Niki Nolan

Bio:

• Short Bio
  I am a conceptual artist based in the bay area. I hold an MFA in Digital Arts from Pratt Institute. My work explores the unreliability of human memory and how it shapes experiences.

  Statement
  My current work stems from the first time I remember being documented, which prompted a sensation of self-doubt as to whether I was recalling my own experience or had substituted a detached replication of the event.

  My aim is to examine how an error-prone memory reacts to potentially conflicting versions of the event in which it was simultaneously created. My installations confront the observers’ subjective impressions by contrasting them with photographs and video produced before their experience crosses the threshold into the perceived past. These exhibits are meant to explore the potential fragmentation of self and place that arises as our accelerating capability to record outpaces our physiological ability to comprehend.

  The immediate availability of digital photos and video via ubiquitous internet access and cell phone cameras creates a constantly updated stream of information which daily outperforms our fragile human memory in both scale and accuracy. Our pursuit thereof is challenged both by our limited potential to understand and our expanding capacity to digitally record. We align and adapt our understanding of the event – yielding to and assimilation the impartial record. My installations demonstrate the alienating effects of this process in microcosm.
  My work has become a network of images linked and interwoven. Every new installation has fragments from previous shows, manifested in prints and objects, carried over and situated in a new context. This mirrors our mode of integrating new experiences and observing the associate connections that arise regardless of their relevance to authenticity.

Role(s):

• Artist