Stacia Yeapanis

b. 1977; resides Chicago, IL

I Love My Fake Baby, 2006

It’s Hard To Be Close, 2006

Watching Buffy Kill Her First Love, 2006

My initial interest stemmed from the nature of the game, in which players pursue their own purposes and perform their own subjectivity by using their Sims as extensions of themselves. – Stacia Yeapanis

Stacia Yeapanis’ My Life as a Sim work includes a performative lecture, an ongoing website, iphoto slideshows, and prints like the fifteen included here in her MPP portfolio. These still pictures are printed from screen captures taken as her character in the computer game The Sims 2 navigates both the routines of a suburban household (like watching the television program Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and more fantastic situations (like making love to one of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters). These snapshots of virtual life include moments where coding glitches create voids and arrangements of body parts impossible in the physical world. Much like the pixilation and saturated colors of the images, the glitches are artifacts of digital construction, yet they address the all-too-real issues of identity and intimacy.

Stacia Laura Yeapanis was born in Newport News, Virginia. She holds an MFA in studio art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2006) and a BA in German from Oberlin College, Ohio (1999). In addition to her solo show Addict at Gallery X, Chicago, Yeapanis’ work has also been exhibited in Spun From the Web, Gallery 2, Chicago; More Real Than Real, LG Space, Chicago; and 4th Annual Pingyao International Photo Exhibition, Pingyao, China.

- Kendra Greene

www.staciayeapanis.com