Suzanne Faris

"Hyper - low tech." This term was used in reference to my artwork a few years ago. I have kept this term in the back of my mind ever since. What I understand it to mean is a combination of the low-tech, the aesthetic of the “handmade” and the physical experience of tactile material, existing in contrast to the trend of the media savvy, slick, video and sound based pieces where the touch of the hand that made it is often no longer present. I have kept this term, "hyper - low tech", in the back of my mind and the more time that passes, the more I feel that it is accurate.

In my work, I am very interested in the sensation of touch, the importance of texture, the connection that a person can make, just by looking at an object, of how long or with how much care something was made, the exploration of the concepts [and context] of "landscape" and "home" and how each can be defined by the perception of comfort and discomfort within, as well as the media-saturated audio and visual nature of our culture. Within my artwork I attempt to combine these elements, to make them work in conjunction with each other, to question each other, and to strengthen the overall impact of a finished piece.

The project I would like to focus on at ART342 is a collaborative project/ exhibition I am a part of called "The Sound and Objects Project" that will have its first showing at the University of Tennessee in the late summer/ fall of 2010. The “Sound and Objects Project” will specifically explore the relationship between the intangible nature of sound and the tangible nature of objects. The objects will serve as the interrogative implements, and the sound as the landscape's reply to consider how sounds create landscape and objects acts as witness or 'interrogations' of the landscape. Concurrently we will engage 'sound' as a marker of experience that is, the act of listening produces a sense of participation, implication, or familiarity that visual documentation does not always convey. While the exhibition itself will use ‘sound’ as a medium in relationship to objects, the "Sound and Objects Project" in its multiple forms intends to ask larger questions in regard to how aspects of technology have transformed the our expectation of making, viewing, exhibiting, and collecting art.