Brandy Trigueros
My initial inclination with writing another of these brief and informal intros was simply to add a single word here and leave it at that. Of course, I caved on that, feeling that I needed to fully express my admiration to yet another talented and giving photographic artist such as Brandy Trigueros. So here is what that would have looked like…
“Wow”
Yep, that’s it. Kinda says it all, but let me just mention a couple of things to expand on this.
I mention admiration because, well, Brandy is quite unlike myself - polished, organized, refined, and well put together so to speak - with these same traits being seen throughout her photographs. The case in point here is her most recent and (ahem) award-winning body of work, The Dadabyte Theater. You’ll see and read more in the interview itself, but these are stunning black and white images that look great here, but you should see them in person. (Refer back to my original one-word statement). There’s a point to it all, of course, and it’s not hard to spot where the influence and inspiration come from. What I will say is that inspecting the future while taking some cues from the past seems like an intelligent and logical way to go. To do so with such creativity and whimsy makes this work stand out and have a lasting impression on the viewer.
As usual, this is where my fascination comes in and I become filled with questions about how and why these images came about, not to mention the process involved in making them come to fruition in such an impactful way. So here I am in awe of Brandy Trigueros and the thorough knowledge and precision behind her work. This is as good as it gets, and may we learn from her ways.
Fragmentation, 2017
Bio -
Brandy Trigueros is a Los Angeles based artist who uses the narrative space of the camera to meticulously yet playfully create staged inquisitions of womanhood, memoir, and the on-going transformation of self. After years of working in publishing at the Los Angeles Times and animation at Nickelodeon, she began pursuing her artistic practice full-time and received her BFA in Photography and Media from California Institute of the Arts.
Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in venues such as the Center for Photographic Art, Building Bridges Art Exchange, The Center for Fine Art Photography, Berlin Foto Biennale, Los Angeles Center of Photography, and New Orleans Photo Alliance. Her photographs have been published in Musée Magazine, Lenscratch, and F-Stop Magazine, among others.
Brandy recently received the CENTER Curator’s Choice First Place Award by Marina Chao of the International Center of Photography and is a four-time Critical Mass finalist. She was also a finalist for the 7th Julia Margaret Cameron Award and received honorable mentions in the 2014, 2015 and 2019 International Photography Awards.
Interview -
Michael Kirchoff: As I understand it, your start in the arts did not begin with photography. Can you give us some background on how you moved from one career into another, and why photography became your medium of choice?
Brandy Trigueros: Actually, from an early age photography was the medium that shaped and defined my artistic path. When I was around 8 years old, I sort of became an unofficial documentary photographer for my father who worked in fire prevention for the Los Angeles County. Seated on top of a pile of branches in the back of his pick-up truck or out on a limb, with his Polaroid camera in-hand, I would assist with documenting brush clearance and tree work. I was fascinated by the magical, instantaneous nature of the Polaroid and cherished being outdoors with my father.
I continued to explore photography in high school with the use of a well-loved 35mm film camera that my mother sourced from a thrift store. My best friend and I would spend hours in the amber-lit darkroom, music blasting, making prints. As a teenager, I aspired to have a career in photography, specifically as a fashion photographer but found it hard at the time to take a leap of faith to pursue such a competitive field since I wasn’t sure it would be an economically stable one. Growing up in a low-income household, we struggled financially, so being a fulltime career artist seemed a somewhat farfetched dream. The Art world itself is a space of privilege, which can be a struggle to be apart of, if you are not somewhat financially stable. But as the 20th century French painter, Georges Braque said, “out of limitations new forms emerge.”
I worked in publishing and later in animation at Nickelodeon all the while keeping photography as a hobby. I then began to express my inner emotions through photographic means after experiencing the death of both of my parents within a four-year timespan, to help with the grieving process.
MK: Ah, I had it backwards then. Thank you for the clarification. So, I previously recall seeing prints from your body of work, The Dadabyte Theater, and now see that you’ve recently been recognized by CENTER for this work, bringing even more eyes to the project. What was the impetus for the project and is it ongoing or completed?
BT: Late 2016 was a flashpoint, I was in this continuous fight or flight mode, an endless state of urgency and overstimulation with the constant spectacle of the 24 hour news cycle covering the 45th U.S. President. I experienced increasingly high levels of anxiety and sleepless nights, tethered to my phone, computer, television, and radio, overwhelmed by the information/disinformation overload. In an attempt to find order within the frenzied chaos of our political and technological entanglement and as a way to examine the constraints, contradictions, and complexities of our technoculture, I transformed my living room into an impromptu stage and began pulling found materials and objects that were inherited or previously collected in a bricolaged fashion and this in-camera auto-portrait work emerged.
This project is not yet complete. I’ve conceptualized and am beginning to work on a short film with stop-motion effects, which I am hoping to possibly collaborate on with dancers as soon as it is safe to do so.
MK: Why self-portraits?
BT: I refer to these as auto-portraits since I consider the term ‘auto’ as automatic or the mechanized function of the camera acting as both a spectator as well as an extension of my subjectivity, thinking of the great media theorist, Marshall McLuhan. I am considering the ways in which a multiplicity of selves and the possibility of hybridity of being are constructed and acted on through and in conjunction with technology. Also, since this series emerged as a reactionary response, using my own body as the framework to contemplate these extensions and fusions seemed fitting for such an impromptu exploration, especially during those sleepless nights when my anxiety fueled and propelled me to create at odd hours.
MK: Are each of the photographs in The Dadabyte Theater meticulously thought out before you begin, or do you leave yourself open to some interpretation along the way? Is one way better than the other?
BT: At the onset of this series there was no initial preplanning. After I started responsively making the work and began reflecting on why I was making it, I started considering specific ideas for pieces but am completely open to interpretation, with the exception of my two sculptural pieces, which were preconceived and sketched out ahead of time.
My personal ideal space of creativity is probably a hybrid of the two: beginning with a thought experiment, gesture and/or research and then relying on intuition while I am making the work to allow for interpretation.
Facial Recognition, 2017
Body Work, 2020
Home Theater, 2017
Facial Unrecognition, 2017
Virtual Reality, 2017
MK: As I’d mentioned before, I’ve seen your prints up close and can attest to how beautifully produced they are. It feels very satisfying that even though domination from technology is a part of the concept for this work, you bring it to fruition by making very large prints of the finished images. Was this an important part of the overall vision for the work?
BT: I appreciate that, thank you. The one-to-one relational aspect is of importance in the work since I am referring to the body. The large scale also implicates the viewer’s own body in a way, to further the entanglement and activate shared projections with one another.
MK: Something else you address with this body of work is conformity and female identity. I’m wondering what your views are on how technology affects women differently than men. Or am I completely off-base with this question?
BT: Technologies are leaky contradictory spaces of algorithmic control, bias, and capitalistic power with interlocking oppressions but are also spaces of liberating possibilities and potentialities. Technology has been used throughout history to set standards of conformity and oppression affecting women, BIPOC, and the LGBTQIA+ community within economics, body regulations, and gender scripts, which has not affected men in the same way.
I’d also like to point out that from Ada Lovelace, to the NASA and Harvard “computers,” women were the first programmers and assemblers of digital machines. Throughout history, gender is shaped and produced using the technologies available of the time. From the corset, bloomers, the bicycle, typewriter, and the birth control pill, to plastic surgery and online platforms, technological innovation continually takes on a multitude of forms that reshape bodies, creating new sites of disempowerment and agency.
MK: In your artist statement you conclude, “Examining history allows us perspective of what has been lost, and what has been gained, in order to inform a path to the future.” My question is this - with the unstoppable progress occurring with technology in so many aspects of our lives, will there be a place for humanity in the distant future?
BT: Although history seems to be repeating itself in new forms, I remain stubbornly hopeful. I am hopeful we will move beyond anthropocentric models of change, attuned to collective care and justice, particularly as the earth and its inhabitants have need of care as never before.
Royal Mixtape, 2017
Surveillance, 2017
Milking Machine, 2018
Feedback Loop, 2020
MK: What is it that inspires you to decide upon a particular project?
BT: I am most interested in the performance of identity and strive to make work that in some way critically addresses the social world from a personal standpoint. Ideas and questions may sometimes emerge from journaling. My last piece or project will oftentimes be a compass for the next.
MK: One last question about technology, whether it be in the form of information or hardware - do you feel like you would prefer to reject much of it, and how has it affected your process of making photographs?
BT: In regards to information, it seems there is an anesthesia to facts in our digital mediascape. A big part has to do with the exponential rate at which information is truncated, memificated, and disseminated. What is required is an intellectual mediation – to force ourselves to slow down, take time to focus and think about the content in a broader context within our attention economy. The Harvard professor and author, Shoshana Zuboff talks about our present state of “surveillance capitalism” and how it has created asymmetries of knowledge and power. Since we are essentially walking informational datasets, “know thyself,” as the Greek maxim suggests, so that it is more difficult for algorithms or systems to manipulate you.
My entire life I have been absorbing media in a multitude of forms, which has greatly affected the person I am now. With the generational shifts I’ve experienced in technology, I’ve been actively present and witness to, particularly the hyperspeed and overflow of data within our digitalsphere. Studies on neuroplasticity suggest that our brains adapt and change as changes to the environment occur, which changes our biology. Some changes I’ve personally experienced are, my memory and modes of how I memorize, recall, and access information, as well as a shortened attention span. I do find myself becoming more digitally resilient and attempting to be as low tech as possible, not an easy feat! The one thing that has not really been affected is my slow, considered way of making photographs.
MK: How do you know if you’re ever really done with a specific body of work? Do you ever go back to revisit images or collections to improve upon what you felt was previously finished?
BT: Usually after I’ve exhausted most of my conceptual ideas for a body of work, I’ll make small test prints, sit and listen to the images over a period of time and the work will inform me. I am totally open to revisiting and editing past work to extrapolate new meanings that time and space affords.
Me, Myselfie and I, 2017
Projection, 2020
Charged, 2018
Saint Algorithm II, 2020
Self-Driving Car (kinetic sculpture), 2019
MK: I’ve seen your photographs come up as part of Critical Mass and the previously mentioned CENTER Awards, so I know the answer to part of this question. What steps do you pursue in order to find an audience for your photographs? What has worked, and what has not?
BT: I would honestly rather be making work than finding an audience for the work, it is something I have to actively pursue. I have attended a few portfolio reviews, although, the best part of attending reviews for me, is the camaraderie, meeting new people, and seeing everyone else’s work. I think relationship building and being an active part of a community of artists and thinkers is vital.
I am ever so grateful to CENTER for supporting and sharing my work with a wider audience along with this interview, thank you Michael.
MK: The pleasure is all mine, certainly. Now, anyone working in an artistic field has matured and grown over time. Is there anything you’ve discovered lately that you’d like people to know about you or your creative process?
BT: Usually after extensive reading and research, ideas will emerge and unfold when I’ve stepped away from the work and my mind is at rest. I always try to leave room for rest by way of being outdoors in nature and creative play.
MK: Was there a specific point in time where you felt that you had found your voice in photography and became satisfied with the direction of your work? Do you ever truly find yourself in a good place with your images, or are you always searching for more?
BT: On April 26, 2012 to celebrate my ‘unbirthday’ inspired by Alice in Wonderland, I made my first successful, self-portrait. This was a pivotal moment in my comfortability performing for the camera to create a narrative tableau.
I fluctuate between loving my photographs, wanting to throw them into a paper-shredder, and everything in-between. I try to embrace it all. If I love a particular image or piece after sitting with it for a while, I challenge myself to try and create a new piece that will stand on its shoulders.
The Dadabyte Theater Installation, 2017
MK: Where might we be seeing more of you and your photography in the future? Any plans we should be aware of?
BT: Presently, I am in a virtual group exhibition, The Eye, curated by Manfred Müller, presented as an outdoor, public screening in the West Los Angeles area until mid-December. Next year, I have a solo show at Foto Forum in Santa Fe and at the Griffin Museum of Photography.
MK: Wonderful! Something to look forward for sure.
You can find more of Brandy’s work on her website here.
All photographs, ©Brandy Trigueros
