MC: Do you think an individual's experience of emotions can be altered through psychological therapy? How has group therapy changed your perceptions or interpretations of human emotions? If there has been change, is this change reflected in the creation of your projects?

JVA: Yes. I have personally experienced this and witnessed it in the other members of my group (which I have been attending for about 10 years now). I believe that the brain is like a muscle, and psychoanalysis is like going to a gym with the shrink cast as the personal trainer. Depending on the environment in which we grow up in, our brain develops differently - since we cannot yet transplant brains - therapy is the only opportunity some of us have to retrofit it. My perceptions of emotions have changed as a result of therapy like my perceptions of the human body did after taking anatomy classes in art school. My projects would not exist at all if it was not for therapy - my hopeful loop used to involve wishing I had enough security to afford the time to make artwork.

MC: Much of the inspiration of your projects is based on extremely subjective, personal experiences. Do you view art as a tool for the artist to satisfy unmet needs in reality? If yes, how do you think the process of creating art substitutes or satisfies needs in our lives? Would you agree that the act of creating art is therapeutic?

JVA: I tend to think of subjective work as being autobiographical - which I do not see my work as being at all. I see my work as being more like a byproduct of personal experience, as a productive sublimation of my compulsions - which are loosely based on a ridiculous premise from my childhood that if I can understand the world around me, I can control it, and that will make me safer. Therapy has helped me use this anxious energy to fuel my artwork (something I like to do) rather than spend it on other activities spanning from being wasteful to self destructive. I like to think I am attempting to present universal truths - as observed by me. Isn't this what Freud did? Is his work considered subjective? I like the idea of art being therapeutic, but if this was the case I suppose I would not feel the need to be in therapy.

MC: I am especially intrigued by your interests in combining technology with art and psychology. I have recently completed my degree in psychology at the University of British Columbia, aside from my degree in studio arts, and find a strong connection between the two fields. Do you think psychology can be art? How and why? How do you think that your experience with psychoanalysis has made you a better artist? Do you think you can better predict the audience's reactions to your artwork?

JVA: As an aside, I recently discovered that the idea of psychology and technology was the basis for the field of Cybernetics - which originated in the late 1940s. I have always seen art as the purest record of our thought process - magnetic tape for the mind. I wish I had the time to add cognitive science and electrical engineering to the mix.
Psychoanalysis has definitively had a major impact on my work. It inspired me to translate the act of self analysis into my process of making visual art. I think I have a better understanding of why the audience responds to my work in a particular way, but this is during or after the fact. I do not think about this much when I am working on the piece. I focus on the metaphor.

MC: You have chosen to work with technologically sophisticated systems as your medium. How do you think your work is interpreted differently by audience members who are not familiar with the digital technology you have used? Do you take into consideration these aspects of interaction with this type of audience, as opposed to an audience with knowledge of the technology used, when creating your projects?

JVA: I love work that is complex, but I hate work that makes one feel stupid if they don't get it. The former always feels like a cop-out to me. Playing with technology is my transcendental experience - the audience gives me an excuse to indulge this. I think this is always as it is with a work of art - you attempt to give the audience a gift, and they end up playing with the box - which is just fine with me. I believe that the media should transcend the medium, otherwise it's a cheap shot, a novelty, fashion, etc… essentially it has a built in expiration date.

MC: Digital art and technology are constantly evolving, how do you think the way people view your projects will change? Do you see the projects as having success in both the current timeframe and in the future? How do you predict the context will change over time?

JVA: As time goes on, it will be easier for the audience to appreciate the art rather than the technology. This medium is too new to allow for nuance. New mediums always start out this way. I hope my work will become more interesting as the glow of "gee-wiz" fades.