MBUS ARTISTS TALKS: Â Liz Rodda
Liz Rodda was born and raised in California (Sacramento, I believe she mentioned), and currently lives and works in Austin, Texas, as an Associate Professor teaching Expanded Media at Texas State University. Â
Liz is a mixed-media artist who works primarily with found materials, especially videos on Youtube and other streaming platforms, and pairing videos and/or audio that weren’t meant to be shown together. Her aim, as I understand it, is to pair things that become more complicated in the presence of another, to change the way we see them by putting two unrelated things together, and to instill meaning to these videos beyond and despite the original intention of the creator. Â
What did they talk about?
Liz talked a lot about her motivations and driving factors with regards to the central themes of her work, as well as her processes. Â
Describe their working process?
She is drawn to video clips and audio clips that are strange and absurd in some sense, but also common or every-day, so she spends a lot of hours looking through videos on public platforms without any agenda at first until she sees something that catches her attention. She described herself as a “curator,” collecting random videos posted online that weren’t meant as art and placing them in that context to meditate on them more thoroughly. She has also worked with found objects to create sculptures and installations using the same philosophy. Â
Describe their philosophy?
She is both an optimist and a pessimist. She is very much into Camus’ works and drawn to the absurd, her works often reflect on the absurd by juxtaposing contradicting or unrelated visuals and sounds in an attempt to draw out meaning from both. She is really drawn to asking questions about meaning of life and believes that there is meaning and beauty in the struggle of life, which makes it all worthwhile. Â
Did you enjoy this speaker? Why or Why not?
I did enjoy listening to her thought process for her work and her explanations, I thought that they were very valid explorations. Â
Did they speak well both on presentation and content?
Yes, she spoke very concisely and showed examples of her work, speaking on each briefly. Â
What new information did you gain?
Liz spoke about a book I hadn’t heard of named “La Peste” by Albert Camus, who is one of her major influences.  I may pick it up.
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What else did they talk about?
Someone asked her about her influences; she spoke about her interest in psychology and philosophy, pop culture, Camus of course, and experiences drawn from her personal life.
Another question someone posed was about how she deals with using other peoples’ videos and if she has to get permission to use them. She quoted a friend of hers who said he doesn’t get permission for his own health and happiness, so she doesn’t permission from the authors of the clips, she holds herself to her own ethical rules and standards. Essentially if someone puts something on Youtube, typically it gets repurposed and reshown.
She also spoke about current work she has been doing, which are paintings/drawings using a rapid mark-making technique. She is exploring ways to bring a formal line quality that is also humorous and playful, layered, and tumultuous. Â
Quote something of interest?
When she spoke about her installation piece, “Hot Zen Island,” some of the questions she mentioned it may raise we very interesting to me. She said, “What larger implications does the shutting down of the hooters mean in the context of today’s society-” and, “how does self-care fit in today’s capitalist society, do we link myths to industries to make them sexier?” Â
HOT ZEN ISLAND
Installation
Hooter’s dust & construction debris, bamboo, tropical palms, fountain, industrial fan, lights, incense, Hooter’s dust sealed in plaster, sneaker, grow light, seeds, underlayment, sweat-stained t-shirt. Â
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