Still from "Death and TV", triple-channel video installation, by Alison Nguyen
I will be an artist-in-residence at Signal Culture (Owego, NY) from February 16-23rd, 2018. I'll be focusing on a long-term archival video installation project temporarily titled, “Death and TV.” The piece centers on both banal and fatal televised media from the mid-90’s to present day; I use this material to explore the cultural surrounding, mediated death, and childhood memories. Footage sources include: QVC, news coverage of the Heaven’s Gate cult suicide, soap operas such as Days of Our Lives, news coverage of natural disasters, cartoons, televised Church masses, and UFO sightings.
“Death and TV” involves my interest in the blur between the mediated self and the actual self. In this project I question how the coming of age of certain televised phenomenons such as home shopping networks and sensationalized violence affected my own coming of age as a child in the 90’s.