My thesis is a mixed media installation that enacts the scene of a drug induced dinner party, it is the manifestation of the feelings guests have throughout the span of a single night. I am influenced by both surrealist film and installation work, ranging from Luis Bunel’s “The Exterminating Angel” to Salvador Dali’s 1939 Worlds Fair exhibit “Dream of Venus.” I also look at artists such as Maurizio Cattelan and Olaf Bruening for the humor and absurdity, which is intrinsic in their work. This installation reflects the heightened emotional state and hallucinogenic vision inherent in a dinner of this nature. Featured as a full, eight-person dinner table, I used an ombre of color as a visual cue to represent the passing of time. Furthermore I strung up chairs, plates, and other items using monofilament in a crescendo shape above the table to represent the climactic escalation of a party where the guests are getting higher throughout the night. I am interested in this depiction as a way to take ordinary subject matter and visually and emotionally enhance it through the manipulation of production. This indeterminate narrative where certain details are omitted from the work allows the viewer to impose their own sequence of events on what happened within in this setting. I am also using the distortion of objects to disrupt the typical understanding of how the structure of a dinner party functions.
