Seth Augustine

Situated within a cultural milieu where actions, objects, and behaviors are charged with meaning, Seth Augustine's art process begins with intervention-either in the form of social experimentation or public performance.  Parameters help define the limits of the interventions and generate an open space where unexpected outcomes can develop.  Informed by the discoveries and insights learned from the consequences of these actions, Augustine then articulates further artworks.  These new pieces, often a hybrid of traditional categories and contemporary art strategies, traverse a wide range of formats including artifact, sculpture, photography, installation, video, and drawing.   
 
The works presented in Mash-Ups are based on Augustine's own experiences-including performances, collaborations, and social experimentations-conducted in China over the course of two extended visits in late 2008 and early 2009, and chart the complexities of the present-day configuration of the American-Chinese interplay.  Shaped by the codes and classifications of one's culture, personal convictions and perspectives can seem quite natural and even invisible until they are pressed up against a disparate culture with its own unique behavioral patterns and social histories.  Encouraging physical engagement, Augustine's artworks thus immerse the viewer/participant within a highly subjective space of contrasts, conundrums, and misperceptions.