Author Description

This is the first book to fully interpret Objects on My Dresser (1979-83) by the conceptual artist Sonya Rapoport. Objects on My Dresser is Rapoport's psychological self-portrait for the digital age. Motivated by the recent passing of her mother, she joined together with a psychologist in a project that was part therapy, part creative collaboration. During the psychoanalytic process, Rapoport selected 28 objects that had accumulated on her bedroom dresser, ranging from travel souvenirs to family photos, small curios, and other keepsakes, which became anchors for the analysis. Rapoport turned to a newly available tool-the computer- and used the data mined from psychoanalysis to code, plot, and graph her interior experience. With exclusive access to archival materials and interviews with the artist during her lifetime, Efimova and Cohn decode Objects on My Dresser and position it in the canons of Conceptual, Feminist, and early computer art.