I reject the ideology of the grid. I like to dance and sing, trail run and swim, climb trees and scramble over rocks to capture the perfect shot.
Artist Statement
I employ non-linear narrative and spatial storytelling as a way of conveying personal and social histories. Stories exist in spaces and places. I strive to bring awareness to those spaces where hidden stories exist and to make those stories visible. I use video installation, sound mapping, VR/AR and documentary games, performance, web narratives, ritual and psychogeography (personal map making) as vehicles towards these aims.
My artistic process relies on researching history, archaeology, and media archaeology. Spatiality, embodiment, feminisms, exploring expressivity within documentary forms, and challenging binaries between materiality and immateriality are the driving themes my work.
Casondra’s Biography
I hold a PhD in Film and Digital Media from University of California, Santa Cruz. My research areas are Immersive Environments, Cyber-archaeology, Sound Studies, and Media Archaeology. My work builds bridges between media and archaeology by creating immersive experiences that bring history to life. I am interested in historical soundscapes, what epistemological questions sound can raise about historical spaces, and how sound can create spatial and temporal maps. My dissertation, “Copper and Cult: Intra-Actions from the Bronze Age to A-Life,” mythically re-casts the Bronze Age Levantine copper goddesses Hathor and Astarte as “proto-cybergoddesses” because of the material role copper has played in the history of networked information systems. I designed a related, breath-driven Virtual Reality game, “Cult and Copper,” that explores the relationships among copper smelting, shamanism, and goddess cults in the ancient Levant. (I collaborated with UC Santa Cruz Serious Games engineering students to realize a playable prototype.)
I also earned an MFA in Conceptual and Information Arts from San Francisco State University and a BA in Art and Art History from University of Pittsburgh. I have participated in numerous digital heritage projects spanning over twenty years, including digital reconstructions of the tomb and temple of Rameses II for the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the Virtual Çatalhöyük project with UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus Ruth Tringham. I have produced sonic investigations of the Santa Cruz Mission and within Golden Gate Recreation Area’s World War II batteries. I directed and produced a three-projector video installation about the early suffragists for the Women’s Rights National Historic Park in Seneca Falls, New York. Prior to starting my PhD, I worked as an Information Architect for UC Berkeley. I have taught Media/Arts to children and adults across the San Francisco Bay Area and served as a visiting professor of Media Arts at New Mexico Highlands University from 2012-2013.
Currently I am a Visting Professor at Northeastern University, Oakland campus, in the College of Art, Media, & Design (CAMD) and a Lecturer of Digital Media Arts at San Francisco State University.
Gallery
