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I believe the ways in which information or meaning can be expressed may be infinite but that, for any particular meaning, there is only one unique, optimal articulation (and in one particular medium or selection of media). As a corollary, I believe form equals content (but that is not to say all meanings and effects of a work are apparent at first glance). I agree with Homer that art is a sword with two edges: it both deceives and reveals, and it can either liberate or control and confine our thinking. I agree with Keats that truth is beauty. I also accept the tenet of information theory that the most important data are those that would not have been predicted. I like art that has lots of meaning on more than one level, that has multiplicitous intentions, that deploys more than one strategy, or that juxtaposes more than one frame of mind. And I like art that shows or does something new. I also like art that addresses aspects of life that are challenging or difficult, whether emotionally, intellectually, or otherwise. Issues that have most interested me in the past (and that are still reflected in my work) relate to epistemology and how we define “good” (whether moral or qualitative), among other things. What most interests me in the present is how to implement what I think I’ve figured out. Implementation seems to implicate, among other things, such “systems” questions as, what principles or other structures tend to help a given system survive, adapt, and reproduce? (I think pretty much anything can be usefully regarded as a “system”--e.g., biological cells, individual psyches, nations, ecologies, concrete or abstract systems such as languages or computers, the universe.) I want my art to address many kinds of issues — perception and cognition; individual identity and motivation; social, economic, and political interactions and complicities within systems large and small; transformation and mortality, among others. The kind of video I like to make usually starts with a strong vision that comes more or less as a “whole” inspiration. A sequence of scenes or events are visualized in detail. My biggest, most vivid ideas seem to embody a great deal of what I’ve learned in life, although I often don’t understand all I’m doing until later. To me, one of the most exciting things about video is that it has the potential not only to accommodate many different strategies but also to comprise a vast amount of information. I think artists have just begun to exploit the potential offered by video.
I therefore do not limit myself from using narrative or quasi-narrative
strategies, any more than I preclude purely conceptual strategies,
visual or aural abstraction, neo-surrealism or -pop, metaphor, humor,
etc. Some artists’ imaginations are freed by limiting themselves
to one or two tools; I want to try to use as much as I can of the
whole toolbox. (2003)
Carolyn Sortor is a media-based artist, curator, and writer with no art degree other than a B.F.A. purchased from her boyfriend, who didn't need it anymore. Her work includes video, computer-based art, conceptual works, prints, sculptures, poems, and other writings. Her videos have been exhibited in Dallas, New York, San Francisco, Austin, Marfa, and Corpus Christi and broadcast on Current TV. Perhaps her best-known work is her Matthew Barney spoof, Creamistress 6: "The Centered Polenta." In 2008 she co-curated The Program, an exhibition series at Conduit Gallery, Dallas comprising over fifty recent, media-based works by internationally-recognized artists. She authored A ShakeFest for Book Clubs and writes and maintains c-Blog on the subjects of art, politics, and trash. She has been a transactional lawyer since 1987 and served as a judicial clerk to federal Chief District Judge H. Barefoot Sanders. Her main website is at c-cyte.com.
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-- The
Tempest, Act III, scene i, lines 42-43,