2016

Cape Girardeau, MO

Catapult Creative House

Collaboration with Bradley Phillips

 

By nature, an artistic practice is a solitary endeavor, as it mainly resides inside an artist’s personal studio. This type of studio-based practice has historically dominated a cultural understanding of artistic production, constructing a venerated space that is lauded as being the site of creative genius and yet disconnects society and communities from the artistic process. Much like an artist’s studio, memory is also primarily experienced privately. Our memories come back to us in flashes, reflecting a fragmented past while haunting the present moment. Disrupt/Connect situates itself outside of this paradigm of isolation through employing a digitally collaborative process. In an effort to break free from artistic isolation Liz Bayan and Bradley Phillips reached out to the community of southeast Missouri to collect anonymous memories. The artists appropriated found video online, captured video from around Cape Girardeau, and added videos from their personal digital libraries. This merging of the private and public allows the artists to explore intersections between community, physical/digital memory, and performance. In challenging a contemporary artistic practice located only within a traditional studio space; Disrupt/Connect promotes a collaborative approach to art production merging physical and virtual spaces to create a collective memory.