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© Tra Bouscaren

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Tra Bouscaren

Buffalo, New York

Artist Statement

“Pollution is in fashion today, exactly in the same way as revolution: it dominates the whole life of society, and it is represented in illusory form in the spectacle.” --Guy Debord, "A Sick Planet"

My work engages American spectacle at the crossroads of waste culture and the surveillance state.

Orphaned objects form the material basis of my practice. My site-responsive process begins with pulling materials from the local waste stream that bear symbolic, indexical, and poetic resonance with what I identify as the toxic underbelly of American culture.

Aggregating these waste materials into networks of provisional sculpture, I then submerge them into a projection-mapped, multi-channel video bath built out of live surveillance feeds taken from within the gallery itself. Projecting the live video capture of the exhibition-viewer back onto the material trash of the exhibition, my work implicates the spectator back into what they have arrived to judge.

© Tra Bouscaren

Tra Bouscaren's Portfolio

“Neon Robot Iceberg”, collaborative installation with John Schlesinger, Fort Mason Center for Art & Culture, 2,200 SF, 2016. Materials: neon, styrofoam, painted photos, cast steel, medication bottles, chain, interactive projection.
“Dear Volunteers”, collaborative installation with John Schlesinger, AC Institute, NY, 1,300 SF, 2016. Materials: neon, rebar, styrofoam, painted photos cast in epoxy, lab clamps, security cameras, projectors, computer, algorithmically generated interactive projection-mapped video.
”Projection Theory Slant Rhyme Institute
PEACE MOVEMENTS, public interactive projection and performance projects in collaboration with the Collective Action Studio, Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco 2018.
PEACE MOVEMENTS, public interactive projection and performance projects in collaboration with the Collective Action Studio, Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco 2018.
“Dear Volunteers”, collaborative installation with John Schlesinger, Lola 38, Philadelphia, 1,800 2017. Materials: neon, rebar, styrofoam, lab clamps, security cameras, projectors, computer, algorithmically generated interactive projection-mapped video.
”New Works
”New Works
“Dear Volunteers”, collaborative installation with John Schlesinger, AC Institute, NY, 1,300 SF, 2016. Materials: neon, rebar, styrofoam, painted photos cast in epoxy, lab clamps, security cameras, projectors, computer, algorithmically generated interactive projection-mapped video.
“Cotton Candy Panopticon
“Cotton Candy Panopticon
“Cotton Candy Panopticon
“Cotton Candy Panopticon
“Cotton Candy Panopticon

© Tra Bouscaren

Artist Biography

I am an installation artist and researcher working at the intersection of algorithmically generated interactive video and site-responsive sculpture. Trained in Philosophy and Art at Yale and Penn, I am finishing a PhD in Media Study at SUNY Buffalo. My work has been featured at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Victor I Fils Gallery in Madrid, M3 Kunsthalle in Berlin, Czong Institute for Contemporary Art in Seoul, National Museum of Art in Addis Ababa, Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture in San Francisco, The Wrong Biennale, Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia, and New York's Lincoln Center. My upcoming schedule includes projects with MOCA Tucson, the San Diego Art Institute, the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, and the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin.

www.tra-bouscaren.com

@fieldtripprojects

© Tra Bouscaren

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