VISUAL AND CRITICAL STUDIES

Before SAIC, I received my BA from Mount Holyoke College. My art-based research and video projects at SAIC in the Visual and Critical Studies department focused on Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and experimented with documents as both physical, aesthetic objects and ideological, political forms.

My i-series of video works, "i03-04", "i02-08", and "i02-09", have most recently screened at The Nightingale Theater in Chicago, the Arthouse Film Festival in Tampa, FL, as part of "Cirque du Filet" in Northampton, MA, and as part of Duration in London. My work can be seen in print in Useful Pictures (2009), edited by Adelheid Mers, and my project Paris Soldes >>> Sales!!! Bling ta' Boom, documenting the economic crisis in Parisian store fronts, has been featured online in ITCH e.3 and Slate's Ten Great Photographs of the Economic Crisis. 

       .:|:.Current.:|:.

          .:.video.:.

I am working on a new series of video works pairing documentary footage with found text. The first video, "the Cutter-off of Water",  was adapted from Marguerite Duras' short story of the same name. The current project, "Desire," pairs responses to the question "She/he/it loves me because....?" with staged reenactments.

      .:.photography.:.

I recently finished a series of photographs called City S)k(in that are now online as part of Itch e.4.

My year long photographic project 2009: 20:09, documenting 2009 at 20:09 each day, is complete.

I have continued the project for 2010, and images can be seen here 2010: 20:10.

I spend quite a bit of time documenting "graffiti" / "street art" in Paris, Barcelona, and just about anywhere else.    

I have started a project for 2010 called "Hints."

        .:.writing.:.

I have and maintain a blog, Swallowing Church Bells.

I can be contacted at hcwinter [at] gmail [dot] com.

i02-09: We Interrogate the Detainees (2009)

"Oil. Styrofoam cups. NGO's. We interrogate the detainees; we remain detained."

"i02-09: We Interrogate the Detainees" was a multimedia work part of Antipodes '09 Festival Europeen des Arts Indisciplinaires at Le Quartz in Brest, FR.

       .:|:.Installation.:|:.

A silent video without cuts, of a styrofoam cup being turned inside out without breaking, was installed in a room containing 1 pint of blood, 2 towels, 2 floral bed sheets, 2 pillows, 2 emergency lights, 1 pair of tall rubber boots, 1 can of gasoline, and 1 green bucket. The walls were postered with images of styrofoam cups and spray painted signs, signs which were repainted based on documentary images of prison spaces in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. A surveillance camera was placed inside the space; a television was placed outside for viewers. A 21 minute track we called "Polystyrene Noise," which was created only using styrofoam cups, filled the space with sound. The space was open to the public.

i02-09: We Interrogate the Detainees is a shortened version of the original video paired with the first part of "Polystyrene Noise".

i02-09: Installation is a set of images showing the posters, spray painted walls, floor, and installation space.

        

       .:|:.Performance.:|:.

I enter holding a styrofoam cup.

I scrape it along the walls.
I make noises with it on the floor.
I listen to the walls with it.
I turn it inside out without breaking it.
I place it on the ground away from my body.
I break it.
I leave the space.

Duration: 25 minutes - one hour.

i02-09: Habeus Corpus is a three minute video documentation of the performance. The piece was created using still, medium format color slide photographs of the performance and pieces from "Polystyrere Noise". 

i02-09: Performance is a set of still, documentary images showing the 2 public performances of the piece.

i03-04 (10:21) (2007-8)
+ i02-08 (8:58) (2008) 
+ i02-09 (3:09, 9:52, 19:58) (2009)

"///End of Statement///"

          .:|:.i-series.:|:.

So far, the i-series is a series of four documentary videos exploring Iraq, the War on Terror, detainees, and torture. Each piece collects visual and verbal documents linked by verified, concrete details of physical location and digital materiality (metadata, geotaggs). The pieces aim to explore the space that emerges between perspectives at moments of rupture. The titles combine the lower case "i" of newer technologies (e.g., ipod, iphone) that have facilitated the growth of Web 2.0 and pair it with the last two digits of the years the collected materials span. "i03-04" focuses on Iraq and Abu Ghraib. "i02-08" and i02-09-- a two part piece, part one being the installation video i02-09: We Interrogate the Detainees and part two being i02-09: Habeas Corpus, performance documentation--  focus on Guantanamo Bay.

The pieces do not introduce experts, interviews, or voice-over narration, instead opting to pair or re-pair primary source documents; the credits aim to act as footnotes by providing contextual details that relocated the material for potential, original research. The use of text takes its cue from Elaine Scarry's The Body in Pain and the idea that torture is defined by the destruction of language. The screen space typically reserved for subtitles is used to indicate shifts in subject through horizontal and vertical line breaks, italics, the conservation of typographic 'errors' and nonnative English 'mistakes,' and the retention of typographic elements added during transcription, e.g., [REDACTED] and ///End of Statement///.

       .:|:. i03-04 .|. i02-08 .|. i02-09 .:|:.

The first video, "i03-04," was created using Salon's Abu Ghraib Files + You Tube + The Washington Post's Sworn Statements by Abu Ghraib Detainees.  It aimed to give voice to 'anonymized' transcript texts and reintroduce seemingly well known and little known images and videos from Abu Ghraib from an oblique perspective. "i02-08," the second, silent piece, was made using similar materials-- this time esp. the Digital Video & Imagery Distribution System (DVIDs) + Department of Defense (DOD) Military Commissions-- and by pairing REDACTED tribunal text of detainees hearings with images of Guantanamo Bay prison produced for media outlets, tourists, and visiting dignitaries. "i02-09: We Interrogate the Detainees" and "i02-09: Habeus Corpus" are the most recent videos and final videos of the series. Those last two pieces take as their starting point the styrofoam cup challenge, a game Guantanamo bay detainees challenged guards to play, and that was described as part of Jack Hitt's interview with former Guantanamo detainees during This American Life Episode #331.

How to Party Like it's 2003 (in Abu Ghraib) (2008)

"#4. Chase the Robitussin with several Vivarin tablets."

"How to Party Like it's 2003 (in Abu Ghriab)" was an installation part of a group exhibition at the Alogon Gallery in Chicago, IL.

A complete set of images, including video stills, can be see in How To Party Like it's 2003 (in Abu Ghraib).

The installation included three sets of 12-step instructions, 1 TV + emergency preparedness tent + 3 US military medical kits containing Vivarin, Robitussin, strobe lights, LED lights, chem- sticks, colored gels, copper wire, handcuffs, blank dog tags, women's underwear, CD player, mini speakers, OutKast's 2003 Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.

The TV played the (nearly) silent video, "i02-08: State of Emerge)ncy".

Instructions were created from Tara McKelvey's book Monstering: Inside America's Policy on Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War.

Liminal Documents: Between Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib (2008)
+ Liminal Documents: 12 Maps United By Nothing (2008)

 "Liminal documents are created in the space between images and documents that does not exist."

500+ Guantanamo detainees went through the CSRT process after its establishment in the summer of 2004. That process remained opaque, ostensibly because of its reliance on classified evidence, until the spring of 2007 when the Department of Defense placed "14 high-value detainee" Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) files on its website.

Taking those documents as a starting point, Liminal Documents: Between Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib collected documents into an artist's book divided into two volumes. The first, gray volume contains documents establishing the CSRT process for Guantanamo detainees, the 29 page CSRT transcript of detainee ISN 100BZ, and a series of fourteen classified and unclassified government exhibits lettered 'R.' The second, orange volume holds the documents of detainee ISN 100BZ and exhibits, including maps, letters, and photographs, labeled with the letter 'D.'

A selection of 30 pages of the 144 page project can be seen online here or a complete PDF of "Liminal Documents: Between Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib" can be requested via email.

"Liminal Documents: 12 Maps United By Nothing," continuing with similar resources, was a mapping project created for the SAIC web-based project Invented Archives. 

Larger versions of the 12 maps created for that project can be seen at Liminal Documents: Invented Archives.