ARTIST STATEMENT 1s and 0s, on and off leave no room for interpretation. The playground of my work is that colorful area in between as it alternates between the virtual and the physical. From concept to object I am going back and forth between my subjective interpretations, manual work and the straightforward language of technology and digital production. Engaging the audience in play is a pivotal element that guides my process. Abstracting signage in the city of Providence to the language of children's connect the dots game, cranking the music box that plays punched dots, blowing at a set of pinwheels to set the work of a digital rss feed. Drawing from my Lebanese culture of the over-cluttered, I make sense of the world by discerning its patterns. Inspired by the repetitions in the environment around me, tiles, bricks, autumn leaves, the binary language of digital technology, I delve into a project in a manner akin to speaking without thinking. My "words" though are slow in the crafting and the making. The creative process takes its time allowing the work to fully develop and coalesce into initially unforeseen directions. BIOGRAPHY Mary received a Merit Scholarship from the American University of Beirut where she pursued a BFA in Graphic Design. Early on, she discovered that scissors can do magic and engaged in a career of perfecting cut out techniques in bright colors. Her love for paper is only equaled by her love for what is on the paper; text, content, typography, and all the white space in between. Inspired by old Islamic calligraphic manuscripts, she conducted several experiments in designing Arabic fonts to write stories and fables on the history of her country, Lebanon. The outcome of her collaborations in the Architecture, Art and Design interdisciplinary office, Atelier Hapsitus in Lebanon culminated with a series of 3-D formal explorations using Arabic letterforms. The forms lent themselves as function in a shelving system for a mansion, a curved handrail, laser cut tiles, and floor plans proposals in a retail space. With an MFA in Digital Media, Mary aims to extend the element of play and her interactive hands-on work process from that of print to that of Digital Media. As she further drowns into code she interprets the language of 1s and 0s as pattern generators. WIND WRITINGS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xmXxM5R-p4 Wind Writings converts wind energy to set a colorful field of pinwheels spinning. It translates and dissipates that energy into amplified sound and distorted utterances of RSS feeds from People magazine. A witty take on the Law of Conservation of Energy, Wind Writings does not create or destroy it simply converts. SEARCHING FOR BOB ROSS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsxfjHPOC0I Searching for Bob Ross is a video piece that uncovers multiple layers of simulacra. In this interaction between reality, symbols, and society, reality or rather its concealment is no longer in question. In Searching for Bob Ross, I set out using You Tube to fill in the cultural gap that my peers from the US constantly made me aware of. Bob Ross is not just a TV personality with his own show; instead he is a reality and a way of looking at the world and representing it through painting. "This is your happy little world. You can do anything you want in it." As I went through a series of videos where people imitated Bob Ross, assumed his persona, manipulated and built on his existing image, I admitted that my understanding of this character would never be complete. By going through his imitators abound on YouTube, and not by growing up watching him, I was able to get a glimpse of the impact that Bob Ross has had on TV culture. 1S AND 0S; THE SPACE IN BETWEEN http://picasaweb.google.com/mchoueiter/MidtermCritiqueFall0809RISD?pli=1# 1s and 0s; the space in between creates a formal vocabulary that abstracts the signage in the city of Providence to the language of connect the dots children's game. A series of well thought of formal and subjective decisions further translate this language to sound through the use of punched holes cranked into a mechanical music box.