Artist Statement 2008


   In a world where political and socio-economic circumstances are often obdurate and objectionable, unfettered personal determination may seem a far-flung ideal. I have created the Self Generation Corporation, using the platform of art, to shape my own venue for such idealism. The stated mission of this company is to research and develop products and technologies to create a self-sustaining energy consumer/producer. Through the project, I address my concerns regarding the environment, public acquiescence to socio-economic structures, and the incongruent aims of professional art making.

   In order to encourage creative solutions for sustainable energy, I craft hand-crank Plexiglas sculptures which generate actual electricity, and propose medical procedures for personal energy production through biotechnology. To question an uncritical acceptance of the business model as auto-legitimate, I use the business model itself, complete with logo, website, and promotional pens, to construct veritable shell meant to pass as a real business despite its fabricated inner workings. By deliberately placing an overt corporate facade onto my artwork, I twist, and thereby critique, the reality of an art market that touts genius, but often forces artists to focus on profits rather than inspiration to survive.

   I contemplate what is real, what is not real, and what could be made real in a state of unlimited possibility. I step into an alternate sphere within which I do control the variables and outcomes-- where environmental, political, economic and professional spectres are banished as easily as the crank of a Plexiglas handle.

Andrea Reising is a multi-media artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She completed undergraduate studies in Visual Arts and Writing at Columbia University, and received a Masters in Fine Arts from Pratt Institute. In 2000, Reising began Drunken Buffalo Arts, an independent publisher of art, music and writing. Reising studied guitar and voice at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. She performs as a singer-songwriter, and has produced three albums, “My Achilles Heel” 2004, “Underbelly” 2002, and “Rodeo Queen” 2000. In fall of 1998, Reising independently published her first poetry collection. Columbia University published a second collection, entitled “Gadfly Wiles,” in spring 2000. “Open City” literary journal published an excerpt of “Gadfly Wiles” in fall 2000. Reising exhibits photographs, painting and installations in New York and Milwaukee. In 2002, she was nominated by Columbia University for the Mortimer Hayes-Brandeis Traveling Fellowship. In the spring of 2008, Reising won the C40 International Award for Sustainability in the Arts. Her recent multimedia project entitled “The Self Generation Corporation” involves research and development of products and technologies to create a self-sustaining energy consumer.