Ally Christmas (b. 1991) is from Northern Virginia, and she currently lives and works out of Grinnell, IA. She received her Bachelors Degree in Studio Art from the University of Virginia in 2013, where she was also selected to be an Aunspaugh Fifth Year Fellow from 2013-2014. Her work and research have won awards at the National Conference for the Society for Photographic Education, the 4’33” Spotlight on Scholarship competition at the University of Georgia, and from the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts. After graduating with her MFA in Photo & Video from the University of Georgia, she received the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship from Grinnell College to teach video art for their studio art department. Christmas works primarily with lens-based media and her practice is characterized by a constant process of filling and emptying – of materials, of time, of herself. Her work grapples with the algorithmic formation of identity, the contemporary notion of Barthes’ punctum as manifested through the glitch, and the spectral nature of our virtual selves as they are performed, split, and extended across screens.