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Artworks
Documentation of artworks from 2001 onwards. (Currently being updated and populated.)
Labyrinth: Surrey Condos Edition (with Vinyl Village Expansion Pack)
Labyrinth: Surrey Condos Edition (with Vinyl Village Expansion Pack), 2015 (expanded in 2017), video game installation.
Having learned from my previous failure creating my own abitous artist-made video games, I decided to make a game attuned to my level of programming skill. I decided to make an anti-game. A game without points, without an objective, and without end. I felt as I imagined an abstract expressionist painter must have felt, stripping away everything until I was left with a pure expression of the media. What would the subject of a game about nothing be?
My suburb, of course! In re-imagining the suburban landscape in Labyrinth: Surrey Condos Edition, I emphasize qualities of homogeneity, lack of agency and frustration (symbolized by the cul-de-sac/dead end), while also engaging in contradictory and playful aspects of the suburb. Video games and suburbs can exclude some people – some people find it difficult or unappealing to use a joystick. I chose to use a pressure mat, which is not quite the same as walking…
I used water colour painting, a largely dismissed and ignored artistic medium to render the game environment. Walter-colour implies a romanticism that counterpoints the stereotypes both of the suburbs as bland and manufactured and video games as soulless technology, while share in a low-brow reputation with video games and suburban architecture.
I didn’t want to represent the suburbs as an evil nexus of capitalist conformity, though it may be. I peppered the wanderings through the deserted streets with strange items I happened upon during my walks. I also considered the labyrinth as more than a minotaur’s maze/prison, but as a structure for meditation. The suburbs, I posit, can also be a site for aspirations, romantic escapism and meandering contemplation. An activity without a goal, a meandering walk, deflects the pressures of expectations and results, and is thus gratifying. The game is nearly silent, leaves rustle with the sound of crinkling paper when a player approaches and footfalls make the sound of one pages slipping against another.
The suburb, and thus the video game representation, can also be a site for aspirations, romantic escapism and meandering contemplation. An activity without a goal, a meandering walk, deflects the pressures of expectations and results, and is thus gratifying.
In 2017, I created a new level based on the complex where my in-laws live in Kamloops, BC, for the game's exhibition at Arnica Artist-Run Centre in Kamloops.
Having learned from my previous failure creating my own abitous artist-made video games, I decided to make a game attuned to my level of programming skill. I decided to make an anti-game. A game without points, without an objective, and without end. I felt as I imagined an abstract expressionist painter must have felt, stripping away everything until I was left with a pure expression of the media. What would the subject of a game about nothing be?
My suburb, of course! In re-imagining the suburban landscape in Labyrinth: Surrey Condos Edition, I emphasize qualities of homogeneity, lack of agency and frustration (symbolized by the cul-de-sac/dead end), while also engaging in contradictory and playful aspects of the suburb. Video games and suburbs can exclude some people – some people find it difficult or unappealing to use a joystick. I chose to use a pressure mat, which is not quite the same as walking…
I used water colour painting, a largely dismissed and ignored artistic medium to render the game environment. Walter-colour implies a romanticism that counterpoints the stereotypes both of the suburbs as bland and manufactured and video games as soulless technology, while share in a low-brow reputation with video games and suburban architecture.
I didn’t want to represent the suburbs as an evil nexus of capitalist conformity, though it may be. I peppered the wanderings through the deserted streets with strange items I happened upon during my walks. I also considered the labyrinth as more than a minotaur’s maze/prison, but as a structure for meditation. The suburbs, I posit, can also be a site for aspirations, romantic escapism and meandering contemplation. An activity without a goal, a meandering walk, deflects the pressures of expectations and results, and is thus gratifying. The game is nearly silent, leaves rustle with the sound of crinkling paper when a player approaches and footfalls make the sound of one pages slipping against another.
The suburb, and thus the video game representation, can also be a site for aspirations, romantic escapism and meandering contemplation. An activity without a goal, a meandering walk, deflects the pressures of expectations and results, and is thus gratifying.
In 2017, I created a new level based on the complex where my in-laws live in Kamloops, BC, for the game's exhibition at Arnica Artist-Run Centre in Kamloops.
Industrial Cotton Candy
(Industrial Cotton Candy, 2010-2019, performance for video, 2-channel video, 35 minutes total length)
In this performance for video I used an angle grinder to shave molten threads of sugar off of a gigantic lollipop, collecting the strands on a paper cone for a child who waits for over 30 minutes for his his cotton candy treat. The two channel video is project on acrylic plastic lollipop scultures. A sound artist has enhanced the penetrating audio of the grinder, creating a counterpoint to the sweet image of candy and the candy cloud set.
view on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/311955344
(password: sugar)
In this performance for video I used an angle grinder to shave molten threads of sugar off of a gigantic lollipop, collecting the strands on a paper cone for a child who waits for over 30 minutes for his his cotton candy treat. The two channel video is project on acrylic plastic lollipop scultures. A sound artist has enhanced the penetrating audio of the grinder, creating a counterpoint to the sweet image of candy and the candy cloud set.
view on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/311955344
(password: sugar)
In Sick & Hunger
(In Sick & Hunger, 2000 (recreated and re-performed in 2011, gingerbread, royal icing, graham wafers, cardboard, 2x4 lumber, performance, conversation, eyelet lace dress, vintage apron)
I constructed a scale model of a suburban house out of gingerbread and consumed it while trading stories about the gingerbread house with visitors. I made the house big enough for me to crawl inside of and, potentially, to contain the gingerbread house's multitude of meanings: normative family structures, colonialism, consumption, fairy tale as metaphor, power and dreams. I ate the house for six days, translating the cookie into words in my mouth.
The title, In Sick & Hunger, is the result of a garbled phone conversation. It means nothing, but hints at so much: a dangerous collision of food, purging and insatiable need.
This was my first foray into artworks that encouraged an exchange and potential collaboration with the audience. This piece still strongly engaged with and traded off of the spectacle: the spectacle of monstrous female appetite and an overabundance of food.
I don't feel like I can unpack and chew over those statements right now, like a picnic lunch. After all, look at how much space they required of my little gingerbread house!
When I was invited to re-mount this performance at Montreal's Nuit Blanche in 2011, I decided to divest myself of the Gretel costume that I felt was a fetishized figure of femininity. Braids and eyelet frills were traded in for the very symbol of out-of-control consumption - a blinged-out Juicy Couture velour track suit. I offered pieces of my suburban gingerbread palace in exchange for an item to add to the shopping list I was reciting. (I ate so much gingerbread that I threw up a few times. By the end of the night, my house was almost completely devoured.)
I constructed a scale model of a suburban house out of gingerbread and consumed it while trading stories about the gingerbread house with visitors. I made the house big enough for me to crawl inside of and, potentially, to contain the gingerbread house's multitude of meanings: normative family structures, colonialism, consumption, fairy tale as metaphor, power and dreams. I ate the house for six days, translating the cookie into words in my mouth.
The title, In Sick & Hunger, is the result of a garbled phone conversation. It means nothing, but hints at so much: a dangerous collision of food, purging and insatiable need.
This was my first foray into artworks that encouraged an exchange and potential collaboration with the audience. This piece still strongly engaged with and traded off of the spectacle: the spectacle of monstrous female appetite and an overabundance of food.
I don't feel like I can unpack and chew over those statements right now, like a picnic lunch. After all, look at how much space they required of my little gingerbread house!
When I was invited to re-mount this performance at Montreal's Nuit Blanche in 2011, I decided to divest myself of the Gretel costume that I felt was a fetishized figure of femininity. Braids and eyelet frills were traded in for the very symbol of out-of-control consumption - a blinged-out Juicy Couture velour track suit. I offered pieces of my suburban gingerbread palace in exchange for an item to add to the shopping list I was reciting. (I ate so much gingerbread that I threw up a few times. By the end of the night, my house was almost completely devoured.)
Imaginary Gift
Imaginary Gift
, Sandee Moore, wood, astroturf, coffee maker, coffee, clear vinyl hose, engraved plastic sign, wireless doorbell, cup dispenser, 2009- 2011.
Imaginary Gift is a gift motivated by selfishness. From an upper floor window I can dispense gifts, both useful (coffee) and wonderful (bubbles), to people on my street at my convenience and without creating the bonds of debt a face-to- face transaction would create.
Imaginary Gift is a gift motivated by selfishness. From an upper floor window I can dispense gifts, both useful (coffee) and wonderful (bubbles), to people on my street at my convenience and without creating the bonds of debt a face-to- face transaction would create.
It’s Hard to Have an Original Idea without Just Regurgitating Others' Art
It’s Hard to Have an Original Idea without Just Regurgitating Others' Art
, Sandee Moore, cast polyurethane and silicone, 2012.
A larger than life-sized rubber barf that was presented by Plug In ICA for 2012's Nuit Blanche in Winnipeg. The piece humorously presents the inevitable outcome of an all-night art drinking party while also acknowledging the pressure to make something bigger, better and more impressive (yet generally empty) for major art events, such as biennials.
A larger than life-sized rubber barf that was presented by Plug In ICA for 2012's Nuit Blanche in Winnipeg. The piece humorously presents the inevitable outcome of an all-night art drinking party while also acknowledging the pressure to make something bigger, better and more impressive (yet generally empty) for major art events, such as biennials.
The Mixer: The Ultimate Sk8 Activity Centre
The Mixer: The Ultimate Sk8 Activity Centre, Sandee Moore, plywood, video, interior latex paint, interactive electronics, PlayStation 1, TonyHawk's Pro Skater 2, (custom level in Tony Hawk's Underground added in 2022) 2001 & 2022
The Mixer installation presents opportunities for viewers to be active and creative within the exhibition space. Several photo resistor sensors were embedded in the surface of the model of a 1/4 pipe. By moving over the surface of the ramp, the participant triggers a unique mix of audio samples from the video game Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. I created an avatar to represent myself to players of the game, who could access stories from my history as a marginalized girl skater through playing the game. My character, L’il Sandee, is a boy. The game only allowed for the creation of male characters, which mirrored my experience of the homosocial skateboarding world.
Reflecting on this artwork over twenty years after I first created it, I became even more painfully aware of the innate sexism of the Tony Hawk Pro Skater video game series. Most of the female characters created by the game designers over multiple iterations of the video game are overtly sexy and scantily clad, while the sole female professional skateboarder represented in the game embodies an outright rejection (and devaluation) of femininity. I have turned statistics about gender representation in the five versions of Tony Hawk Pro Skater video game series into skateable objects. Instead of the original game's drab concrete and plywood aesthetics, the level I have created immerses players in a feminized environment of pastel tones and confetti sprinkles. The heights of the ramps I modeled to create this new level are based on gender representation in each release of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series. Additionally, I modeled skateable cis-female identified objects, such a menstrual cups, brassieres, tampons and pink razors, that both brings skaters into into contact with femininity and conveys that they are insignificant in the shadow of powerfully-represented femininity. (Imagine that Claes Oldenburg made a skateboard park of cis-female related consumer products.)
The Mixer installation presents opportunities for viewers to be active and creative within the exhibition space. Several photo resistor sensors were embedded in the surface of the model of a 1/4 pipe. By moving over the surface of the ramp, the participant triggers a unique mix of audio samples from the video game Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. I created an avatar to represent myself to players of the game, who could access stories from my history as a marginalized girl skater through playing the game. My character, L’il Sandee, is a boy. The game only allowed for the creation of male characters, which mirrored my experience of the homosocial skateboarding world.
Reflecting on this artwork over twenty years after I first created it, I became even more painfully aware of the innate sexism of the Tony Hawk Pro Skater video game series. Most of the female characters created by the game designers over multiple iterations of the video game are overtly sexy and scantily clad, while the sole female professional skateboarder represented in the game embodies an outright rejection (and devaluation) of femininity. I have turned statistics about gender representation in the five versions of Tony Hawk Pro Skater video game series into skateable objects. Instead of the original game's drab concrete and plywood aesthetics, the level I have created immerses players in a feminized environment of pastel tones and confetti sprinkles. The heights of the ramps I modeled to create this new level are based on gender representation in each release of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series. Additionally, I modeled skateable cis-female identified objects, such a menstrual cups, brassieres, tampons and pink razors, that both brings skaters into into contact with femininity and conveys that they are insignificant in the shadow of powerfully-represented femininity. (Imagine that Claes Oldenburg made a skateboard park of cis-female related consumer products.)
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