CREEP S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 4
A C U L T U R E M A G A Z I N E
ISSUE No.4
IVY WINTERS
LIFE’S A DRAG
WE’RE SECRETLY WATCHING YOU.
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ZARAH CHENG
11 Songs to Play in the Background While You Scheme and Plan For How You Are Going to Sneak into New York Fashion Week Say You’ll Be There by MØ Weekend by VÉRITÉ Dripping by Blonde Redhead Two Weeks by FKA Twigs In Your Home by White Lung Audacity of Huge (feat. Chris Keating) by Simian Mobile Disco Malachite by Lydia Ainsworth Dangerous Days by Zola Jesus The Chase by SOHN Instant Crush (Daft Punk Cover) by Say Lou Lou A Kiss Goodbye (feat.Charlotte Gainsbourg, Devonté Hynes and Sampha) by Emile Haynie
EDITOR’S NOTE I’m going to tell you about how I snuck into New York Fashion Week and then got kicked out fifteen minutes later when I tried to get backstage. I was planning on hanging out around the Lincoln Center entrance and taking photos of fabulous people for this month’s fashion feature. But then when I actually got to the event, I decided that I was going to sneak in. Just like that. It was one of those ideas that get into your head and the minute you think it, you know that you have to do it. Kind of like when you decide to take that “last” shot of tequila or give that stranger your number – you’ve committed, now deal with it. Once I accepted that I was probably going to embarrass myself if this failed, I just went for it. I stood across the street for about ten minutes and just watched where everyone went. Models went in through the backstage entrance. Ticketholders went through the main door. People wearing all black and carrying large stuff entered through the alleyway. And photographers went through the media entrance. This was where I wanted to go. I was carrying a camera bag, wore all black, and had my hair slicked back into a tight bun. I could pass for a photographer. Before I realized what I was doing, I had slipped past the barricades. I sauntered (because in reality, I was sweating like a sinner in church, trying to look like I belonged) past a group of important-looking people who were dressed to the nines, up a long ramp, and just walked in. Sweet baby Jesus, I just snuck in to NYFW. There were people giving away free samples. There was a really shiny Mercedes Benz flaunting its luxury automobile-ness as three middle-aged blondes assumed the sorority squat beside it in order to take a selfie. I was slightly hyperventilating, my palms were super sweaty, and I felt like I was in a movie. I forgot how my camera worked. I took a free magazine, realized I had nowhere to put it, and then put it back. There was too much to do and I was overwhelmed. Then I realized that the show was about to start. As I was trying to find the seating area, I walked past the media backstage entrance. And this, my friends, is when a smarter version of myself would have told me, “Bitch, keep walking. Don’t get so greedy. Go watch the show.” Instead, a lame form of myself rationalized, “Shit, Zarah, you stealth like a ninja. You could totally get backstage too. Go for it!” That’s when everything started going downhill. I walked up to the door, was asked to show my media pass (which I obviously didn’t have), and the next thing I knew, I was back on the other side of the barricade. The lesson here is: once you sneak in to something, stay invisible. Also, if you know people are going to be giving away free shit, bring a bigger bag. So at least when they give you the boot, you can enjoy your free samples of perfume while shamelessly accepting your failure. But no matter, I still had an awesome time putting this issue (sans fashion feature) together. I got to hang out in Dumbo for a day with Ivy Winters and the awesome photographer, Serichai Traipoom, who did the shoot. This feature was exciting for me because while in Milan, I spent many a night with my friend, Matt, getting decently drunk on two-euro bottles of wine and indulging in back-to-back-to-back episodes of Drag Race. And on an especially intense weekend of “research” before putting together interview questions for Ivy, I showed up to work on Monday morning snapping my fingers and jabbing my head at Grady, to which he rightfully pointed out, “Girl, what have you been watching this weekend?” Fair enough. Also, if you have a chance, make sure you see a White Lung show at least once in your life. I had to stand relatively still while I took photos in front of the stage at their Williamsburg show, but I really wish I could’ve thrashed along with the people behind me. I’m also really excited to have Katie Torn as this month’s Art + Design feature. The first time that I saw her work was at Bushwick Open Studios, about two weeks or so after I first moved to New York. Her work was unlike anything I had ever seen and it was so great to be able to ask her about her process. Enjoy! With love from Bushwick, Zarah
CONTRIBUTORS John Cheng
SPECIAL THANKS Rabbithole Studio Rachel McCollum
CONTENTS
MUSIC Interview White Lung Interview Lydia Ainsworth
CULTURE Interview Ivy Winters on Drag Culture We spent a day at the studio with the RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 5 contestant as she told us about her coming out experience and how she first got involved with drag. Photo Essay Chinatown in Vancouver, BC With many opposed to the growing gentrification of Vancouver’s historical Chinatown, we explore a neighbourhood still thriving with culture.
ART + DESIGN Feature Katie Torn Commenting on the effects of consumerist culture and excess, Torn creates unnerving, seductive images that oscillate between a physical and virtual reality.
MUS
SIC
WHITE LUNG words and photography Zarah Cheng
White Lung had a rough time getting to Brooklyn. But lost luggage and general van problems aside, the four-piece finally made it to Glasslands relatively unscathed. The band, made up of vocalist Mish Way, drummer Anne-Marie Vassiliou, guitarist Kenneth William, and bassist Hether Fortune, breezed through their sound check with the ease of a band used to being on the road. When their set started a little bit after 11 PM, the crowd went ape shit, which is honestly the best word to describe it. White Lung delivered a show to a crowd that seemed to writhe and pulsate with the same visceral energy matched by the band. Outspoken and hilariously crass, we caught up with Mish before their show to talk about Avril Lavigne and sexual fantasies. In a mutually exclusive context. Obviously.
CREEP: What have you guys been up to since playing Fuji Rock Festival? Mish: I’ve been trying to spend time with my boyfriend and relax. We played a show in Los Angeles. I went up to Vancouver for my brother’s wedding. Kenny has been in Montreal. Anne-Marie is in Vancouver. Hether is in the basement, working on her band’s new album.
LA. Do you find that the music scenes in the two cities are very different? LA is bigger than Vancouver, that’s all. Just a lot more going on but it’s not always both quality and quantity. I hermit out when I am home in LA. I’m looking to increase my domestic skills and move to a country home in Alabama. I’m looking forward to being barefoot and never pregnant.
I heard you guys loved playing in Japan. Does it feel different to play for a culture that is so different from North America’s? Having people care in any continent other than our own is a blessing. We aren’t pop stars. We have low expectations growing up in the circus, you know? The great, big, ridiculous “punk rock” circus. Japan is everything I love: stimulation, organization and professionalism. And everything is open 24 hours.
White Lung has become known for its hard-hitting lyrics about some tough subjects like rape culture and body dysmorphic disorder. Did you guys set out to start this dialogue when the band first started? The lyrics are my thing. I do that alone and no one has any say in it. They don’t even really know what I am talking about until they read the lyric sheet or Anne-Marie and I talk it over. I’ll share with her. Lyrics are extremely important to me. They always have been, as both a musician and just a fan.
You recently relocated from Vancouver, where White Lung was based, to
Back in 2012 in an interview with
Pitchfork, you said that being labeled a riot grrrl band didn’t really bother you. But earlier this May you tweeted that you didn’t want to be called that anymore. What caused the change? I was greener then. I’m still green, but less green. I just got sick of it. It makes no sense. Riot Grrrl was a localized, time-specific political music movement that happened when I was in the second grade in a town I have never lived in. How could we be “riot grrrl”? It logically makes no sense. I just wish journalists would stop being so lazy and instead of comparing my band and myself to the past, just describe what they think it is. I get that readers need a reference point, but it boxes us in. Unfortunately, punk music is still very dominated by men. With three-quarters of the band being female, do you guys still have to deal with assholes at shows? Sometimes, but the “punk scene” has never treated us like crap. I rarely experience the sexism I experience in oth-
er walks of life in this scene. I also find that as I get older, my political views become a little more... relaxed. I’m not as angry. I’m willing to hash things out. I’m willing to listen. It’s a better headspace to be in. My passion isn’t lost, I’m just not walking around with my knife out and ready to fight. What’s the biggest misconception that people usually have about White Lung? That we play punk music. We don’t play punk music. We play pop songs at the speed of hardcore. I loved your article, “What I Learned About Style From Avril Lavigne’s ‘Hello Kitty.’” What’s your opinion on artists appropriating other cultures in order to make a buck? With that specific piece... and that song, I mean, my editor was like, “Do you think this song is racist?” And I was like, “Why don’t you ask a god damn Japanese person? That’s who knows... not me. My culture isn’t in question here, what right do I have to say if this is racist or not?” That’s how I felt. So I made fun of the other stuff... the woman stuff. That’s my bread and butter, man. Even if you guys weren’t intentionally setting out to be style icons, the band
dresses super well. Where’d you guys learn to dress so good? My mother, grandmother and Stevie Nicks. Stacey and Clinton taught us nothing. I feel like I’m about to be tied to a chair and locked in a basement forever when I listen to “In Your Home.” What’s the song actually about? That song is about the feeling of wanting to reveal all your deepest, twisted sexual fantasies to your boyfriend, but being afraid of judgment. Being afraid to ask someone to pretend to rape you or double penetrate you before you even know their middle name and why that fear even exists. That fear is stupid. That fear is a cause of so much harm. That fear should be abolished. What does White Lung listen to while on tour? Our headphones or each other’s stupid stories. What creeps you out the most? Short people and horse cocks.
Check out whitelung.ca for upcoming tour dates.
WE PLAY POP SONGS AT THE SPEED OF HARDCORE.
LYDIA AINSWORTH words Zarah Cheng
I sometimes wonder what a trailer of my life would look like. If I were able to choose the music playing in the background of my trailer-cum-montage, it would definitely be a Lydia Ainsworth song because that would guarantee an epicness of the slow-motion, sophisticated, Romantic variety. Currently based in Toronto and signed to Arbutus Records, Ainsworth creates beautifully haunting songs that resonate longing and awakening. Inspired by images of near-death incidents and her own out of body experience, Lydia Ainsworth’s music will bring you to a place of absolute serenity and fill you with a feeling that anything is possible.
photography John Michael Fulton
CREEP: Your new album, Right From Real, is coming out soon. What is the meaning behind the title? Lydia: The meaning behind the title, Right From Real, comes from the notion that the impossible is possible, and all around is all around if you only look hard enough. Right From Real is split into Parts I and II. Was the album conceived as a narration or is there a different meaning to the parts? To me, the songs follow a journey from dreaming to waking life. The album was not conceived as a narration but when the songs were finished, it felt most natural to split them this way. “PSI”, the first single from Right From Real, kind of makes me want to wander through a forest at night. What inspired this song? A lot of things inspired this song from a production standpoint. It went through many permutations until I found a feel that, to me, celebrated the true essence of the lyrics. I started out with a heavy 4 on the floor beat that morphed into a new age Puccini opera before arriving at the final version. I co-wrote the lyrics with my friend Matthew Lessner who is a director I’d worked with on his past films. The song for me is a celebration of longing. A kind of longing that averts cynicism, emptiness, negativity, the stuff that can destroy your sensibility. It’s a celebration of the idea that we do not need to put any strain on our longing. If we believe that the body is in the soul and the soul is divine ground, then the presence of the divine is completely here, close with us.
photography Michika McClinton
photography Jessica Upton-Crowe
A lot of your songs have this wonderful ethereal, orchestral quality to them. How would you describe your songwriting process? Every song on the album had a different path but for the most part, I begin the songs with melodies gathered on walks. Ideas can come from anything… words shared with a stranger, a painting, fireworks over Bushwick. My aim with anything I compose begins with a search to offer another level of experience, of using all your perceptions. The songwriting process for me is the search for tapping into a different spectrum of feeling, one of magic and aliveness, the search to see things a little differently that you never noticed before.
drawn to embodying darker emotions? I haven’t always but after having an out of body experience, I started to become fascinated by art that depicted neardeath experiences. The subjects in Cagnacci’s paintings have such blissful and serene expressions amidst such dark and scary conditions. Those paintings inspired the way I wanted to sound in some of my vocal productions on the album.
“Take Your Face Off ” has some pretty dark lyrics written by Matthew Lessner. How did you two collaborate on putting together the words with the music track? I sent Matthew the song with a melody I had hummed over the track. He sent back some freaky lyrics that I was so amped on yet way too scared to sing, so I omitted the word ‘die’ in the chorus. I sing just ‘oooohhhh’ in it’s place - ‘When you’re last to (die)’
Who are you listening to right now? “Where We Come From” by Popcaan.
You speak a lot about out of body experiences and being influenced by Guido Cagnacci’s paintings of tragic heroines. Have you always been
If you could write the score for a movie, what genre would this movie be? Anything that requires a score composed exclusively for Bulgarian choir and French horns.
What creeps you out the most? I just visited Portland’s “Enchanted Forest” theme park – the Pinocchio animatronic is so creepy.
Lydia’s upcoming album, Right From Real, is out September 30th on Arbutus Records.
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IVY WINTERS photography Serichai Traipoom words Zarah Cheng
The first time I watched RuPaul’s Drag Race was with my friend, Matt, while we were on exchange in Milan. We each brought our own bottle of wine and while we “sipped” our vino and propped ourselves up on our elbows on his bed, I watched this crazy world of drag unfold before me. Like many people exposed to drag culture for the first time, I was completely clueless about what drag actually entailed. What pronouns should I be using? So does Alyssa Edwards want to be a woman or a dude? Needless to say, I was obsessed with queens in sequins from that night forward (thank you, Matt). It was also during this pivotal television moment that I was first introduced to Ivy Winters. And she was flawless. She was working that runway like a model and wearing a dress that she made herself out of photos of her face. I mean, come on! You do not see this queen and not want to reevaluate your life decisions as a woman. Although eliminated on Episode 8, Ivy retains a special place in Drag Race herstory after being named Miss Congeniality for Season 5. And I must say, after being on set with her all day, she deserves every last bit of that title. Down to earth and really just all-around lovely, Ivy is one of the sweetest people I have ever met. Not to mention talented (yes, she made that dress entirely out of hot glue). As we wrap up the shoot and Ivy gets out of drag, I sit down with Dustin Winters to chat about drag culture, ventriloquist dummies, and his coming out experience.
CREEP: Describe Ivy Winters. Ivy: Creative. Innovative. Circus. Drag queen [laughs]. Put it all together. What was your first exposure to drag culture? I was at my grandparents’ house. I was flipping through the channels and To Wong Foo came on. That was the first time I saw drag queens and the first time I saw RuPaul. How would you describe New York’s drag scene? It’s like a buffet – you have everything. You have campy, you have pretty. You’ve got pageant queens, beauty queens. You have a lot of circuit, club kid performers. I mean, I consider those drag queens as well. They may not look like females, but they’re pretty much walking art sculptures and for
me, that’s drag. So you get a bit of everything. To a lot of people who don’t understand what drag is, they tend to automatically assume that drag queens or kings are synonymous with transgenders. Have you ever been put into a situation where you had to explain the difference to someone? Years ago, I think a lot more people didn’t know what a drag queen really was or what they wanted to do with their lives as far as having a sex change or why they did it. When I told my parents I started doing drag, honestly, they were a little bit uncomfortable with it. But I told them that I [had] worked as a clown for eight and a half years and I put on makeup and a costume to entertain people. It’s not a sexual thing – it’s fun and entertainment. And they com-
pletely got it. They came to a show of mine and they loved it. They completely support me now. People just need to understand what it is – we’re just entertainers. Some of the queens on the show opened up about how getting involved with drag, or even just coming out as gay, had created a rift with their families. What was your family’s reaction when you first told them you wanted to do drag? I came out really young, freshman year of high school. And I was super nervous. I told my mom and it was super late. I had a juggling club in my hand as a comfort blanket. Which is strange [laughs]. But I told her, and she cried. She wasn’t upset that I was gay. She was upset by the thought of how hard it was going to be for me to go through high school and through life, period, with ridicule and people making fun and not accepting me for me. After that talk, they supported me 100 percent. My sister came out a year later, and my old-
er brother a year after that. So both my siblings are gay and we have a very supportive family. We’re all very different.
14-year-old girls or boys. Then it skips a bunch, and then a lot of middle-aged women [laughs].
That’s awesome that they’ve been so receptive of drag. Since I first told them and they saw my first show, they understood why I liked to do it. They’re very supportive. My mom helps me rhinestone whenever she’s in town. She loves Drag Race and loved watching me on [it].
Yeah, Fusion set up a play date between Manila Luzon and 10-year-old, Joselyn, after the letter was published and it was so cute! I love Manila. Manila and I go way back. She moved to LA, but I used to make a lot of costumes for her when she was still here [in New York].
The recent mom-written open letter on Huffington Post about drag queens being better role models than Disney princesses made me so happy. Have you read it? No I haven’t, but that’s a really good point! I mean, drag queens, to get out in front of hundreds of people and lip synch or be funny or wear whatever, it says a lot about your character, that you’re comfortable doing that and being true to who you are. So yeah, I can see why kids would look up to drag queens. A lot of my fans are 12 or
Is it intimidating to know that more and more young people are now looking up to you as a role model? I think of it as a blessing because I like to do drag to inspire people, no matter what their age. It gets stressful at times, to have all eyes on you, and you really have to watch what you put on the Internet. I mean, I don’t really have to watch because I’m not crazy [laughs] but for some, I can see them not caring. But I think it’s a wonderful thing. So I have to ask: what was your reac-
tion when you saw the episode that Jinkx [Monsoon] said that she had a crush on you? Well, my first time watching it was live on TV. I had no idea being there that he thought that. He never acted that way when we were filming. But I was sitting at home, watching it with my fiancée and I was just like, “What?! I just talked to him a week ago!” I was shocked. But being there, you’re secluded and you don’t get to talk to your parents, your friends, your boyfriend, your lover or whoever. I mean, I wasn’t seeing anybody at the time of filming but you’re locked in a room and you can only talk to these drag queens so yeah, you’re going to get horny. And you can start having feelings for someone. Jinkx was talking with Alaska and the only thing she said was, “Yeah, I have a crush on Ivy Winters.” And then it blew up to this huge thing! People still tweet me saying, “Oh are you and Jinkx still together?” and I’m like, “We were never
together!” [laughs] I love her to death though. She’s such a wonderful friend and I talk to her when I can. I’ve learned so much new lingo from watching Drag Race: fishy, kai kai, beating someone’s face, reading. Were these terms common in the drag community before Drag Race, or did RuPaul popularize them? It depends on some of the terms. RuPaul has a lot of her own sayings that she’s made famous like fierce, sashay, and shanté. But there’s a lot of drag lingo that has been around for years, like fishy. Michelle [Visage] hates that! She’s like, “Ugh women aren’t fishy smelling. Why does it have to be fish?” But a lot of us mean it as a compliment. Like, “God, you look so believable. You look like a real girl!” It’s hard because you’re always going to offend someone. You’re currently working on an ongoing project involving a stop motion
puppet. Can you tell me more about this? Ever since I was little, I was in love with stop motion animation or Claymation. I loved anything Tim Burton and I would always work on these little play sculptures and puppets and make these short little films. I love making things, so I’ve been making these armature puppets. I’m kind of at a stand still with them right now though, just because it’s really time-consuming and I travel so much. I would really love to do a little intro video or a stop motion of garments. If I ever did a costume runway show, I would love to be able to film it live but also have stop motion garments. [I would] have these little teeny puppet models doing the same show in miniature costumes that I make. It would be so fun! Stop motion is just really time consuming though. For the past three years, I’ve been making a ventriloquist dummy.
Like a life-size one? Yeah a big one. Like Charlie McCarthy or Howdy Doody, those old school, creepy dolls. I’ve always wanted one but to buy one, like a nice one with moving eyes and a mouth with the eyebrows that move…they’re really expensive! I mean thousands of dollars for a nice one. So I bought a book, did some research and I’m like, “I’m just going to make my own.” I sculpted it out, and I have a couple of pictures online from when I started. Right now, it’s almost finished. I just have to make the body, the wig, and the hands. The face is pretty much done with the mechanisms working. Is it a drag queen dummy? Yeah, she’s a drag queen. She’s pretty crazy, scary looking. Have you seen Dead Silence? I just watched that last night!
What?! Aren’t you creeped out with the doll then? Oh, I love it! I liked when all the puppet heads start moving. Anything artsy, puppet, doll-related, I love. I’m not into Barbie’s or porcelain dolls, but if they move and are life-like or have a purpose, I love that. What are you listening to right now? I listen to a lot of show tunes, believe it or not [laughs]. Jinkx’s album, The Inevitable, is amazing. It’s so good. “A Song To Come Home To” is a brilliant song that her best friend, Richard, wrote. It’s just beautiful and the lyrics are pretty. I love her album, it’s very creative and fun. I like Panic! At The Disco. I love the Scissor Sisters, Rufus Wainwright, and old school music like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. There’s just a lot of good oldies out there. What creeps you out the most? I’m not scared of a lot of things. May-
be when spiders touch me…but I mean that’s an obvious thing. I’m not scared of mice or rats or any of that. If spiders get on me or if I see one, but it’s in my bed or something, it freaks me out. Or weird bug bites. Oh! If you have hair in food, and if you chew and swallow it and it gets in your throat, you can feel it…oh god, it’s making me gag just thinking about it right now.
Follow Ivy on Instagram: @ivy_winters
C H I N A
photography John Cheng
T O W N
VANCOUVER, BC
KATIE TORN All images from Katie’s portfolio. words Zarah Cheng
Breathe Deep, 2014. Single channel video. Commission for the Denver Theater District, Denver Digerati 2014.
When you first look at the images produced by Brooklyn-based artist, Katie Torn, you are immediately drawn in to the colours and shapes of your childhood: pinks and turquoises, flowers, and My Little Pony’s. But upon closer inspection, the works take on a darker tone. You may be able to notice floating limbs, eerily hollow gazes from the Barbie-like heads, and sometimes even excremental traces that are reminiscent of Robert Rauschenberg. Commenting on the effects of consumerist culture and excess, Torn creates unnerving, seductive images that oscillate between a physical and virtual reality.
Still Life with My Little Pony, 2014. 3D render, pigment print, 35 x 50 in. Available.
Let Them Eat Cake, 2011. Still from single channelHD Video, size variable, 37 second loop. Available.
CREEP: What inspires your work? Katie: Environmental degradation, the buildup of plastic waste in the ocean, toxicity, and an oversaturation of images and information. I look a lot at modernist painting and sculpture that depicts a deconstruction of the human figure: The Italian Futurist Umberto Boccioni, the Cubist Fernand Léger. I love the French Surrealist, Yves Tanguy. I am inspired by postmodern architecture, ads, Ikebana, Disneyland, David Cronenberg, Photoshopped female bodies in magazines, real dolls, cosplay, the way females are depicted in video games, and my daily experience of navigating through virtual spaces. How do you produce your images? It really depends on the specific piece. Sometimes I start by building physical sets in my studio, which I photograph and videotape, bring into the computer and manipulate using 2D and 3D spe-
cial effects programs. Other times, I’ll create an image or video entirely in the computer using a combination of programs. The main programs I use are Maya, After Effects, Real Flow, Blender, Final Cut, Photoshop, and Unity game engine. It’s the fluidity between these programs and the physical and virtual that enable me to produce my images. There are some nostalgic elements in your work, such as My Little Pony figures and Barbie-like heads. How does this tie into the dialogue of your works? As a child, developing my identity and creativity was entwined with the plastic toys I played with. I used to be so involved with these toys and now, they are a just a pile of plastic junk. They were created to be discarded and outgrown. They are part of my narrative of growing up in a consumerist culture.
Breathe Deep, 2014. Single channel video. Commission for the Denver Theater District, Denver Digerati 2014.
Your piece, Dream House, uses 3D simulation technologies to produce real-time, randomized animations. Why did you decide to leave the narration of this piece up to chance? In Dream House, a monument-like female character, whose body is a highrise condo, shoots household objects out at random which build up on her body. I was interested in using code to make the work generative but instead of using abstraction as most generative art pieces do, I wanted to use an autonomous system to depict the generative buildup of waste that is part of everyday life. A city’s consumption and output of waste has the quality of an autonomous system, so it made sense to use that technology for this piece instead of animating each occurrence ahead of time. Many of your works comment on capitalist culture and the consequences of excess. Why do you feel that this is
an important topic to discuss? I have a love-hate relationship with capitalist culture and excess. I find it beautiful and enticing but at the same time, repulsive and dangerous. I’m in awe of a chemically enhanced orange sunset over an industrial wasteland, yet I know it’s toxic. I think many people don’t want to give up their lifestyles, which are inherently wasteful. It’s hard to do because we’re born into it. I just wonder what the long-term consequences will be. Totems is pretty visceral and shocking when you first see it. What inspired this piece? The idea behind those two video pieces was, “What would a totem look like as a representative of American culture?” I made the pieces during my first year in grad school. At the time, I was building a lot of sculptures in my studio, wearing them like costumes and video tap-
ing myself performing simple gestures. I was also thinking a lot about digital materiality and building virtual sculptures out of working with digital media as a plastic material.
taking a performance seminar with Roberto Sifeuntes. I also took courses in the painting department, working with Scott Reeder and the German painter, Albert Oehlen.
A lot of your images are actually pretty dark and eerie, despite the bright colours you use. What draws you in to this aesthetic? I’m interested in using the mechanics of seduction that one sees in advertisements, especially commercials or television shows for young girls, to present observations on the outcome of consummation and excess.
What was your experience like curating The New Romantics exhibition? A lot of emotions went into creating that exhibition, which was fitting of the show’s statement. Nicholas O’Brien, Claudia Hart and I spent about a year planning The New Romantics. Nicholas and I installed 22 artworks with the help of Eyebeam staff in less than a week and with a very tight budget. It was crazy, but we pulled it off and it was an amazing feeling to see a year’s worth of planning materialize.
You were a student of Claudia Hart. How did she help you discover your voice as an artist? Claudia taught me 3D animation in an art context, which was perfect for what I wanted to say, and that was life changing. But it was the overall education at SAIC that helped me discover my voice as an artist, not just one person. I made Totems and another piece called Defunct before I started advising with Claudia. Those pieces were a breakthrough for me. Everything that I am making now stems from what I learned making those works. At the time, I was studying with Jon Cates and
What creeps you out the most? I hate sleeping alone and I’ve met a number of very creepy doctors.
Check out more of Katie’s work at: katietorn.com
The Calm Before the Storm, 2012. Stills from single channel 3D Animation/HD Video, Size variable, 1:38 minute loop. Available.
Monument, 2011. Still from single channel 3D animation, Size variable, 2:37 minute loop. Available.
(above) Aunt Lizzie, 2014. 3D render, Pigment print, 53 x 38 in. Available.
Dream House, 2013. Two channel real-time 3D simulation. This piece was made possible with the support of Eyebeam Art and Technology Center.
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Photographs by Serichai Traipoom, John Cheng, and CREEP
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