Travis Kniffin

     A student of Art History, as well as an addition to the Photography Department, at Tyler School of Art, Travis Kniffin clashes the world of psychology with art to shift the conceptual meaning within his work to his fullest advantage.

     Travis’s current project brings him onto the streets of Philadelphia. He confronts the passerby streetwalker, commuter, and local with a lit computer monitor. Capturing the passersby in the glow of the digital screen, employing perspective to impel the viewer to identify with the computer hardware itself.

     “By presenting the monitor in this way, and I want to sort of suggest that the viewer is really engaging in the meaning of the work. They are not being gazed at. They are gazing, like the viewers of the photograph.“ He goes on to state, “I’ve always been interested in searching for a certain liminal space.”  Travis elaborates further, talking about his goal of bringing into light the space itself with all of its characteristics and qualitative meaning. He uses the placement of the camera, to give a visual persistence to the work throughout, making conscious choices to totally cast out the background in black, while using light to suggest the strange intimacy that one has with the computer screen.

     In this instance Travis is literally placing the primary object within the image although much of his older works deal with the art of appropriation to do so. He strongly identifies, and feels great influence, with artists Jon Rafman and Andre Kertez. This body of work is continuous, and will be up for display between December 4^th  and 10^th of 2012. 

Review by Victoria Berends