"80D1punk"
80D1punk comes from my preoccupation with how identity challenges agency through recognizable and indexical visual signals and reductionist informatics. 80D1punk approaches this very human situation through an appreciation for non-human bodies, mechanics, and behaviors with a healthy dose of creative engineering. I position my work in an intimate relationship to the study of the body as a moldable material to conduct my research. The protagonist in my work may be surgically flayed by creative code or reconfigured by entanglement with ill-fitting components, changing its silhouette altogether. In my various origin stories, the lead character seeks access to modularity, sentience bashing, and a more natural and holistic form of capital. As a maker, I’ve always employed a DIY mode of studio practice which translates to one set of hands working in a small non-traditional studio space. My studio practice provides a place to materialize my research on topics related to post-humanism. I find great value in working in this way and find that discussions with other artists during public programming fulfill any collaboration needs. If my practice has an immediate goal, it is to express all that the performance of daily life censors. In other words, TheSongOnlyMattersWhenYourThroatBleeds.
Short bio: Lee Blalock is a Chicago-based artist,80D1punk and educator presenting alternative and hyphenated states of being through technology-mediated processes. Interested in how technologies support the idea of impossible anatomies, behaviors, and performances, her work is an exercise in body modification by way of amplified behavior or "change-of-state". Lee’s interests include embodied cognition, anatomy and biomechanics, bionics, mechatronics, human/non-human entanglement, and computational abstraction. She has presented work domestically, internationally, and virtually at many institutions including Feral File, Ars Electronica, the wrong biennale, NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery, Experimental Sound Studio (Chicago), ICA (Philadelphia), 205 Hudson Gallery (NY), and the Art Institute of Chicago. Lee is an Assistant Professor in the Art and Technology Studies Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and practices various forms of embodiment as an everyday athlete.
L[3]^2 // m_eye_m // lee++
sy5zens - n3w_hum4ns - algorithmic b0di3s - augmentations - amplifications - computations
behaviors - videos - drawings - writings - electronics - sounds - softwares
w: leeblalock.com, e: lee@leeblalock.com