Out Of Context // Carrie Mae

“Being in New York is about being open to humanity. You can be in the desert and not really have to engage with people. If you’re on the subway and you’re living here you have to make peace with how you interact with people. So, I think being here, for me, was more about being part of humanity and not being on the outskirts.”—Carrie Mae Rose

“I was born in West Virginia and grew up in Ohio and left when I was 19 and moved out west to Arizona. It transformed my life. It was amazing. I lived in a really small mountain town outside of a national forest, went hiking a lot, to hidden swimming holes, amazing desert views, dear friends… Kind of like this magical playful child in me came out.”

“My very first inspiration was the agave plant.

I had read this book called Plant Spirit Medicine. It talked about finding a plant that you are drawn to, interested in, and then ask what kind of gifts it has for you.

The agave plant has this radial structure and it protects itself from these desert animals. And agave has nectar inside of it. And I felt like it was teaching me about boundaries, and that I didn’t have any protection around me, and I had nectar inside of me, and it became this metaphor that I think was the initial seed that was extended in the wearable weapons.”

“My overarching path started with the agaves, and when I moved to New York I started working with the scissors and the cement… And then from there to the razor blades and the zip ties… And then from there to electricity and fire… And then from there the 3D printed stuff and new technology.

So, I think over the course of the past 15 years it became less about making work about my own personal safety and wanting to feel beautiful and wanting to heal from childhood trauma… To being more about society but still about security and protection.

Then the interest became about national security. Or, if the gods wore armor, what would they wear?

Then it became about electricity. And now that’s becoming more refined to mapping the meridians, and the nadis of Ayurveda. So it’s electricity but really very subtle.”

“I feel like there is something about the materials that is a kind of alchemical, magical part of it for me now. Just blending together different textures and materials and the hard and the soft. There’s something about the contrast and the dynamism of all the different materials that really inspires me.”

“Basically it’s all one big blending…

My stepdad was amazingly tech-savvy, an abstract thinker. We were on the internet really early: ‘89, ‘90. So I always had an interest in technology. I knew really early that this was a portal to everything.

And I found my meditation school while I was working at a library out in Arizona. This school asks a lot of very interesting things about the future…and I was seeking some answers. The founder of the school is a medical doctor, he did a huge amount of research on the subtle bodies…the layered life-force: prana, chi, meridians. So the question he asked was: in the future, when people have augmented kidney’s, and fake eyeballs, how is that going to affect the ability for that person to meditate and reach higher levels of consciousness?

He was asking about artificial intelligence and nanotechnology and genetic engineering. All of these really intense future questions. And I can remember stopping my car and taking notes.”

“He said that instead of throwing all the computers to the bin and returning to nature we need people that are spiritually minded to use technology in a way that enhances consciousness rather than smothering it.”

“I remember thinking: I have to help with this. I had been contemplating life in the desert and wilderness, but then I just felt this is what I am here to do. I have to go in that direction.”

“I was doing tons of yoga and going to ashrams where you pour warm milk over statues of Ganesh. It was beautiful, but I wasn’t moved by the rituals. It was kind of like, ‘OK, I’ll say something in Sanskrit’… But something about the questions of technology and the future and putting it all together…it really stirred something in me. I discovered I am most concerned with how humans are going to survive on Earth and in space.’”

“I want to make a garment where I can test different materials on the body during meditation, to see what could help amplify the physiology of the body during meditation… And then be able to map it… And then be able to assist in trainings with these simulated astronauts environments.”

“I love putting things on the body, learning about the technology, and making garments that I call ‘computational couture.’

At first I wouldn’t actually give myself permission to go in the fashion direction because I have these ideas I need to work out. It felt too superficial. But now that I have this mission, you know, to help humanity transition to a solar species!… The fashion is play, and it’s fun materials research and I can just be in that intuitive and abstract place and balance it out.

I think it will all eventually get integrated.”

“I got on the wait-list at Parsons and I came for an interview and I got a tour of the school and I looked in this lab and there were like 50 computers and I thought, ‘Gosh, I think I have to go in that direction.’ So that week I switched from an MFA in traditional Fine Art to a MFA in Design and Technology.

After grad school everybody went to get design jobs and be professional and I decided ‘I don’t want a design job. I want to make things!’ It took three years, at least. I lived on bread, peanut butter and honey in my friend’s railroad apartment living room in Bushwick, Brooklyn. It was a really tough time but I survived. And I am here now, making things!”

“Being in New York is about being open to humanity. You can be in the desert and not really have to engage with people. If you’re on the subway and you’re living here you have to make peace with how you interact with people. So, I think being here, for me, was more about being part of humanity and not being on the outskirts.

I talk about how the desert is a huge expansion horizontally and New York is a huge expansion vertically. The drama out west is the mountains and the drama here is the people and the ideas and the fact that there is six miles of bedrock that holds up the city and the skyscrapers and it’s like a big antenna. It’s like the capital of the world…people come here for it. But you have to learn how to hold it.. this force that the NYC antenna attracts.”

“Me being here in NYC is about stretching to hold more fire, a new level of vision and ideas and not just get crushed by the day to day drudgery or the grime and dirt or all the mean people.”

“I’m around people that are creating ideas and making things happen. I feel like that is where I’d like to head… And then pitch that on Kickstarter or to an angel investor. Or, I’ll make 50 huge wing sculptures or a whole line of tetrahedron sensor clothing.

I just feel like one of those ideas is going to flourish and then that will fund and grow my next idea.”

About this blog

Out Of Context is a production of Artbeat, an art label and social marketplace dedicated to emerging artists and their work. To learn more about this artist and discover other upcoming talents visit Artbeat.net.

About this artist

Carrie Mae Rose is an artist, technologist and seeker whose research overlaps into the fields of fine art, technology, fashion, science and mysticism. Learn more about Carrie Mae and her work by viewing her profile and portfolio at www.artbeat.net.