Date of Award
Spring 6-1-2021
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Painting
First Advisor
Kevin Zucker
Second Advisor
Angela Dufresne
Third Advisor
Jackie Gendel
Abstract
A bulky, inflamed, excess volume of overactive targeted neuron choking nonsense that profits off creating fear-induced high-speed bowel movements.
My current work seeks to create space for intrusive thoughts and images that repeat, disturb, distress, and contaminate. The source of these intrusions is called the Broken Thought Machine(BTM). I use multimedia practices of drawing, sculpture, performance, and video to unearth the origins and properties of the BTM to then perpetuate its product to an absurd degree. This obsessive reiteration brings negativity to a threshold where horror and detachment can spontaneously metamorphose into humor and compassion.
The BTM can be an individual, a family, a society, and a planet. The work zooms in and out to see micro and macro manifestations of broken thought processes in individual and societal imagination networks. The work seeks to be a form of exposure therapy that processes the world through pieces ranging from video sequences spiraling into neurotic fractal imagery to disembodied drawings pierced by a rotary of toxic inner dialogues. The BTM is an inseparable part of our personal and collective anatomy that shatters and tramples harmony. By using art to pull the BTM's pants down around its ankles, fear can turn to laughter and Less Broken Thoughts (LBT's) can prevail.
Recommended Citation
Dispensa, Michael, "The Broken Thought Machine [broh-kuhn thawt muh-sheen]" (2021). Masters Theses. 799.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/799
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Comments
View exhibition online: Michael Dispensa, The Broken Thought Machine [broh-kuhn thawt muh-sheen]