Sean Deckert

Sean Deckert was born in Culver City, California in 1984 and grew up in southern Illinois with his mother and sister. He left to attend Arizona State University for a Bachelors in Fine Arts, where he studied under Betsy Schneider and Mark Klett. His development of portraiture and landscape involves techniques that require multiple technology combinations, complex layering of information, and holographic aesthetics that usually employ conceptual installation methods for the final piece. His work has been exhibited extensively in Phoenix and Los Angeles with upcoming exhibitions booked in multiple international venues. His network of friends/collaborators ranges from scientists to local community organizers that advise and assist him during the development of his work. He has volunteered extensively in his local arts community, including his membership with the Eye Lounge Collective and Artlink. Although he is trained as a photographer his work often associates with architecture, sculpture and video. Locality and the interpersonal identity of people are the central themes throughout the variety of mediums his work employs. His most recent work could be classified as ecologically and socially investigative due to its concentration on the sociopolitical environmental issues of urban spaces such as Urban Heat Island. Sean Deckert photographs intersections of time and place beneath the patterns of climate. His focus on urban landscape and the human development that unfolds in these spaces bears witness to the ecological impact relevant within contemporary cultures. Time lapse and infrared imagery build upon the historical role of photography as a scientific tool while still elevating the visual aesthetic above the documentary nature of the medium. Structural urban places become reminiscent of organic human bodies. Previously invisible solar patterns and heat signatures transform into respiratory rates. The sky becomes a tangible object to understand as a force in flux with these spaces. Using the most extreme cities as the synecdoche for his socially concerned vision, he works primarily in Phoenix, Arizona and Beijing, China. His work is evidentiary in nature although the intrinsic quality lies in its conception as art for the future of understanding what these issues look and feel like to the average citizen.

http://www.seandeckert.com/

PULS | PHOENIX URBAN LIGHT STUDY

Utilizing a multitude of camera systems including a FLIR infrared, 3D video , DSLR, and lenticular images I have attempted an address of this paradox of Urban Heat Island. Creating shifting, user-activated photographs, infrared video tours of the city, and stop motion light studies, this work redefines the spaces of the downtown Phoenix Metro area […]

HEAT(E)SCAPE

The Heat(e)scape project emerged when Sean Deckert, an artist interested in the urban heat island effect, met with Karina Benessaiah, a geographer interested in how people perceive and adapt to changing social and ecological systems. Through the combination of infrared & normal video camera systems with interviews and music, this project seeks to articulate a […]