Katie Torn, of New York, NY, was the IEA’s artist in residence the week of March 17th, 2014. Katie is a digital media artist and professor who creates experimental video works and digital prints that reflect observations on American consumerism, culture, and its impact on the environment and human body. She uses new technologies to express what life is like in the digital age where interacting in a virtual space is an everyday activity.

An ongoing series in Katie’s work involves making Totem structures in 3D space that feature elements on America’s consumerism and commercial overload in our everyday world. Topped with a 3D rendered woman’s head usually quite dolled up in virtual make-up, videos are produced moving through the 3D space and around the totems as well as prints of the totems in their 3D environment. During her residency, Katie used the opportunity away from the urban environment of NYC to gather some source material is a more natural setting, specifically focusing on a tree in a pasture setting to later be incorporated into a totem. The tree was shot in stereoscopic video using a jig and two GoPro3 cameras with the intention of creating a piece that could be displayed on a GeoWall or in anaglyphic, red/blue video.

The editing of this video will take some time, and Katie plans to do the AfterEffects work at her studio in NYC. In the meantime, we have documentation of Katie at work in the field and in the studio chatting with IEA member Barbara Lattanzi.