The collaborative works of artist Ryan Trecartin are approached much in the same way that a director approaches filmmaking. Using a cast of the artist’s friends, Trecartin is able to experiment by allowing fellow artists the opportunity to carry out loose plots by participating in the creative process and by contributing their own works of art. Trecartin is currently living in L.A. as a displaced citizen of New Orleans, post hurricane Katrina. The artist has expressed his displacement through a variety of works including “World Wall,” a form of disaster therapy that involves ideas of dislocation and loss as well as festivity and rebirth. The artist often explores the ideas of sets and narrative by approaching his work through stories and dialogue. When speaking of his works, Trecartin has said: “We consume and consume and puke, more than fetishise the objects and information we use. … We don’t act inside or outside of consumer culture, entertainment, or art culture, we consume and translate, we’re a by-product of it.” Last year, the artist exhibited “I smell pregnant” at the QED in Los Angeles and was featured in the 2006 Whitney Biennial “Day for Night.” Other notable group exhibitions include “Sympathetic Magic, and Yo a romantic comedy” at Planaria, New York, and works with the Saatchi Gallery in London.