ImPOSSIBLE CONVERSATIONS? by Sonya Rapoport

Sonya Rapoport, “ImPOSSIBLE CONVERSATIONS?“, Digital Video, edited by Farley Gwazda, 29:26, 2013. The video is based on a series of 10 collages in which full-page advertisements from The New York Times are each matched to a black and white photograph of pattern paintings that Sonya Rapoport executed on what she describes as “funky“ printed fabric in the late ’60’s and ’70’s. Participating viewers were invited to match one of a series of 10 media headlines*, also appropriated from advertisements, with one collage. Participants were then asked to explain their choice on camera. The resulting video places each participant into one of 10 categories represented by a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat. Each category is associated with Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley’s Marketing Design and Matching Theory algorithm, awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Economic Science. This video was exhibited at Fresno Art Museum as part of the solo exhibition “Sonya