201 Days

source: highlike

Work: “Lewis applies a rigorous system of documentation to map highly subjective body experiences, arising from her interest in ‘expressing something that does not exist in the tangible material world and does not hold a containable form.’ She begins by dividing her body into an abstracted grid and, each day marking with pins on a corresponding wall grid those places where she feels physical sensations, such as pain. Threads connect these pins with others representing dates to show the accumulation of data over time. Her assertive body mapping ‘is false by nature, as it speaks to the impossibility of harnessing a sensation,’ she says. ‘The very logical, systematic, and quasi-scientific approach to the work gives me authority to rationalize something irrational and control something that is beyond my control.’ Katharine Harmon The Map as Art: Contemporary Artists Explore Cartography Princeton Architectural Press, 2009.
Photographer: Katie Lewis
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source: datavisualization

201 Days is the documentation of physical sensations felt by the creator Katie Lewis. Using simple tools like pins, thread and a pencil she mapped her sentiments on a invisible grid.

Each section of the grid on the wall is correlated with a different part of the body. Every time she felt a sensation in a particular area on her body, she documented the feeling onto the corresponding place on the grid with a pin and the date.

The work is often organized into grid-like charts and diagrams mimicking science and medicine’s representations of the body as a specimen, visualy displayed for the purpose of gaining knowledge. In this way I create distance from the information and objectify the experience, giving a false sense that the body is accessible and easily understood.
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source: cartaematita

Katie Lewis è un’artista concettuale che ha sviluppato uno stile originale basato sulla visualizzazione dei dati. L’artista registra giornalmente i dati più svariati su sé stessa. Poi, li rappresenta attraverso quadri astratti utilizzando spilli, fili e matita.

Il risultato trascende la normale infografica e diventa un quadro astratto dalle forme organiche, oppure installazioni di grande impatto.
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source: katiehollandlewis

My current work traces experiences of the body through methodical systems of documentation, investigating chaos, control, accumulation and deterioration. The artificially rigid organization of my materials alludes to control– of the individual body as an institutional domain, and of irrational experience as a manageable, concrete set of events. My choice to use the body as a starting point aims to give visual form to physical sensations that are invisible to the eye and medical imaging, and only exist in the subjective realm. I collect data through daily documentation processes, and then generate numerous systems to allow the information to exist in a material form. I abstract and quantify the data in order to give authority and agency to subjective experiences.

The work alludes to the body in certain pieces, through the text or a particular material, but the reference remains abstracted. By abstracting and codifying the work, I want to evoke a sense of the passing of time, accumulation of information, presence and absence, chaos and order, control and loss of control and the possibility of the system collapsing upon itself or reaching a breaking point. Once I devise a system for a particular piece, I follow it all the way through the work allowing the visual results to exist outside of subjective expressive decisions. By strictly following and never veering from a given system, the work is tightly controlled and asserts itself as accurate and authoritative (however false and unscientific), questioning the gap between a subjective experience and medicine’s conventions for understanding the body. The work is often organized into grid-like charts and diagrams mimicking science and medicine’s representations of the body as a specimen, visually displayed for the purpose of gaining knowledge. In this way I create distance from the information and objectify the experience, giving a false sense that the body is accessible and easily understood.
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source: body-pixel

Katie Lewis received her B.A. from The Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and her M.F.A. from the California College of the Arts. In 2006, she was awarded the Barclay Simpson Award for outstanding graduate work at California College of the Arts. She has also been granted two residencies at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center. She lives and works in San Francisco. (bio taken from Stanford University)

‘My current work traces experiences of the body through methodical systems of documentation, investigating chaos, control, accumulation and deterioration. The artificially rigid organization of my materials alludes to control– of the individual body as an institutional domain, and of irrational experience as a manageable, concrete set of events.’

‘My choice to use the body as a starting point aims to give visual form to physical sensations that are invisible to the eye and medical imaging, and only exist in the subjecetive realm. I collect data through daily documentation processes, and then generate numerous systems to allow the information to exist in a material form. I abstract and quantify the data in order to give authority and agency to subjective experiences.’

‘The work alludes to the body in certain pieces, through the text or a particular material, but the reference remains abstracted. By abstracting and codifying the work, I want to evoke a sense of the passing of time, accumulation of information, presence and absence, chaos and order, control and loss of control and the possibility of the system collapsing upon itself or reaching a breaking point.’

‘Once I devise a system for a particular piece, I follow it all the way through the work allowing the visual results to exist outside of subjective expressive decisions. By strictly following and never veering from a given system, the work is tightly controlled and asserts itself as accurate and authoritative (however false and unscientific), questioning the gap between a subjective experience and medicine’s conventions for understanding the body.’

‘The work is often organized into grid-like charts and diagrams mimicking science and medicine’s representations of the body as a specimen, visually displayed for the purpose of gaining knowledge. In this way I create distance from the information and objectify the experience, giving a false sense that the body is accessible and easily understood.’