[excerpt from 2003 Atlanta Biennial artist's statement, 2003]

The Internet Mandala Project is an interactive installation based on live, in-gallery digital image “translations” of viewer-supplied texts of personal significance. The Internet Mandala system of text-to-image translation functions by layering images found through search engine results for selected texts or key words. This process centers on linked assumptions: that there is an underlying visual order within the internet; that trolling for images using words as bait yields important insight into this order; and that participation in a series of chance operations within this order can yield a culturally significant mirror for personal meaning. In a larger sense, my approach is fueled by ongoing playful exploration of the traditional Buddhist use of mandalas as maps or condensed diagrams of cosmic meaning.