SECAC 2025 chair and presentation in Cincinnati
SECAC (formerly the Southeastern College Art Conference) is a non-profit organization that promotes the study and practice of the visual arts in higher education on a national basis. SECAC facilitates cooperation and fosters on-going dialog about pertinent creative, scholarly and educational issues among teachers and administrators in universities, colleges, community colleges, professional art schools, and museums; and among independent artists and scholars.
On Thursday, October 23, I presented during a session entitled Media Archaeology: Alchemy and Excavation. During this session, one chaired by Christopher Cobillas-Ottinger, Assistant Professor of Digital Media at St. Mary’s College of California, I made the presentation, Anti-Story: Quotidien explorations of art and queer culture via Super 8 film, with the following abstract:
Oftentimes, what is ordinary is what is extraordinary. The tenets of the Everyday, as described in the Whitechapel Documents of Contemporary Art anthology, show “a recognition of ordinary dignity or the accidentally miraculous; an engagement with a new kind of anthropology; an immersion in the pleasures of popular culture; or a meditation on what happens, when nothing happens.” Based in the traditions of Dada and Surrealism, Pop, Situationism and Fluxus, many Everyday artworks are not really about nothing. Indeed, the late American novelist Toni Morrison once said, “All good art is political! There is none that isn’t.”
When the artmaking media and the non-message go hand-in-hand, the result puts the viewer on notice: Pay attention! Such is the nature of the quotidien in my art practice, which addresses issues of identity as related to gender identity and sexual orientation. My medium of choice – Super 8 – has its own vintage characteristics and history that frame viewers’ interpretation of the artworks. In this presentation, I will discuss my art practice and its embrace of Super 8 as a contemporary medium that effectively relays my messages. I also will address technical challenges and unexpected opportunities this media has presented within my creative work.
On Friday, October 24, I chaired the session, Frames of Reference: Contemporary Artistic Applications of Film-Based Still Photography and Motion Pictures, which included four presenters.
SECAC, P.O. Box 9773, Wilmington, DC 19809
secacart.org