MICHAEL KOZIEN, a Chicago-based transdisciplinary artist, merges animation, video, sound, photography, sculpture and installation to create his works. He exhibits his work internationally. Recent exhibitions include: Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Columbia College Chicago, Governors State University, Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI, New York University, Transient Gallery, Des Moines, IA, Korpufsstadir, Reykjavik, Iceland, Chicago Cultural Center, Art in General, NYC, Harvestworks, NYC, Le Musee di-visioniste, Cologne, Germany, Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, Lake Worth, FL, and the Center for Contemporary Art, Sacramento, CA. Projects and screenings include: a video performance at FUN, NYC and at the Sacramento Festival of Cinema 2002. Michael has been a resident artist at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Newcastle, ME (2013), Takt Kunstprojektraum, Berlin, Germany (2011), The Association of Icelandic Visual Artists Residency (SÍM), Reykjavík, Iceland (2010-11) and La Macina di San Cresci Artist Residency, Greve, Italy (2009). His work has been reviewed in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune and The San Diego Union-Tribune. He earned a MFA in digital media from Stony Brook University and a BFA in painting from Southern Illinois University. Michael is the founder and director of Operation France, a creative collective of international artists based in Chicago, USA. Currently, he is a Associate Professor in the Digital Media + Design Department at the College of Lake County, Illinois where he teaches courses in design, animation, video, sound and digital media culture and theory.
KOZIEN
Here, There, Amazing, 2012
Here, There, Amazing considers our desire to transcend our current physical, mental, emotional or spiritual place. Oftentimes, this place is a constructed dream filled with unattainable, unrealistic and empty goals and thus, the desire is merely a distraction and diffuses our present place. The sound in “Here, There, Amazing” incorporates multiple voices having self-directed conversations reflecting on what he/she wants. Each sound/voice is a separate “conversation” operating independently, but composing a layered cacophony of sounds throughout the space. From a single person point-of-view, one discussion revolves around being HERE, but wanting to go THERE. The voice questions why they are HERE, but desire to be THERE. No details are given as to why the person wants to go THERE verses staying HERE, other than the sense that THERE is a better place to exist then HERE. The narrative weaves in and out of being THERE or HERE, giving loose aspirations and adjectives, but never quite reaching the point of getting THERE from HERE. The other voices discuss similar dilemmas. One voice explains meeting the most INCREDIBLE PERSON they have ever met without providing details as to why the INCREDIBLE PERSON is INCREDIBLE. Another discusses the quandary of having an AMAZING EXPERIENCE, void of details surrounding that EXPERIENCE, but being clear that this has been an AMAZING EXPERIENCE. All three works act as a verbal, revolving, obsessive mantra that aspires for a greater place, person or experience, without actually stating what makes it greater than the current state of being. The empty banter becomes a frozen trap in the mind. The videos that accompany the sounds are 3D animations of various red geometric ripples that undulate from the center outward in repetitive motions representing a fluid visual abstraction of never-ending flows. The animations consist of sequences of various perspectives of the ripple. Time continues without a clear destination as we are trapped in the visual loop with the accompanying, circling voices.
 Here, There, Amazing3D animation, sound, various installation dimensions, 2012 |
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