Artist stories

On February 20, 2012, multi-media artist and graduating DANM MFA student, Sabrina Habel spoke with Nada Miljkovic about her art work and upcoming installation entitled, Seeing Spectacle, as a part of the DANM MFA 2012,I’ve Got Something On Your Mind.

Sabrina was the first DANM interview that I had in this year’s series of 2012 DANMite graduates. It was really fun to talk with her about her various forms of art. It has also been exciting to watch her work show around Santa Cruz over the past two years, such as partaking in the First Friday Santa Cruz Art Tour with an installation entitled, Cyphergraph, at Motiv, and her Hypnagonian work. You’ll have to listen the interview to hear what that means.

During our show, Sabrina explained the concept behind Seeing Spectacle, that “advertisement is everywhere- in magazines, on TV, the Internet, plastered over shopping malls and urban areas. Together all these advertisements form a mass media spectacle of desire, fantasy, and above all, consumption.” Sabrina’s multi-media series Seeing Spectacle uses off-beat humor to confront the essence of advertising. Commercial products and celebrities are replaced by simple and even mundane natural elements, usually taken for granted in consumer culture. By choosing non-gallery spaces for billboards, window displays, tabloids and TV commercials, ordinary sights are warped into a satirical commentary on the ever-intrusive advertising industry.