Cecilia Dougherty
I took this picture of the 3-story mural of Biggie Smalls located at 1091 Bedford Avenue in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. The mural is astonishing in its height, boldness, and beauty. It was going to be painted over but has been saved. A PIX11 story about it here.
About Cecilia Dougherty
I’ve been a video artist since the mid-1980s. Before that, I was a painter, self-taught and working on my own. I went to UC Berkeley for painting and while there, I began to work in video. I created experimental works in video and several longer film/videos over a the next twenty years. I screened mys video work in venues internationally, and have participated in many film festivals and gallery shows. In the late 1990s I became interested in working online and by the early 2000s I was creating works using simple html and css coding. And my most recent works have been interactive fiction, which are accessed online. Microscope Gallery and Participant, Inc. in New york have hosted my works of interactive fiction.
My first book, The Irreducible I: Space, Place, Authenticity, and Change (Atropos Press, New York and Dresden) was published in 2013 and is based on my PhD dissertation. In the book I argue for a removal of hierarchical classifications for humans, animals, machines, geographies, and the things we make and do. I propose approaching our problems as a species on Earth in terms of the interactivity of all elements involved.
Most recent explorations are in the area of sound composition.
Some of my video work is available on my Vimeo channel at https://vimeo.com/ceciliadougherty.
My video work is archived at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley. The Video Data Bank in Chicago and the Film-makers’ Cooperative distribute my work. My web art is archived at, and distributed by, Cyland Video Archive.
Interactive Fiction / IF
My most recent works are Interactive Fiction, including Time Before Memory (2019) and its sequel, Shanidar, Safe Return (2023). The setting for Time and Shanidar is prehistoric Eurasia. The characters are Cro Magnons and Neanderthals. These interactive stories are speculative fiction and are based on a lot of research into the time-period of 40,000 years ago. They include original graphics and photography, as well as an extensive soundtrack.
Drift and Ride
Drift and Ride are interactive photo essays created in 2020. Drift documents a stroll through St. George, my Staten Island neighborhood and is like a trip back in time. A lot of Staten Island neighborhoods have been stuck for decades, most likely due to neglect by developers. Developers are beginning to notice Staten Island, however, and are targeting some nearby neighborhoods for a renewal of dubious quality and purpose.
Ride is about NYC public transit, which became a much less safe option for getting aorund town during the pandemic. The piece is not about options, however. It’s about people-watching. Public transit offers a glimpse of chance encounters, meetings, conversations, New York street style, the mix and mashup of the residents of our city.
Writing
I learned about writing by reading Georges Perec, the French 1950s-60s chronicler of everyday life. His writings are a lesson in how to escape ideology while keeping a clear head on issues that effect all of us. Issues such as climate change, wealth inequality a.k.a. greed, struggles for racial justice, gender equality and women’s rights, one’s right to bodily autonomy, freedom from war, freedom from religion, and global human rights. I don’t write about those things directly, but there is an inherent connectivity between these things. Perec illustrated ways of observing the present moment openly and freely, without judgment or motive.
In 2013, my book, called The Irreducible I: Space, Place, Authenticity, and Change, was published by Atropos Press and is based on my doctoral dissertation of the same title. Writing The Irreducible I pushed me out of theoretical thinking and I began to look at the naturally forming connectivities and the pathways to social change available in most situations and circumstances .
You can read a selection from The Irreducible I here.
The Irreducible I: Space, Place, Authenticity, and Change by Cecilia Dougherty, Atropos Press, 2013. Also available in KINDLE version.
Just an update on the photo of Biggie Smalls, that the mural above is based on:
