Julia Kouneski
My work is not material driven, but rather experience driven. Instead of using materials as a starting point, I think of the experience I want the audience to have as the basis from which I work. This experiential nature relates to my interest in bodies, which is a common thread in much of my work. I like to think about bodies in a broad sense, encompassing both the exterior physical body and the internal sensing body. I am interested in the way in which we move through and interact with our environment with our bodies. I explore this through sculptural and video installations, as well as photography.
I am influenced and inspired by the work of artists during the 1960’s and 1970’s. During this time, artists pushed the boundaries of the discipline to create new forms out of the gallery such as earth art and performance art. It is this spirit of experimentation that inspires my work.
Along with the experimentation of the 60’s and 70’s, dance is an influence in my work that I have become more aware of recently. I started taking modern dance classes in college and became interested in the internal sensing that is taught, of sensing the energy through one’s body and sensing one’s body in space. The experiential nature of dance directly connects to the experiential nature of my work, involving the relation between oneself and the surrounding environment.
In addition to this experiential quality, my work relates to dance in other visible ways. My pieces often involve movement, taking the form of kinetic sculptures and video installations. There is frequently a performative quality to the work, in which I video myself moving or stage photographs. Pieces such as this have involved video of myself rolling down a hill and making prints in the snow with my body. I then project these onto various surfaces. For example, I projected myself rolling down a hill onto a stairway. In this way, people physically passing through the space have a relationship of their own bodies to these tiny projected bodies. I use myself as the subject in these pieces not in an autobiographical way, but as a way to visibly put myself in the work. The process of performing and playing in this way is one of the most fun aspects of creating the piece for me.
In some of my other works, it is the audience who becomes the performer. These pieces are more directly interactive, requiring participation for the success of the piece. Drop me up and Lift me Down, a collaborative piece, centers around a 40 ft. by 40 ft. black plastic tarp. The participants, or “performers� hold onto the tarp and play with it: lifting it, running through it, sitting inside it. This piece changes according to the participants and according to the wind.
Last semester I had the opportunity to expand the possibilities for interactive pieces in New Media: Making Art Interactive. In this class I created an installation in which an object responds to a person’s breathing. The person wears a strap with a sensor that rests on their upper chest. When a person’s chest expands, this pressure makes an electrical connection with the sensor. Then a cricket (a device that creates input from the output of a sensor) makes a motor turn on. This motor is inside an abstract form I created covered with white, balloon material. I then placed this form on the white wall so that it blended in with the architecture and environment of the room. In this way, when the person wearing the strap breathes, the abstract form on the wall “breathes� with them. My idea was to create the experience of a connection between someone’s internal awareness of their body and their external environment.
"Shadow Dancing," another interactive piece, involves freezing people's shadows onto the Barbara Barker Dance Building. This piece takes live video of people in front of a screen with a light that creates shadows. When enough pixels in the frame change, a program called Jitter takes this frame out of the video and projects it. Thus, people must interact physically by making large movements in order to project their shadows. This piece is a good example of the way in which I like to place my installations in “real� locations outside of exhibition spaces. By placing my installations in locations that are themselves full of activity, the interaction between the location and the piece creates an experience that I feel is richer than the sterile environment of traditional exhibition spaces. I often place the pieces in areas where people pass by on a regular basis, thus accessing those outside of the Art building.
Many of my pieces create the experience of a childlike sense of play that is a natural rather than a learned response. I am interested in these natural feelings sparked in children as well as adults, educated as well as non-educated people.
I like to think of art as a broader concept than simply the visual qualities of a piece. I am interested in the feelings people have in their bodies and the actual experience that the piece creates in the audience. In placing my work in “real� environments, the art becomes part of the environment and part of life rather than separate from it. I see my art as a way of experiencing the world by making visible relationships between oneself and one’s surroundings, and inviting people to become active participants in this experience.