinguish the benefits each brand receives through the affiliation with one another. In today?s cultural and commercial market, there are an abundance of new collaborations between designer brands and artists continuously developing. Artists are recognized through gallery and museum exhibitions, as well as through auctions, but what many fail to observe is that artists are being acknowledged through the fashion industry as well. Although there are several collaborations that have already been extensively researched and analyzed, there are countless others that need the same scholarly attention. Through the process of research and interviews, both artists and designers are studied and questioned in regards to their participation within the collaboration. The case studies included analyze the benefits and outcomes of the brand alliance between designers and artists.

<p> This paper discusses the relationship of ideas to their media, through the relationship of contents to a book and through the use of aesthetic barriers. The conceptual content of the artworks produced center around epistemological self-betterment and practical mysticism. I discuss in this paper my thought process, the work itself, and the works intended functions. I discuss the idea of the book and my rationale behind working in printmaking.</p>

<p> <i>Hot House</i> highlights the current evolution of <i>The ManShed</i>, an ongoing solo project that takes the form of a multi-screen video installation and accompanying film set. Beginning in summer 2013, <i>The ManShed</i> refers to an enclosed, two-roomed meeting place built from conjoined panels that plays host to a series of sexual encounters between myself and other men. Under its roof, an infrastructure of hidden cameras documents these interactions between my body, a stranger&rsquo;s, and material forms that interest me. The participating men were solicited through online services used to locate partners for casual sex, like Craigslist and Adam4Adam, as well as through my involvement with the San Diego Fetish Men and the San Diego Gay Pride event. </p><p> In its first iteration, the resulting video and sculptural elements are organized in a minimal, highly staged environment set in adjacent galleries in the University of California, San Diego&rsquo;s Visual Art Department. Presented in flux, this work represents an ongoing investigation of alter kinships that spring up within gay male communities and the unexpected conditions in which they flourish. Modeled artificially in my project, <i>The ManShed </i> acts as a metaphorical &lsquo;hot house&rsquo; of queer experimentation, breeding a &ldquo;rare species&rdquo; of feeling, exchange, and desire, rooted in the sculptural environment. </p><p> Outside the conceptual formations of project, this exhibition unifies my sculptural and performance-based production under the umbrella of a single work and represents my current direction toward constructed, theatrical environments combined with video display.</p>