Revision of Amber Eve Anderson from Wed, 01/20/2021 - 05:39

A Demographic Case Study (35-44, woman, Baltimore)

"A Demographic Case Study (35-44, woman, Baltimore)" is an archive of every ad that I viewed on Instagram over a one-week period. Composed of 126 images that almost exclusively depict household goods, the archive presents a self-portrait through the lens of targeted advertising. Objects ranging from rugs to sofas to earrings to soap portrayed amidst orderly, plant-filled, sun-dappled rooms, suggest affluence, aesthetic integrity, and a good night of sleep. The work calls attention to everyday technologies by upsetting the usual means of interaction while also functioning as a playful critique in order to explore how identity is reduced by consumerism. This work was exhibited in my solo exhibition "This is Who I Am Now" at H-Space in Washington, DC.

A Demographic Case Study (35-44, woman, Baltimore)

"A Demographic Case Study" is a sculptural installation of 126 Instagram ads viewed over a one-week period
Detail of Living Room ads
Complete list of Instagram ads

Spread from "Ad Words" (a companion text to my solo exhibition "This is Who I Am Now") listing every ad viewed over a one-week period including the date and time it was viewed.
Exhibition Layout

Spread from "Ad Words" (a companion text to my solo exhibition "This is Who I Am Now") showing the gallery layout as seen in the first image
Detail of Rugs ads
Installation Image

"Rugs" seen in the foreground and "Beds" in the back corner
Detail of Beds ads

All of the bedding (top) and mattress (bottom) advertisements viewed on Instagram during a one-week period
Detail of Exterior ads
Detail of Travel ads

The single travel-related ad I viewed on Instagram over the course of one week
Installation View 2

Ad Words

"Ad Words" is a companion text for my solo exhibtion "This is Who I Am Now" at H-Space in Washington, DC. The book features 11 AI-generated poems based on captions from "A Demographic Case Study," an archive of 126 ads I viewed on Instagram during a one-week period.

Exhibition Companion

Cover of the exhibition companion along with the first two pages of the book.
Front Cover

8 x 5", Staple-bound, 39 pages
Index

Two-page spread showing the book's index
Poem 2: Make the Most of the Hard Work

AI-generated poem based on the captions from one-week of Instagram ads
Poem 7: Everything You're Looking for, Perfect for Your Life

AI-generated poem based on the captions from one-week of Instagram ads
Poem 11: BREATHEFREE

AI-generated poem based on the captions from one-week of Instagram ads
Ad Words

PDF excerpt from the book

Accumulations

"Accumulations" consists of one-of-a-kind objects and images displayed in white frames, including torn wrapping paper, yellow tissues, a map, and pine needles, among other things. The work was exhibited alongside the installation of Instagram ads in my solo exhibition and acts as an alternative self-portrait.

Accumulations (1-17)

Series of 17 frames containing photographs and found objects; each frame measures 12x9 inches.
Accumulations #6-9

Detail of "Accumulations (1-17)" showing frames containing: a card with the letter "U" in a floral script, a photograph of the sunset, a plastic baggie containing seeds, and yellow tissues.
Accumulations #1

The beginning and end of "Accumulations (1-17)" depict the backside of photographs describing my great grandmother's house.
Accumulations #2

The second frame in "Accumulations (1-17)" contains an empty blue tissue packet.
Accumulations #3

The third frame in "Accumulations (1-17)" contains a large pressed dried flower.
Accumulations #4

The fourth frame in "Accumulations (1-17)" contains used wrapping paper depicting realistic pine branches.
Accumulations #17

The beginning and end of "Accumulations (1-17)" depict the backside of photographs describing my great grandmother's house.
Accumulations (18-21)

Set of four frames containing photographs and found objects related to roses; each frame measures 12x9 inches.
Accumulations (22-24)

Set of three frames containing photographs and found objects; each frame measures 12x9 inches.

Homestead

Homestead is an interdisciplinary project that situates my matrilineage alongside larger notions of landscape, home, and gender. In 1873, ten miles south of my native Nebraska and an hour's drive from the geographic center of the United States, my great-great-great-grandparents claimed land under the Homestead and Timber Culture Acts. The landscape is now vast, indistinguishable farmland. History reveals more absences than answers. Two 150-year-old trees at the site and a enarby pioneer cemetery where my maternal granmother, her mother, and her mother's mother are all buried, are vague markers of this history. In my return to this land, my matrilineage is subsumed by Mother Nature. The work archives and memorializes what remains of this place—personally significatn and universally forgtten—while considering the ways certain histories are privileged over others.

Old Oak

Installation using Digital Photograph on Fabric with adhesive backing, Found paint swatches, Pressed cottonwood buds, Rconstructed historical book, Pillowcase embroidered by my grandmother, Tree limb, House paint
Certain Histories

9" x 12" Digital Photograph of my great-great-great-grandmother standing in front of the now-dying cottonwood that marks the land homesteaded by my ancestors
Homestead

This video touches on the history of my great-great-great grandparents who claimed land under the Homestead and Timber Culture Acts. The landscape, now vast, indistinguishable farmland, reveals more absences than answers. Two 150-year-old trees at the site and a nearby pioneer cemetery where my maternal grandmother, her mother, and her mother's mother are all buried, are vague markers of this history. In returning to this land, my matrilineage is subsumed by Mother Nature.
Detail of Old Oak

Digital Photograph, Pressed Cottonwood Buds
Detail of Old Oak picturing reconstructed historical book

The text on the open page refers to my great-great-great grandfather.
Detail of Old Oak showing paint swatches and envelope
Farmingdale

Installation of photographs, tracing paper, found objects, dirt, and vinyl
Farmingdale detail

Framed photographs and found objects
Detail of Personal Archives

Cicada found at the National Homestead Monument preserved in resin
Timescales

Timescales, Two-channel Video Installation

DIRT

DIRT considers the way land is defined and occupied. Using a vintage RISK board game, I replaced the army pieces with various seeds and the deck of cards with an accordion book that incorporates visual elements of the natural world and the nostalgia of childhood. The board itself became a three-dimensional garden in the way of a pop-up book that uses images cut from used gardening books. Flowers, bushes, and trees are pieced together in shapes and colors that mimic the countries outlined on the board. Finally, the rule book is replaced with a meditation on the plants that define the experience of my childhood home. DIRT was purchased by the Decker Library at Maryland Institue College of Art.

DIRT

Vintage copy of the board game RISK turned into a pop-up garden.
DIRT

DIRT considers the ways that land is defined and occupied. This image shows the board game box with the army pieces replaced by various seeds significant to my childhood upbringing.
DIRT

I replaced the deck of cards with an accordion book with related found objects and imagery.
DIRT

Detail of the accordion book
DIRT

Detail of the accordion book
DIRT

In place of the rule book, I made a zine that is a meditation on the plants that defined my childhood home.
DIRT

These pages reflect on the peony bushes that lined the fence in my parents' backyard and the black locust tree in the front yard.
DIRT

Detail of the board game-turned pop-up garden.

Things I Don't Remember

Things I Don’t Remember considers the experience of a tourist and is a reflection on my first trip to Montreal in 2008. In returning to the city over a decade later, I couldn’t remember anything from having been before, so I went back to my own Facebook archive where I found four photographs I had taken there: the façade of an nondescript building, a pair of red doors with yellow awnings, a selfie with a stick of maple taffy in my mouth, and a caramel latte with whipped cream. Souvenir in French can refer to both a keepsake one might buy as a tourist as well as memory itself. With this in mind, I used the first photograph I posted from Montreal in 2008 and enlarged it to the size of 168 postcards. Of these, viewers see only six fragments of the image and are invited to take one from the stacks on display. If a memory is something we remember, what is something we don’t remember?

Things I Don't Remember

Postcards based on an enlarged image from my first trip to Montreal a decade earlier.
Things I Don't Remember

Screenshot from Facebook of four photos I posted from my first trip to Montreal in 2008.
Things I Don't Remember

Enlarged image of the first photograph I posted to Facebook from my first trip to Montreal turned into 168 postcards.
Things I Don't Remember

Top left postcard of the enlarged image, free for viewers to take.
Things I Don't Remember

Postcards as installed at ICA Baltimore.
Things I Don't Remember

Reverse side of all of the postcards in the installation.
Things I Don't Remember

Detail of postcard image
Things I Don't Remember

Detail of postcard image

Apartment 404 Not Found

For Apartment 404 Not Found I moved my home into the gallery. I then documented the installation as a 360-degree virtual reality (VR) image before removing all of the furniture. A half-circle "orientation table" similar to what you might find at a hilltop vista, sits in the center of the space, the absent objects depicted on its surface. The dislocation of relocation is exemplified by the juxtaposition of physically standing in a vacant space while viewing that same space in virtual reality filled with the belongings of home. The furniture from the installation—packed atop a moving pallet, wrapped in plastic—became a sculptural object alongside the VR installation. My home remained empty for the duration of the exhibition.

Virtual Reality installation

Viewer using virtual reality headset in the gallery space to view the installation of my home in the same gallery space.
Gallery installation

The table in the center with the virtual reality headset, the two white blinds hanging from the ceiling, and the door frame to the right are all part of the installation. The blinds and the doorframe are also in the virtual reality installation.
View of Virtual Reality Installation

Snapshot of what the viewer would see in the VR headset, which was my living room installed in the same gallery space. See full 360-degree image here: https://goo.gl/maps/Dq7a3Rz6vpr
Orientation Table

At the center of the room, the orientation table depicted drawn items from the virtual reality installation along with descriptions of the objects.
Apartment 404 Not Found

Video documentation of Apartment 404 Not Found showing a side-by-side comparison of the gallery space and the virtual reality image.
Apartment 404 Not Found

Outside of the gallery, all of the furniture from the virtual reality installation in the gallery was packed on top of a moving pallet and wrapped in plastic.
Doorway to Apartment 404

Image of my front door with a gallery label beside the number 404.
Empty Apartment 404

An image of my apartment, emptied of all its furniture, for the duration of the exhibition.

Free to a Good Home

Free to a Good Home is an attempt to understand the meaning of home based on the things within it. Each page documents an object advertised for ‘free to a good home’ on Craigslist and the subsequent email exchanges with anonymous users. At times poetic, at times mundane, everyday objects gain importance through personal histories and associations. The online performance, enacted in real life, offers a glimpse into the potential of online interactions. From a classic 1940s sofa to an underwater camera case, the ephemera of one home assumes life in another, each object threading together every home. Free to a Good Home was purchased by the New York Public Library and is sold at Printed Matter, the world's leading non-profit for artist books.

Cover

11 x 8.5", Perfect-bound, 141 pages

Available for Purchase

https://www.printedmatter.org/catalog/artist/30650
classic 1940s sofa

Two-page spread from Free to a Good Home showing a screenshot from Craigslist for a red 1940s sofa and the resulting email exchange.
7" Braid of Bison Grass

Screenshot of bison grass ad that I posted to Craigslist.
Two-page Spread

Screenshot of Bison Grass ad (from previous image) along with resulting email exchanges.
Tune of a Dove According to a Wind Chime

Two-page spread showing screenshot of Craigslist ad for a CD recording of a wind chime along with resulting email exchanges.
Free to a Good Home excerpt

PDF download

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Amber Eve Anderson

Visual Arts

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