UCSD Open Studios: Katherine Sweetman

Katherine Sweetman

My background centers mainly on film studies, video, and experimental communications projects. As a result, my first year and a half of work at the Visual Arts Facility, UCSD, has produced three, very personal documentary films concerning my family, close friends, and myself. The issue then quickly became, why do I want to expose these very personal issues to the public? What is the human drive to do that type of act?

My work has since become an investigation of that question. Beyond myself, why do others expose themselves to the public and what are the means through which we all do this? I am currently investigating the issue of bringing the private into the public space, and my main focus has revolved around taking the private into the very public space of the World Wide Web.

Social networking sites are a major outlet for private information to be released into to the pubic sphere, and I have found YouTube to contain exceptionally compelling evidence of this trend. The YouTube Relevance project and YouTube Vblog project are currently my main areas of concentration. Both of these works will be on display at UCSD Open Studios, 2007.

Artist CV

Katherine Sweetman

Artists