Jessica MacCormack's interdisiplinary practice engages with the intersection of institutional violence and the socio-political reality of personal trauma. Her recent works integrate animation, video, painting and collage in social interventions and community productions that explore issues of criminalization, HIV/AIDS, racism, transphobia, sexual assault and mental health. Working with communities and individuals affected by stigma and oppression, MacCormack uses cultural platforms and distribution networks to facilitate collaborations which position art as a tool to engender personal and political agency. She has an MFA in Public Art and New Artistic Strategies from the Bauhaus University (2008). Currently she is an Assistant Professor at Concordia University and lives in Montréal, Québec.

(I am currently using this tumblr as a sketchbook. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see older projects, or go here http://jessmaccormack.tumblr.com.)
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YouTube Project

YouTube channels

In this project I construct a series of internet personas on YouTube. Within the frame of current global internet communities, I aimed to highlight how identity formation, representation and the media on the internet relates to surveillance. These constructed personas interacted with each other and the YouTube community to problematize concepts of visibility/representation as legitimacy and manipulation as safety/security, while simultaneously initiating dialogue and critique of these same processes. Seven channels/personas were created, together uploading a total of 70 videos.

YouTube videos


http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=privatleben2006 (Jena surveillance cameras)

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=maybechildhood (stop-motion animation grafitti)

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=xenophobia2006 (text based video critical discourse)

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=somanymore (poetic videos)

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=thereisastory (stories from a retired news cameraman)

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=curiousgeorge1983 (a young man critiques popular YouTube personalities and videos)

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=mirrormirror2007 (narcissism?)