About Amanda
Baltimore City
I am a conceptual and interactive artist who moves through the world slowly and with awareness. I am grounded by movement and mindfulness practices which allow me to pay closer attention to the world around me. Inevitably this slowness leads to inquiries which sometimes culminate in projects. The inquiry could be anything as micro as a weed growing in a crack or an unhealthy obsession with a crooked tooth that I have, to something as macro as extractive economies that destroy the earth… more
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nuBody(update)
memory foam, hand-dyed silk organza, hand-dyed rayon, hand-dyed cotton, white polyester, dried lavender, dried chamomile, flaxseed, dried dirt, marble dust, Apple desktop, potted Aloe plant, onion, quartz, lapis pyramid
Interested in our increasingly close bond with our electronics, I created a sort of spa like environment in a gallery setting where the viewer receives a guided meditation by an Aloe plant with a Seri (Samantha) voice through the cultural monolith of the Mac computer. My life is such that fitting yoga and meditation into my daily schedule is sometimes easier if I do it through an online platform which I pay for monthly and can practice at my own convenience. But then as I am bowing to the Mac computer, chanting, and even saying “Namaste” I think about what a perversion this is of the eastern tradition.
Interested in our increasingly close bond with our electronics, I created a sort of spa like environment in a gallery setting where the viewer receives a guided meditation by an Aloe plant with a Seri (Samantha) voice through the cultural monolith of the Mac computer. My life is such that fitting yoga and meditation into my daily schedule is sometimes easier if I do it through an online platform which I pay for monthly and can practice at my own convenience. But then as I am bowing to the Mac computer, chanting, and even saying “Namaste” I think about what a perversion this is of the eastern tradition.
Say Love V. Luv
2014
Love is a powerful word. It is also loaded and tied to strong emotions. Luv is a modern take on the word love. It is pronounced the same but it holds different connotations. It is used in a more casual and loose manner than the word love. A contributor to urban dictionary defines luv as “a casual way of saying you really like someone without freaking them out by saying I love you. Commonly used by people early on in relationships, where it is too soon to say I love you.”
“Love v. Luv” is a study on how different people say these words. When I record, I ask the person to think of the feeling of each word as they speak them. The frequency and volume with which different people say the words changes the peaks and valleys of the form. A pattern emerges, but every love & luv is different. This is a very rational approach to understanding an emotionally charged subject matter.
There is a lot to be observed in the ways people differentiate these words. I try not to ascribe too much meaning to the way the word has been spoken, but I do make notes and observations about the person’s form of “love” and “luv” based on my knowing them and other circumstances surrounding my relationship to them.
I am interested in the multiple transformations that take place through this process. The word goes from written form to spoken sound which is translated into a string of data that is used to create a form and then that is milled from a yoga block. The block is used in yoga to support the body in uncomfortable positions to let it relax more into a pose. Language is supported by the body, and here I have create a mutual relationship in which the body can be supported by language.
In this installation of “love vs luv” I installed the words which have been carved by a CNC router with a pile of what remains from love and luv along with an instruction for a heart exercise.
Love is a powerful word. It is also loaded and tied to strong emotions. Luv is a modern take on the word love. It is pronounced the same but it holds different connotations. It is used in a more casual and loose manner than the word love. A contributor to urban dictionary defines luv as “a casual way of saying you really like someone without freaking them out by saying I love you. Commonly used by people early on in relationships, where it is too soon to say I love you.”
“Love v. Luv” is a study on how different people say these words. When I record, I ask the person to think of the feeling of each word as they speak them. The frequency and volume with which different people say the words changes the peaks and valleys of the form. A pattern emerges, but every love & luv is different. This is a very rational approach to understanding an emotionally charged subject matter.
There is a lot to be observed in the ways people differentiate these words. I try not to ascribe too much meaning to the way the word has been spoken, but I do make notes and observations about the person’s form of “love” and “luv” based on my knowing them and other circumstances surrounding my relationship to them.
I am interested in the multiple transformations that take place through this process. The word goes from written form to spoken sound which is translated into a string of data that is used to create a form and then that is milled from a yoga block. The block is used in yoga to support the body in uncomfortable positions to let it relax more into a pose. Language is supported by the body, and here I have create a mutual relationship in which the body can be supported by language.
In this installation of “love vs luv” I installed the words which have been carved by a CNC router with a pile of what remains from love and luv along with an instruction for a heart exercise.
Virtual Votives: Unsolicited Offerings
2014
In this performance, each time a new tweet with the word “painful” is received, an electronic candle automatically lights up (for 2 seconds) for that tweet. The idea that there is an undiscriminating machine praying for all pains, big or small, physical or emotional is of interest to me here. It is no more a choice on the part of the person tweeting to be prayed for as it is for the altar to be lighting offerings for those peoples’ pains.
As I meditate on the painful tweets that are coming in, I make an offering by touching my forehead (or third eye) to an i-pad, which triggers a new 3-d model of a vessel. Mateo Marquez participated by writing the code for this trigger and using a video mixer to create visual feedback. I composed the sound using recordings of my voice and cell phone tones. The volume increases with each tap of my third eye to the I-pad.
In this performance, each time a new tweet with the word “painful” is received, an electronic candle automatically lights up (for 2 seconds) for that tweet. The idea that there is an undiscriminating machine praying for all pains, big or small, physical or emotional is of interest to me here. It is no more a choice on the part of the person tweeting to be prayed for as it is for the altar to be lighting offerings for those peoples’ pains.
As I meditate on the painful tweets that are coming in, I make an offering by touching my forehead (or third eye) to an i-pad, which triggers a new 3-d model of a vessel. Mateo Marquez participated by writing the code for this trigger and using a video mixer to create visual feedback. I composed the sound using recordings of my voice and cell phone tones. The volume increases with each tap of my third eye to the I-pad.
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Virtual Votives: unsolicited offerings
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1_amanda-agricola_vvuo_15.jpgTweets containing #painful illuminate a candle on the altar, offering a glimpses of the intimate moments shared openly on the internet. This work reflects on shared pain and shared experiences in life.
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Chromacure
Chromacure is an ap that administers color therapy depending on the condition or ailment you select. It is based on research I did on color therapy. Each color sequence cycles through a few different colors, beginning and ending with white. While You Wait (chromacure) is an installation that resembles a doctors office waiting room. An audio instructional plays in the room on loop of how to use the ap while you “wait”. In hospitals and doctors offices, waiting times are obscene. The question of waiting for healing is of importance here, and in this situation, the viewer waits on a doctor who will never actually materialize, and receives treatment that may or may not be suitable for his or her needs.
Bed = Island
2015
This work analyzes societies’ closeness to devices - and their ability to heal or curb loneliness, pain, stress, anxiety, ect. while also assessing the increasing feeling of loss of self in an advanced technological society (hence the surge of “self-help” and therapy industries with their quest for wholeness and centeredness). What effects (positive or negative) will devices have on the human body and psyche? We are now able to know the physical self in ways which were once very hard to imagine. We can track our heart rate, steps we take, hours of sleep, ect. all through a bracelet that communicates with an ap on our phone. While we are becoming closer to knowing certain aspects of the human body better, there is an increasing separation between body and self.
"Love Bed" is created out of the vocal waves of 60 people saying love. I create a topography out of language on which the body is able to absorb the meaning through touch rather than sound or site. In this resort, Bed=Island, all kinds of love is available through the most simple interactions - lying, sitting, standing, breathing. It is a product that can be misted on and absorbed through the skin as rosewater in an atomizer. On one hand, I naively hope and sort of believe that this is possible, and on the other I am commenting on the simplification of intimacy in our digital age, and healing in the new age.
This work analyzes societies’ closeness to devices - and their ability to heal or curb loneliness, pain, stress, anxiety, ect. while also assessing the increasing feeling of loss of self in an advanced technological society (hence the surge of “self-help” and therapy industries with their quest for wholeness and centeredness). What effects (positive or negative) will devices have on the human body and psyche? We are now able to know the physical self in ways which were once very hard to imagine. We can track our heart rate, steps we take, hours of sleep, ect. all through a bracelet that communicates with an ap on our phone. While we are becoming closer to knowing certain aspects of the human body better, there is an increasing separation between body and self.
"Love Bed" is created out of the vocal waves of 60 people saying love. I create a topography out of language on which the body is able to absorb the meaning through touch rather than sound or site. In this resort, Bed=Island, all kinds of love is available through the most simple interactions - lying, sitting, standing, breathing. It is a product that can be misted on and absorbed through the skin as rosewater in an atomizer. On one hand, I naively hope and sort of believe that this is possible, and on the other I am commenting on the simplification of intimacy in our digital age, and healing in the new age.
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Light Body: Touch
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Love Bed
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face2face - excerpt"Face 2 Face", 2015. Originally, this video was one of the menu options displayed on a tablet attached to my bed in "Bed = Island". In that setting, the video was displayed sideways so that the viewer would be lying on their side to watch. On the screen, the viewer sees me talking to them in a loving and caring way, as if we are facetiming lovers, creating an intimate space between myself and the viewer as they relax into a posture associated with being in bed. The distortion of the video is a reminder of the space and time between two people. In this video, the distortion gradually becomes more and more as the discomfort of being face to face with a stranger increases. As the distortion increases, the viewer’s experience with the work may change and one’s ability to stay with me might also become easier, less personal.
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Supported HeartThis was a yoga and meditation workshop in conjunction with the “Bed=Island” installations in Maryland Art Place geared towards opening the heart using the yoga blocks from "Love Bed".
Seams & Palls
These works engage with my relationship with troubled earth histories of which I am a part. I embed narratives of the present into Earth's funerary rites as I imagine a future of rebirth or rediscovery.
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Vega BajaThis relief is taken from Google Earth over Vega Baja in Puerto Rico where numerous cache's of cocaine and money are said to be buried. The story has many in this economically recessed country hunting for the buried treasure, following the stories on blind faith alone.
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Vega Baja
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El TesoroThis is a short preview of a documentary made in Colombia, South America about a man in search of buried gold.
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