Undergraduate Research and Creativity Alumni Profiles 

Rachel Wright, B.S. ’12

M.F.A. Student, University of Colorado Boulder
Major(s): Sculpture, Painting, Philosophy

What research or work have you done since graduating from Buffalo State?

I am currently working on my Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition at the University of Colorado, Boulder, titled: "Are You Still Recording? Are You Still Recording?" It's an experimental video installation that re-contextuales an archive of home movies. Including, 16mm, 8mm, Super 8, video and sound recordings, like, voicemail messages from my father and other natural and instrumental recorded sounds. I am investigating the ways in which personal narrative can underscore the collective narrative through the format of experimental video, installation, and writing.

I reference and examine ideas relating to memory, time, nature, recording, and notions of the collective. I am also interested in themes and relationships like home movie as ethnography, as well as notions of identity, materiality, subjectivity, and objectivity. The experimental video utilizes family home movies spanning from 1952-2018. I access the lineage of amateur film makers and projectionist in my family to create a non-linear narrative that reveals private and public histories.

I use this archive as the raw material to create an experimental video that is projected onto a front and rear projecting mirrored screen. The screen functions as a dual-sided fourth wall (to the stand alone installation structure, 8 ft high, 8ft wide and 14 ft long) where the viewer can see the projection from both the interior and exterior of the installation. The viewer enters the museum space facing the (large canvas like) screen side of the structure as it projects the experimental video. The structure will stand as a large sculptural object from the exterior. The interior of the installation is a space for the viewer to experience the video projection internally. The structure also serves as a metaphor for reflexively, as well as notions of subjectivity and objectivity, public and private, the personal and the collective. Through the use of layering voicemail messages from my father over an archive of home movie footage I emphasize the relationship between these different but familiar modes of recording. The layering creates a new context for the image and sound to exist.

I use light as a key element in the work to reveal and conceal certain fragments of the moving image. The result creates a painterly, sensorial, melancholic, meditative, familiar, and dream like experience. Simultaneously, the moving image and the audio helps to create tension by utilizing contrasting elements like repetition, scale, light, texture, perspective and time to reference the relationships we have with the material and the immaterial, the mundane and the fascinating, the real and the preformed, the comedic and the traumatic, the familiar and the familial.

Can you translate your work for the general public?

My master's thesis is an experimental video art installation that re-contextuales an archive of home movies. Including, 16mm, 8mm, Super 8, video and sound recordings, like, voicemail messages from my father and other natural and instrumental recorded sounds. I am investigating the ways in which personal narrative can underscore the collective narrative through the format of experimental video, installation, and writing.

Why did you decide to get involved in undergraduate research?

I was encouraged by my painting mentor, Lin Jiang, to pursue a summer research grant in landscape painting. The time and resources that the research grant allowed me was invaluable to my growth in the field. While I was at Buffalo State, I also received several other small grants that allowed for me to develop my skills by building and exhibiting large scale sculptures and installations. The grant afforded me the materials and equipment to create a portfolio and apply to graduate programs. In May I will be graduating from the University of Colorado, Boulder, with my M.F.A. in art practices. 

How did your undergraduate research experience influence your career path?

The grant afforded me the materials and equipment to create a portfolio and apply to graduate programs. In May I will be graduating from the University of Colorado, Boulder with a master's degree.

Undergraduate Research Mentor: Lin Jiang, Elena Lourenco