i like telling stories—girl meets boy; girl loses boy; girl wins boy back. or girl learns that heartbreak, like love, changes everything. i revel in the disturbance inherent to a good story, in the disequilibrium between two people, between many people. this unbalance brings drama, promises myriad moments of crisis where one thing becomes another. i believe we can accomplish more together than we can alone. community and collaboration are ecstatic occasions. both provide organic structure, boundaries composed by all players. these boundaries are something to fight and push against because we are all moving bodies of difference, of otherness. to work together is to grapple and, hopefully, come out the other side transformed. i am fascinated by relationships between people, objects, aesthetics, words. every artist is a collaborator because an art piece demands a viewer to be finished. the viewer is one of the basic building blocks in the making of meaning. in my process as an artist, as a social experimenter, i am interested in the journey from sender (artist) to receiver (viewer) and how the one can mean the other. making art, thinking about art, is fun. ecstatic. art is a place of incandescence even as it is heartbreaking, alienating, a vast landscape without a map. portrait by portraits to the people. 

I'm an aggregate artist, creating one single artwork out of yearly conceptual installations. Check out eringallup.info to learn more.

My work often references the life sciences and the human body through mechanical action and movement, drawing comparisons between the ways living organisms operate, and that of machines. Like living cells, the installations I create use light, air, water and electricity, to become functional and interactive. My work often involves the sensation of touch and the element of surprise. It can be playful, alarming, and sensual all at once. I want to blur the line between life and something that mimics life through interaction, growth,movement, or decay.

So much of our perceived well being is dependent on the technology we use to create mental and physical comfort. We are surrounded by simple life support systems such as lighting, air conditioning, and household appliances. When our survival is threatened by physical illness we are plugged into machines to keep us alive. It is our moment to moment relationship with modern technology, both simple and advanced, that informs my work. Most of my installations look like or reference appliances but their intended function is unexpected and therefore creates an uncertain and sometimes humorous relationship between human and device.

My current work is highly influenced by my work performing wildlife monitoring. I am interested in the interaction of parameters imposed upon a system and the chance observations made within those parameters. Most of my work involves repetition and/or ritual to some extent.

Rice and Beans is a collaboration between Geoff Campen and Diana Ruiz. We are artists and architectural designers interested in the interaction between constructed reality, and the natural world. Geoff Campen explores these themes through architectural and construction imagery. He finds and displays inherent order and chaos in both construction and nature. He then contrasts these images with natural materials and colors. Diana Ruiz creates organic forms and surreal botanical creations with found objects, wood and wool in many variations. She is inspired by creatures (real and imagined), and collects a little of everything. Diana Ruiz and Geoff Campen are married and live, work and make art in San Francisco.

ArtSeed is a volunteer-based nonprofit public charity with a mission to inspire and empower all people to realize their full potential and embrace diverse communities. Our innovative and collaborative fine arts projects, exhibitions, classroom arts integration and long-term artist/youth studio apprenticeships invite the young and/or disenfranchised to utilize the arts to broaden all of our horizons. Chuck Three Productions, a video production company, has been collaborating with ArtSeed in a number of ways. This includes creating video & photography media for ongoing projects, video arts/photography instruction, and working in a one-on-one apprenticeship.