Artist Statement:

My work occupies a space between art, film and media research that engages the ephemerality of film and survival of media arts. In my films and photography, I explore the moving image and utilize both analog and digital mediums for their unique properties, often exploiting the technology and process to recontextualize what is seen and what is valued. Recorded media can represent time, expand, collapse, or fold it onto itself exposing the malleability of our experience and questions what is an honest memory. I often look for ways to enhance this quality and reveal markers of time through capture, edit and color.

Another portion of my practice focuses on media archaeology and research around the technologies, techniques and ethics of film and media arts preservation. As a media arts developer/practitioner and advocate for film/media preservation, I co-founded a collaborative project with Adam Hogan, which strives to save media works, experimental films, and rare cinematic treasures using modern digital tools, advanced color science, and machine learning. Along with our collaborators, we actively strive to contribute to the expansion of the art historical canon. We are invested in finding projects and histories from artists and filmmakers whose works are still stored in inaccessible/obsolete, unstable, decaying media formats that will soon be lost to the filters of time. This experience has influenced my own work and understanding of access to history and its material existence.

Bio:

Laura Stayton is an artist and filmmaker who works primarily in experimental film, expanded cinema, projection and installation exploring both analog and digital technologies. Her works have been included in exhibitions and festivals such as Ars Electronica, International Symposium for Electronic Art (ISEA), Cyfest13, Experimental Intermedia NYC, Springfield Art Museum, among others.

Her research and work in film restorations have been published/exhibited through the Criterion Collection, Anthology Film Archives, Fridman Gallery, Il Cinema Ritrovato, Centre Pompidou and others.

Aside from her work as an artist and research in restoration, she has also been working in post production for the past five years. Through this experience she has worked with many talented filmmakers and artists. These films have been included in theatrical releases and major film festivals such as Berlinale, SFFilm, DOC NYC, British Pavilion at The Venice Biennale, ARRAY, NYC, Slamdance, among others