Recurrent Infraction

My graduate study began as an exploration of identity issues that are marked by abjection and otherness. The problem with representations of disempowerment however, is that they reinscribe themselves as a type of recurring trauma. This reflexive performance of stigmatic otherness also has the inverse effect of reinforcing ideals of sameness.

What has evolved is an examination of power. I began thinking about systems having the authority to equate difference with pathology. Research in medical and psychiatric power influenced me to look at other self-perpetuating systems, namely pedagogy and criminology. I started to look at these institutions and the notion of institutionalization as both site and process for the enforcement of social and ideological norms.

From the year 2007 to the present, my project has been to create immersive environments that begin to expose the anxieties associated with distortions of power that are imbedded within institutional signifiers. The architectural elements, furniture, found and fabricated objects of the installations are cast or coated entirely with heavily fragranced white soap. My intention is to juxtapose a sense of physical and psychic vulnerability with the more sinister aspects of these types of sanitizing regimes by means of suggestion. It is a way of dislocating traumatic memory from my identity and aligning it with other origins.

Miles Conrad - May 2009