Mapping Meg Ryan: Gaze Study | Samanatha DiRosa

Mapping Meg Ryan is a video and sound project in a perpetual stage of development. A collage of formulaic moments from popular Meg Ryan romantic comedies, this work examines the homogenous narratives and overt happily-ever-after implications that repeat from film to film. Gaze Study is an ongoing documentation of every longing gaze that is performed between Meg Ryan and her love interests. The accompanying audio consists of fragments from threshold moments or instances when the protagonists experience conflict or disillusion. Removed from their context, abstracted, then woven back together, the resulting form is a virtual “megscape”. In its totality, the video and sound provides a loop of sorts, where longing, desire, and uncertainty are exposed, but no climax or resolution occurs.

Samantha DiRosa's work focuses on the precariousness of memory and history and our societal fixation with documenting and classifying experience. She draws inspiration from institutional and personal collections to speak to issues surrounding permanence, evidence, and truth, within the context of these collections. A hybrid media artist working in book arts, video, sound, sculpture, and photography, Samantha DiRosa is a native of Long Island, NY who relocated to the Northwest in 1999. She holds MFA's in both Photography and Multimedia from the University of Oregon and a BFA from Long Island University, Southampton.