ABOUT

Elliott Linwood is an interdisciplinary visual artist based in San Diego, California. His training in performance art and background in computer programming informs his use of scores and notation systems as vehicles for story telling. For example, for many years Linwood designed publications embedded with algorithms that generated indices pointing to other parts of the book. These kinds of cross-referencing strategies appear across a wide range of media including large scale grids of photographic imagery, sculptural installations, site specific public art works, as well as his daily performance and Life Art practice. The influence of Allan Kaprow’s Happenings, for instance, draws Linwood toward the interplay between task oriented behaviors which often seem staged, and combinations of chance and the uncanny sense of embodiment often found in pivotal performance art pieces—which is pretty much the opposite of character development and narrative arcs incorporated into theatrical acting. The content of Linwood's conceptual and documentary projects, however, highlights artifacts and political aspects of cultural production, social and gestural terrains, how aspects of identity are performed, and how enactments of community are expressed.