Backscatter Blueprint (Vientre de la bestia), Cyanotype, 16" x 20" © Noelle Mason

I am very interested in the specificity that went into choosing each material used in X-Ray Vision vs. Invisibility. Cyanotypes because of the reference to architectural plans and mechanical trucks, cotton x-stitcheries to represent pixels, and handwoven tapestries by the weavers from the Taller Mexicano de Gobelinos that cost the amount of money it costs a family of four to cross the US/Mexico border illegally. How did you choose these materials and processes?

I usually start with a process and then find images that work with it. I am at heart and by training a sculptor (in the post-modern sense) so medium is meaning to me. I was attracted to counted cross stitch because it was something I grew up doing and because it could slow down image construction to a very deliberate pixel by pixel pace. I could digest these images through my own body in a way. I saw the Taller de Gobelinos work at an exhibition in LA and was mesmerized by it so I knew that I had to find an image that would work well both conceptually and physically with the wool Gobelin tapestries they made. I had already been working on the embroideries and so knew it would be something that would be part of the same body of work. I do a lot of scouring the internet as part of my practice and one day landed on NASA’s website for the advanced spaceborne thermal emission and reflection radiometer and knew that I had found what I was looking for. It spoke to my interest and critique of cartographic representation as well as abstract painting and the politics and land use associated with the US/Mexico border. I had become interested in cyanotype because of GraphicStudio a printmaking atelier on the University of South Florida campus where I teach. I found the process and product to be fascinating and started to teach it in my foundation classes. It made sense to me to include this alt process in my X-Ray Vision series because of the relationship many of the images had to architectural elevations and cyanotype added an important direct reference to the history of photography that the project needed. It has also allowed me to play with the scale of the backscatter images that was impossible with counted cross stitch. I recently completed a 24x8 foot tiled image of one of the trucks that includes over 350 individual cyanotypes. There is also this medicinal quality to Prussian blue, the cyanotype chemical is used to treat radiation poisoning which I find to be an interesting almost homeopathic element to the work. My work is almost always about the failures of photography to communicate important sensual information in its flatness and this work attempts to push digital images made by machines for viewing on screens into the world of physical objects. Objects that can surround you, that you can touch as well as see, and in some cases even walk on.

Backscatter Blueprint (Un dimanche après-midi, Cyanotype, 16" x 20" © Noelle Mason

Backscatter Blueprint (La Maleta), Cyanotype, 16" x 20" © Noelle Mason

The objects in Ground Control are beautiful, when reproduced as handwoven Gobelin tapestries it is hard to believe that you are representing places of conflict, reproducing images taken by the Terra satellite. Do aesthetics play a role in this project?

The aesthetic is everything to me. It is the thing that gives the work it’s power. I came through a very anti-aesthetic undergraduate program and it never really worked for me. I am tired of seeing work that looks like a bureaucratic transaction. There was always this desire to make something that had a visual impact even if it was minimalist. This work is about the construction of imagery, and how in many ways the nature of surveillance photography tries to seem objective. It is anything but, and I hope my work exposes the constructed nature of these images and the rationalized effects machine vision can have on people and places. By changing the medium and making the images by hand, image construction becomes purposeful and subjective, the fiber pieces are soft and dimensional. All the images in this project were originally meant to be viewed on screens, this project gives the images substance as well as space to be viewed outside of their intended use. The abstractions in Ground Control are reminiscent of Ab-Ex painting but are displayed on the ground as rugs. This changes our physical relationship with the object, making it humble and quotidian, I know what it feels like to walk on a rug and my body reacts accordingly. This simple human act of walking across a rug is exactly what cartographic representations obliterate…they favor a macro view over the micro…I’m trying to bring the micro back in.

Ground Control (Colorado River Delta), Hand Woven Wool, 9' x 11' © Noelle Mason

Ground Control (Mexicali/Calexico) ,Hand Woven Wool, 6' x 8' © Noelle Mason

What are you inspired by when creating work with such a complex, heavy subject matter?

It’s hard to say why exactly we are interested in the things we are interested in. I think it often has to do with the climate and culture you were raised in. I grew up in a border town in California with a SWAT sniper father and a mother who taught citizenship classes. We had a bomb shelter 20 feet underground in the front yard and conservative talk radio played 24/7. I got into the experimental punk scene in high school and was introduced to anti-fascist peace punks, communists, and anarchist philosophies. At UC Irvine I read a lot of post-modernist theory and got the chance to sit in on lectures by Derrida. I like art, music , and film that makes me feel uncomfortable or is confounding in some way. I have always been attracted to the contradictions in art, the sacred and profane. I want to make work that is both beautiful and difficult. Most of all, I want to understand the aesthetics of power and how visual culture influences us to either see the humanity in or objectify the other. I want to see behind the curtain.

Coyotaje (Rio Bravo), Hand Embroidered Cotton, 12 ½” x 14 ½” © Noelle Mason

WCW Questionnaire:

Describe your creative process in one word.

Embodied

If you could teach a one-hour class on anything, what would it be?

I have taught classes on Art and Sex, Failure, and Humor so I have had the chance to lecture on some pretty fun topics. Currently, I am preparing to teach a class on religion in contemporary art, very much looking forward to lecturing on the sacred and profane.

What was the last book you read or film you watched that inspired you?

Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste by Carl Wilson from the 33 1/3 series. Really great essays on taste.

There is also this new series of books similar to the 33 1/3 series that ask people to write about one single work of art. I read the Gregg Bordowitz book on Glen Ligon’s “Untitled (I AM A MAN)” recently and it was fantastic.

I love the movie The Skin I Live In by Pedro Almodovar, and whenever I want a jolt of aesthetic overload I like to throw on Jodorowski’s Holy Mountain.

What is the most played song in your music library?

“Goodbye Horses” by Q Lazarus

How do you take your coffee?

Lots of cream or almond milk depending on mood.