Happy Medium

Final project time, woo! This project is called "Boots", and it deals with either a social phenomenon or the psychic energy we have inside all of us, whatever you believe in or not. I had a really good time acting as the facilitator of this exercise, I basically just got to play with people's psyches for a bit, trying to tease out a more comprehensive image. The exercise went as follows: I set up in a space that was unfamiliar-ish, or at least not a personal space, then I asked the subject to examine the boots for as long as they felt they needed. Then I read out the following script (with a little variation based on their answers): "Close your eyes. Imagine a comforting and familiar space. It can be in your home, at school, or a place that you’ve never been. Please describe this space.  Now, invite the owner of the boots into your space. Take a moment to greet them and look at them. Now describe them to me. How old are they? How tall are they? What are ...

Douglas Gordon is a multimedia artist who was born in Glasgow in 1966. His work has been featured in dozens of museums around the world, especially the Tate and Gagosian. His work is related to Relational Aesthetics because he is concerned with highlighting the spectator's subjectivity within the work, and exploring themes of collective identity. He does this by utilizing images in popular culture, like Hitchcock's Psycho, and distorting them to such a degree that the meaning they were originally imbued with is completely stripped away to reveal a different meaning. One of his most famous works, 24 Hour Psycho , consists of the projection of Hitchcock's Psycho slowed down so that it takes a full 24 hours to get through the movie. This highlights the constructed nature of film, and the presence of the spectator. Other dynamic examples of his video work include Play Dead; Real Time , Zidane; a 21st Century Portrait , and Phantom . He also does a series of photographs ...

Kristen Morgin and her artwork were both impressive and offbeat. In her artwork, her hyper-realistic sculptures of mundane objects had the feel of ready-made art, yet it was entirely constructed by clay/dirt. There's something so engaging about exerting unmeasurable effort to create a mundane object like a monopoly board. Though she didn't really talk about antiques, I perceived her art as nostalgic/antique. She did talk quite a bit about her fascination with decay, and her enjoyment in sneakily including macabre scenes into her childlike artwork. For me, her art was mostly about death, decay, and lost childhood or innocence. Kristen's delivery was also quite interesting -- she was a very unassuming person, but a lot of the things she talked about was both personal and somehow removed. I really enjoyed the talk a lot! I think my favorite piece was the first that she showed, of the reimagined Brady Bunch, because of the lighthearted style and cultural association...

This was an exceptionally intriguing project, because it definitely highlights the documenter and the power that that person has. For my documentation process, I used my iPhone to record the events (except Noah's for some reason -- I think I messed up and forgot to actually record, much to my infinite frustration), then I decided to alter the color of each event and I edited the actual performance, cutting out down the event to either key moments or simply cutting out parts of the event. In this way, I imposed meaning on each performance piece - an audience member then consumes the art not as a performance piece based on the subjectivity of the performance artist. Rather, the performance artist becomes the object of my subjectivity/camera, which is hella invasive. Here's the video: Again, I wish that I had the video that I took of Noah's piece, but all I had was a single image. Even that has specific implications about how I as the creator of the film felt about the pi...

My project, "greeting card event", was just a joy to plan, create, and stage. I set out to explore the relationship that people have with greeting cards and their own image. As I stated in my proposal, when people consume greeting cards, the anonymous subjects tend to take on a universal quality which allows people to connect to them. When I made my friends the subjects of the greeting cards, I had hoped to illicit a response that would be similar to greeting cards, but also change the way in which they consumed the cards. What actually happened had a very different energy which I personally associate more with Christmas. The act of gathering for gift giving (sometimes with cards) is a constructed event with certain unspoken rules or conventions that were very much present during the greeting card event. My process:  I made the greeting cards on Zazzle, an easy-to-use platform that I think most people use to make personalized wedding invitations or other stuff of that...

I found Tyanna's pieces to be very engaging and freshly unique in a variety of ways. Frequently, I find myself questioning the utility of "meaningless" art devoid of any human associations. I value art that questions or makes a statement about an issue, or can be utilized for change, or just generally used as a tool. While I can see the value in shifting expectations (like the simple selection of an aesthetically interesting object like the bottle holder in the interview we watched for class), I find that the human connection imbued within a piece is much more meaningful. This is why I found Tyanna's art so engaging, because behind every image and every choice, we can see a rich history that she invites us to experience with her. For example, this image illustrates her desire to re-imagine her relatives: I found this piece incredibly beautiful. Her decision to use mug shots, and then change them into portraits that completely change the way the subject is prese...

For this first project, I'd like to focus on this concept of collective consumption versus individual consumption as Bourriaurd discusses in his book. My idea is to make greeting cards using photos of my close friends, then filming their reaction to the cards. When people shop for greeting cards, there is a certain degree of separation that takes place, because the subjects of the cards are usually unknown and therefore take on a universal anonymity which helps people connect to them. By using subjects that are not only known, but personal, I'm interested in seeing how the consumption of their own image affects this universal anonymity (will it still be kind of present since it is a greeting card?), our relationship as friends (will they be surprised with the phrase/saying that I pair with their image?), and how they see themselves. Then, there's another layer with your consumption of the footage of their reaction to their card. I have a feeling that it might isolate the ...

I can hardly believe it's been a month already, and [only] have three more months left. This is such a beautiful place to be and to live! I've been doing a ton of things, spending what feels like a ton of money, and generally enjoying myself. I'll try to condense as much of September as possible, even though there's so much to tell! If you have any questions that I don't answer within the rest of this post, please feel free to either post in the comments or email me. Here we go! Home life: My host family is just lovely! My mom's name is Mari, and my sister's name is Omaira. Omaira, or "Oma" as she is sometimes called, is one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen in my life, and she's getting married next September! I'm so lucky to live with them! Mari is an amazing cook, and she really enjoys using Moroccan spices in a lot of her dishes (which makes me so incredibly happy). We live at the top of a very large and steep hill in a n...

I cannot even really begin to express the emotions running through me even now, as I sit on the terrace in my casa, looking out at Granada por la noche. I've only been here a few days, but I'm already starting to feel familiar with the calles and the tiendas. Estoy muy contenta. My first days in Spain were a little overwhelming, they were filled with touristy activities -- all of them important and exciting and different, but I'm happy to find where my home will be over the next four months. In Madrid, we went to several museums and saw two very famous art pieces that I've heard of, but never seen. This painting is called "Saturn Devouring his Sons" by Goya. Its part of a series called the Black Paintings, all depicting gruesome images that he painted on the walls of his home after he witnessed the effects of Napoleon's war. This piece has always struck me on the computer screen, but seeing it in real life was incredible. I also got to see Pablo ...

Unfortunately, I can’t at this moment publish frenzy because I don’t want to carry the burden of representing Bon Appetít as an institution. If you’d like to see it again (unlikely) I can find a way to get it to you. If when you’re watching frenzy , you find yourself stressed, annoyed, and bored at the same time, that is exactly what you’re supposed to feel. Welcome to the life of a Bon Appetít worker. These two videos serve two purposes; first, to show the near-constant and insatiable desire for food, which manifests itself through the enormous amount of dishes in the film, second, to show how the people who run and work in this environment become part of the machine that feeds the masses, as displayed by the blue shirts and constant movement. In De Certeau’s The Practice of Everyday Life , he says “Everyday life invents itself by poaching in countless ways on the property of others.” “ Along with the lazy man... the dying man is the immoral man: the former, a subject that does ...

As much as I enjoyed this film, I also found it highly unsettling, both in the unfulfilled way that we're supposed to feel at the end and in Eva's construction. The way that Eva is built up and made into such a shining and interesting character, only to be reduced to a plot device or catalyst for the upheaval in Bruno's life was (I'm not going to lie) very disappointing. For some reason, her behavior at the end just didn't feel like something Eva, the character the filmmakers constructed and made us believe in, would do. Perhaps in that way, it was the ultimate betrayal on Eva's part, one that tricks the audience as well as the main character. Even so, I less resent the character for leaving and more the [male] directors for deciding to move the narrative in that direction. I suppose it had to happen in order to drive the male-centered narrative about the trusting, helpless, honest Bruno who takes in this poor prostitute and gives her a new life, only to find ou...

Equality is the name of the game! Judy Chicago's art, in all mediums, sizes, and varieties features themes from the feminist movement. Her "masterpiece" installation piece The Dinner Party features 32 place settings signifying muses/artists throughout history that have marked founts of feminine creation. The first is of the Primordial Goddess:  And ending with Georgia O'Keefe:  Her medium fluctuates frequently, and but in many of her larger shows, spray acrylic paint is featured quite heavily, as well as embroidery, quilting, and other forms of needlework or "woman's" work.  The Creation , for example, exhibits her work with needlework and also her desire to find femininity in a world dominated by men. This work focuses on the darkness of before birth, the genesis of the work, and the birth of all things living.  In the clip below, Chicago speaks about her the trouble she went through trying to "make it" in the ...

I very much enjoyed Lawton's visit! A lot of his work resonated with me, for a variety of reasons. His introduction in particular was extremely relevant to what I've been thinking about recently, being: how the hell am I going to live after college? All we're required to do is make enough money to eat, supply the government, and consume. Where in this formula is the real action of living? I feel like for so many people, their job is not a part of their experience of 'life' - their real life starts after they leave their workplace. I do not in any way, shape or form want to live only outside of work. I'm hoping to eventually make money by creating film, something that I find both a worthwhile use of my time, and something that I genuinely adore to both create and consume. ANYWAY, with this in mind, my favorite piece of Hall’s was his work with Carl – I connect with the medium and understand the use of sound on an academic level. The thing that I found most su...

I wanted to use my phone for this project, and to try to embody the feeling of a vine, but I needed it to be a little longer for my purposes. In the Eddie Izzard clip that I show, he is talking about British Imperialism, and how just the presence of a flag and a gun makes a space into a place, and beyond that a place that is OWNED. I don't know how a person really owns a place, but it happens! It happens on the large scale and on a much smaller scale. This happens all the time, every day--if you want to grab a table for lunch, you put a marker there, and that space suddenly becomes yours, if only for a short amount of time. And then, if people continuously own that space, it is thought to be their's, like a lunch table that is generally thought of as the 'nerd table'. I wanted to try to mimic this kind of behavior, while also making something kind of funny featuring my favorite comedian. Featuring my friend Jacob, who very kindly was my antagonist.

This project has a lot to do with our technological environment. I was struck one afternoon how silent and foreign our classroom was, so I decided to try to place myself within this space. As I created the video, I found myself focusing on time as a keeper of rhythm, but what does it really have to do with the pace of life? We use this tool to measure our lives, but (at least for me in that moment) I couldn’t find any value in it. The one shot that could potentially look like a POV shot is of the clock, hopefully communicating my exasperation with the time. In the end I wanted to create a feeling of tension. The audience, when watching the video, instinctually wants to breathe with the track, but it’s too drawn out and sporadic to be comfortable. That coupled with the displacement of myself, only anchored to the video by my possessions and blue computer screen, which again speaks to the tension I felt within this very regulated and concrete world. Also, kind of unintentional...