Project 4

Project #4
Elizabeth Shores
I struggled with the A/V project, mostly in coming up with an inspiration or a strong concept to base the project on. It was an evolving project, which I will describe here.
I had recently watched a documentary about what happens to people in the US who die without families. It covered the steps taken by law enforcement to locate families, the search for cemetery plots, and the eventual cremation of the individual. Eventually, if there was not enough money, the cremated remains were poured into a mass grave for all those who had died the previous year and were the final descendents of their family lineage. Such a fate was terrible, and made me think a lot about the idea of a sense of purpose in life as well as in death. I am not particularly interested in producing a depressing or ennui-inspiring art piece, so I eventually chose to avoid the topic of death itself. However, I eventually came to be interested in the idea that the things you do have far-reaching effects and consequences that inevitably reach beyond your lifetime, often without your knowledge.
I used a train to symbolize forward motion and movement through space and time. I chose to focus on the idea of American women cutting their hair during the twenties and thirties, a time when the only discussion of feminism was seen in the treatment of haircutting by major women’s beauty & lifestyle magazines. This new trendy ‘do spurred changes beyond anyone’s expectations. Like trains on a track, we leave dissent, then order for those we don’t see. The order that comes about from the chaos of our lives lives on for future generations.
So, the dissent is all the hustle and noise we get while the train is at the station and is also the act by the women of cutting their hair. The order is the nice neatness of a train once it is underway on the tracks out in the country, and is the new normal that has been established by those women cutting their hair; it is now normal for a woman to have short hair.
Our lives seem like meaningless chaos, but we create the world the next generation lives in, no matter what we do.

Project 3

Project #3

This project was created after I read a news story detailing the recent discovery that a great number of vegetative state patients are actually fully aware and capable of communication, although physically unable to express it. In response to questions the doctors would ask, patients were told to recall a memory of movement (such as a soccer game) to denote ‘yes’, or a memory of an unmoving thing (such as an apple) to mean ‘no’. Using MRI scans, the doctors were able to see what part of the brain lit up in direct response to questions such as, “Is your name Tom?” or “Are you married?”, leading them to believe that this sort of communication was possible in a large percentage of patients.
This amazing revelation in the scientific community made me think a lot about interior space, communication, and the idea of self. I produced an all-white sculpture for the back of the Intermedia classroom that was roughly the size and shape of a person with a hole in the top, with a mirror rotating inside of it. On the inside walls of the piece were images of bright abstract colors that were reflected off the mirrors and visible to the viewer. The wires of the piece were suspended outside of the structure.
I wanted to make something that was not entirely understandable, the shape itself suggesting a human form, but not directly. The images suggest a part of the interior space, or an MRI, and the wires suggest the state of a wired patient. By putting it in our classroom, it is something that was accessible to all of us, not just the medical community.

Wednesday, May 4- Our Last Day!!!

1. Announcements, events, and more

2. Evaluations

2. Critiques- Continued!

-Liz

-Zach

-Kaylee

-Cyprian's blog project

4. Let's look at some art!!! Shows around Studio Arts Building... Q & A about grad school

5. Don't forget to turn in your Final Portfolio by next Wednesday (put it in my dropbox and email me to confirm you have done so)

6. Goodbye!

Intermedia 2.0

springerin 2/2010: Intermedia 2.0 springerin – Hefte für Gegenwartskunst http://www.springerin.at

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It is impossible to imagine art nowadays without the kind of interdisciplinary and multi-media approaches that began to play a key role in the 1960s. Since then, sculpture, sound, film, theatre, performance and many other branches have embarked on a broad spectrum of different kinds of fusion with pictorial forms. Recently, such "inter-mediality" has been given an additional boost thanks to new notions of creativity. It might be argued, albeit somewhat over-stating the point, that media-specific working methods have been replaced by more overarching types of production that short-circuit fairly disparate realms with each other. "Inter-creativity", a paradigm of working methods located in the zone between individual disciplines, has begun to take the place of traditional models of creativity. "Intermedia 2.0", produced in cooperation with Vienna's "departure" initiative, examines the potentials and promises to be found in these broader concepts of media and creativity. Contents: Christian Höller: The Promise of Media De-Limitation Alexander Horwath in Conversation with Eva Fischer about Visualizations of Music Christa Benzer: Visualizing Classical Music – "Hugo Wolf Festival 2010" Roundtable with VJs and Visualists Participating in the "Hugo Wolf Festival 2010" Diedrich Diederichsen: Hatred of "Regietheater" and the New Tendency towards Opera Christian von Borries: Strategies of the Common – Music, Opera, Politics numen/for use: Intercreative Textures Georg Schöllhammer in Conversation with Artist Markus Schinwald Barbara Lesák: Frederick Kiesler's Works for Theater Jasper Sharp: In Two Minds – Creativity and Collaboration Anne Hilde Neset: Sound Bleed – Music in Other Media Thomas Keul: From Audio Book to "Visualized" Book Kathrin Röggla & 4youreye: "die ansprechbare" – Example of a Visualized Reading Christoph Thun-Hohenstein: The Importance of Intercreativity Artscribe: Reviews about "Gender Check" (Mumok Vienna), "Afro Modern" (Tate Liverpool), Nasreen Mohamedi (Kunsthalle Basel), Luis Camnitzer (Daros Zurich), "Niet Normaal" (De Beurs van Berlange Amsterdam), plus many more. Contact: springerin@springerin.at http://www.springerin.at Cover Image: LIA – Blumengruß_2010_03_20_16_25_36 http://www.liaworks.com/

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Monday, April 26

1. announcements

2. reminder:

PROJECTS DUE WEDNESDAY MORNING!

3. Final Portfolios due during finals week

4. Work Day

-demo: inserting text/slugs

An artist I could model myself on

Peter Brötzmann

Peter Brötzmann is a german free jazz saxophonist who is not only informed by music but also by the visual arts. The genre of music he has chosen to perform asks the listener "what is jazz" and challenges the listener's preconceptions about music. Brötzmann comes from the same generation of artists as Higgins and Debord.

Another aspect to his art is he does not limit it to music. He is also a visual artists primarily creating painting though I find his object collages pleasing and reminiscent of Joseph Cornell.

I realize that it may be way out there to consider him in an Intermedia class, but he is an artist who has made a career of breaking the societal agreement upon conceptions of music. In our own art, we can learn from his fearlessness in exploration. Check out his whole website at www.peterbroetzmann.com

Wednesday, April 21

1. Announcements

-Visiting Artist in Film/Video: Phil Solomon this Saturday

=EXTRA CREDIT/Participation Points for attending and writing a one paragraph review

-Reminder regarding Participation Points/Grade

2. Studio Arts Fest: Friday, April 30th. 4-7pm

3. Work Day in Media Lab

-trouble shooting in Final Cut and Audio programs

-individual help with computer questions and/or individual critiques of works-in-progress

-use this time wisely! there is ONE WEEK to the due date!

-video/sound pieces are due WEDNESDAY, April 28 by 10 AM in my DropBox on the Intermedia Server

4. Putting your Quicktime Movie in my DropBox

-connect to the Intermedia XSAN

-you can only do this from an Apple computer

-go to Finder> Connect to Server

-type in: afp://intermedia3.art.uiowa.edu

-hit "Connect"

-look for USERS-1 (or it may just say USERS)

-find my folder= NPIETRAN

-look in my PUBLIC folder (it is highlighted in RED)

-drag your Quicktime movie into my DROPBOX

-if this does not work, bring a copy to class on your hard drive to copy onto my desktop in class for viewing. Come early on Wednesday if you need to do this.

ArtsFest!

I vote the cake walk, simple, easy, fun, and tasty!

Monday, April 18

1. Announcements

-Studio Arts Fest Check In

-Participation Grades

2. Visiting Artist: Phil Solomon

-Preview of Solomon's work- "Grand Theft Auto"

3. Work Day

-you must have material to work on in class for the duration of the class period.

-use this time wisely. Ask questions. Share your work with your peers. Ask for critical feedback.

Interaction And Commerce

The band Devo is allowing its fans to shape its next album to be released in June. I like how the band (artist) has created a whole interface for audience participation in a final outcome, the artwork (album).

The LINK LINK LINKIe Linkie Doo.

Very simple, yet very effective

http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2010/04/folding_towel_robot_in_search.html

By the viewer choosing his own soundtrack to this industrial demonstration video, the video becomes something new.

Visiting film/video maker! Phil Solomon

"Solomon recently has been incorporating machinima from Grand theft Auto games into his strangely emotionally moving videos."

> Visiting Film/video maker!!!
>
> Film and Video Artist Phil Solomon
> Presenting selections of his recent 16mm films and videos
> SATURDAY APRIL 24, 7:30PM
> E105 AJB-Franklin Miller Screening Room

Wednesday, April 12

1. Announcements

2. Troubleshooting with Sound/Video... Checking in on Projects (Progress Reports)

3. The Video Essay

-Travis Wilkerson, "An Injury to One"

-Agnes Varda, "The Gleaners and I"

-Chris Marker, "San Soleil"

-French New Wave Filmmakers

4. 11:30 Visiting Artist JOSH EKLOW

-demo in Media Lab=transferring VHS to digital

Video Art!

Monday, April 12

Agenda

1. Announcements

2. Reminder: Arts Fest, Friday, April 30th

3. Let's talk about Video Art-Reading

-What's the different between film and video anyway?

4, Experimental Film/Manipulating the film

-Stan Brakhage

5. Breaking down video/code (similar to rupturing/manipulating film)

-Evan Meaney

6. Let's look at Video Art and Artists

-Joan Jonas

-David Claerbout

-Francis Alys

-Pipolotti Rist

-Isaac Julien

7. Onward we march in Final Cut Pro

Malcom McLaren Died

Situationist, provocateur, Svengali, manager of Sex Pistols (see Svengali) dead at 64. He tried to subvert our notions of pop music, but instead changed them.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/malcolm-mclaren-dies-aged-64-1939621.html

Wednesday, April 7

1. Announcements

2. In-class exercise:

Goals

1) Experience using a camera- either a digital still camera or small video camera such as the Flip/Mino or the camcorder option on a still camera

2) Practice importing your footage from the camera to the computer

3) Opening a New Final Cut Project and importing your footage

4) Practice the following:

a) edit- cut, copy, paste footage

b) import a sound track/sound file and cut, copy, paste sound

c) layer two different images on top of each other and alter the opacity

d) export your project as a Quicktime file for viewing

Monday, April 5

1. Announcements

-Marisa Olsen, visiting artist-- LECTURE TONIGHT! 7pm Seamens Center

-sign-up to meet about Final Project

-more thoughts/conversation about group project for Arts Fest

2. A bit more about Sound

-hand-out for Zoom

-things to keep in mind when recording

3. Animation

-history (leading up to film and video)

-photography- using the Canon Digital Rebel (getting the proper settings to shoot rapidly)

-importing pictures into the comuter

-Final Cut Pro to the proper settings for animation

Microgrants- apply now!

Hi friends,

Last month was the third coffee microgrant. In case you're new to this, I drink coffee everyday. I used to drink it at cafes, for about $2 a cup. About $60 of my monthly income disappeared to coffee, never to be missed. Now I make it at home, and for each day that I do not buy coffee at a cafe, I set aside $2 for a microgrant. In March, I traveled a lot and therefore bought a lot of coffee. I drank coffee out 10 times, leaving $42 to go to this grant and to you, dear friend.

If you applied before, your application is still on file, and it will be considered again. If not, send me a paragraph telling me what you'd do with the money (it need not be art, it can be anything). If you get chosen, I'll send you a check and the next time we're in the same city, we'll grab coffee and talk about what you did with the $$.

In February, I gave the money to Aaron Strong to buy licensing software for a rad map-making program. His blog of maps are online here: http://sensefromplace.blogspot.com/

Please send your proposals by the 10th (sorry its so soon!)

Katie

p.s. pass this around, if you know someone who is doing cool stuff that I should fund, pass them the email.

--
Katie Hargrave
http://www.katiehargrave.us

T h e M e d i u m is t h e M e s s a g e

T h e M e d i u m is t h e M e s s a g e

The medium is the message is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived. The phrase was introduced in his most widely known book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, published in 1964.[1] McLuhan proposes that media itself, not the content it carries, should be the focus of study. He said that a medium affects the society in which it plays a role not only by the content delivered over the medium, but also by the characteristics of the medium itself.

For example, McLuhan claimed in Understanding Media that all media have characteristics that engage the viewer in different ways; for instance, a passage in a book could be reread at will, but a movie had to be screened again in its entirety to study any individual part of it. So the medium through which a person encounters a particular piece of content would have an effect on the individual's understanding of it.

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA

Consider these ideas in relation to your artwork:

Why do you choose to create work in a particular medium?

How does that choice affect the "message" and content of your work?

Or the ways in which a viewer might engage your work?

Link to NY Times Article on:

Reading Up on Gutenberg as the iPad Drops

Arts Fest IDeas & Proposals

-several small projects.. different media

-set time, place... event is what happens in that window

-people on a wall or canvas... or talk aout an opinoin or important view and project it, with people

-write and perform a song using any instruments we wanted. could be recorded, could also have a video run with it.

-a class hunting and gathering project... pictures from our own creations.. big collage, have it happening during the event

-instruments with found objects, keeping a beat, use found objects and include the audience

-create a cardboard bus- project a bus onto it

-spread the word about a performance, set a time, then its a "fake performance"... the people meeting is the performance

-collage on a canvas or wall of how we are feeling... let viewers participate and include images or feelings in it

-video: pre-record interviews with people about money, and then create a video of animals and planet images, etc...

-cake and forts

-creating a quiet and peaceful environment... outside comes inside

-Earth Hours 2= turn off all of your electronics... play board games

Agenda: Wednesday, March 31

Wednesday, March 31

1. Announcements: Marisa Olsen

2. Proposals for Arts Fest

3. Review of Final Project- questions, comments, concerns

4. SOUND LAB with Steve Strait

5. Media Lab... back to Audacity and recorders

*** Email me a time when we can meet to go over grades and Final Project Ideas

MARISA OLSEN- Monday, April 5 @ 7pm Seamans Center

"Intermedia|New Media: Marisa Olson" MONDAY APRIL 5 - 7:00 pm 1505 Seamans Center Marisa Olson [Excerpt from a recent FB event invitation:] "Marisa Olson is an admitted internet junky and a serious bookworm. Her talks are both a product and a trace of her research into fluke epistemologies, the vernacular of digital visual culture, and the intersecting histories of science and superstition, new ageism and DIY/homebrew computing culture." A presentation of "Intermedia|New Media," an ongoing series of artist visits and presentations hosted by the School of Art and Art History Intermedia Area. For more information view attached electronic flier. Sponsored by the School of Art and Art History, part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires an accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact the School of Art and Art History, W619 SSH or 335-1376.

in b flat project

http://inbflat.net/

neat project

Final Project

The Final Project is a combination of Sound (Unit 4) and Video (Unit 5). This project demonstrates the skills you will be learning using audio recorders and editing programs, as well as video and animation. Your goal is to combine sound and image in a meaningful and thoughtful manner. Sound is often an afterthought to videos and movies, but in this project your goal is to think of ways that sound can contribute significance or meaning to the content of your images. The following are required:

1) A significant, thoughtful sound track that includes, but is not limited to:

a) at least two (2) sounds recorded by you (using either hand recorders or studio mics- can be abstract, narration, instrumental or any variation thereof)

2) An image component that can be:

a) stop-motion animation, digital video, or found images

b) consider things like:

-an interview project

-an audio and image tour of a place or landscape

-an abstract collage of images and sounds

-a video projection onto a wall or object

-a cinematic and "movie-like" experience that has a narrative (a beginning, middle and end, plot, characters)

Start now! Gathering materials is an important aspect of your work- check out a recorder and start getting sounds or interviews. Check out a camera and start taking pictures and recording video. Put these in a file for your Final Project. Become familiar with the technology. Gathering sounds and images is only one part of the process. Editing is an entirely creative and time-consuming process that can lead to exciting discoveries. The more materials you have to work with when you begin editing, the better.

Think about whether this is something that would loop continuously in a gallery or would it be an experience that requires the viewer to watch it from the beginning to the end? Please consider the importance of editing, narrative arc, and the position of the viewer-- your entire work should be between 4-8 minutes.

Your Final Project is due Wednesday, April 28 and should be placed in my DropBox or given to me on a CD by this date.

Audacity Exercise-In Class

Today we will work in the Media Lab. We have two goals for today as we explore sound:

1. Learn the basics of using Wire Tap

2. Learn the basics of using Audacity

To acquire these basic skills, you will be working with a partner in the Media Lab and will do the following:

1. Open Wire Tap and record at least two (2) audio files. Drag these onto your desktop or another folder that is easily accessible.

2. Open Audacity and start a new project file. In Audacity, do the following:

a. Import your WireTap Audio Files into Audacity

b. Practice using these tools: Cut, Copy, and Paste with your Audio Files

c. Use at least two (2) effects on portions of your Audio Files

Cheers!

P.S. Audacity is an *open source* program, which means you can find this program online and download it for free!

Arts Fest Proposals: Due Wednesday, March 31

The Studio Arts Fest is fast approaching! The date for the event is Friday, April 30th- the Intermedia Department has traditionally participated in its own Open House, but this year we will be a part of the larger, all-school event.

I would like us to think about ways that we might participate as a class- a group project, event, collaboration, a flash mob, performance, etc. What can you think of? Something that might encourage viewer participation or that engages viewers in some way.

As a way to brainstorm ideas, please write a one-page proposal for a project. This will be due Wednesday, March 31st. The turn-around is quick- the goal is to get ideas down on paper for us to discuss. In your proposal, please include the following:

1. Project Title

2. Description of the project/what would happen

3. Description of the people participating and their roles

4. List of materials needed

5. Estimate of time needed to carry out the project/a timeline

Think of this as an exercise in writing a proposal for a grant- as an artist, this is a necessary skill. These are just some of the areas you might write about if you were applying for a grant for an artist project. So consider this an opportunity for you to exercise your writing skills and put ideas down on paper.

I look forward to hearing your ideas.

Landscape, Place, and Mediation-Ice Records

Landscape is still frequently experienced through representation and mediation, not actual experience of the place... Curator Steven Bode is quoted in a recent ART News article related to this topic: “The idea of ‘wild’ and the ‘other’ and the ‘unexplored’ is less seductive. We end up having to build a new relationship to landscape out of the portable frames of references that we all individually carry” (Wolff 2).

Artist Katie Paterson connected a cell phone to an Icelandic glacier: visitors to her gallery exhibition could hear the sounds of the hissing and cracking of its ice melting. In the Turning Over a New Leaf article in ART News, Steven Bode, director of the Film and Video Umbrella, is quoted: “What we’re seeing now, especially among younger artists, is this ominous idea of celebrating landscape while it’s on the verge of disappearing” (Wolff 1).

Katie Paterson's Website

Ice Records

Ice Records...

Different Trains

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Different_Trains

Composer Steve Reich utilizes both "concrete sound" and traditional instruments to create this work. He forms the melody from the speech of the participants on tape.

Installation/Site Specific - Seashia Vang

"There are Nearly Three Times as Many Animal Shelters in the United States as There are Shelters for Battered Women and Their Children"





Day 2



Day 1

Wasted Garden!

(copy paste) to go there

http://carolyngracescherf.blogspot.com/2010/02/double-click-to-go-there.html

How we can create a new map for new territories

This Intermedia project affected the artist more than he thought. We were told to go bigger than we may be able to realize. I think I did that. You can see on the blog I created for this project: http://guiltyasdriven.blogspot.com/ how my ideas grew. Right now I am in the process of telling people about the blog to get comments and bring another level of interaction of public, art and artist.

At first, I thought I would just document how owners of registered vehicles in Cedar Rapids, Iowa were now guilty because of the implementation of civil penalty traffic cameras. The art would lie in the unknowing transformation of man. What I didn't see was there was something greater here.

The map is the setting or place where the events take place. We are all part of an inescapable map. This map tends to be static for us and we see it as it is, a series of frames we pass through.

If the perception of a registered car has been transformed into a brush of guilt that paints the city streets it travels black with guilt, then there is an opportunity to transform the map. Drivers can control the cars to essentially "black-out" areas upon the map or make areas even more important by not "blacking-out".

What could be created is a "new map" as art. A new map of the transformed world around us thanks to the imposition of traffic cameras!

--Cyprian Alexzander

Amy Franceschini Reinvents Victory Gardens

Practical propaganda: Amy Franceschini reinvents the Victory Garden

Neighborhood Fruit

Another Art & Ecology inspired project in San Francisco...

Art & Ecology: Amy Franceschini & Future Farmers

Link to Amy Franceschini's site on Future Farmers.

Project 3: Site Specificity, Installation, Performance and Intervention

Site Specificity, Installation, Performance and Intervention

For this project, you will create a site-specific work, installation, intervention, or performance work. You will be working individually or collaboratively to make an installation, event, or situation that fundamentally alters the viewer’s experience and perception of a space. Below are some ideas and things to consider:

Installation & Site-Specific: Installation art engages the viewer’s entire sensory experience in four-dimensional space. It dissolves the line between art and life (see Kaprow). It moves away from viewing art as discreet objects isolated from the environment in which they are encountered. An installation artist uses almost any material and media to create an experience in a particular environment. Oftentimes, installation art is highly site-specific. It is not confined to gallery spaces but can be material intervention in everyday public or private spaces.

Performance Art & Intervention: Performance art involves the artist and is created in real time. What makes performance art so intermedial in nature is that it is slippery and truly defies most boundaries and definitions that are imposed on it. On one end of the spectrum you can argue that a performance begins and ends in the place and time that the artist says it does. But if you are in a room waiting for a performance to start, isn’t that part of the experience, hence part of the performance too. And approaching the place of the performance: part of the experience. Getting ready to go to the performance: part of the experience. So on the other end of the spectrum, you could argue that we all are involved in a lifelong performance, that every social act is essence a performance, that there is no boundary between performance and life. Should you choose to do a performance, think less of performance art as a sort of “art-theater”, that is, a “detached, closed arrangement in space-time” in Kaprow’s words. Instead, think of the performance as a way to direct and alter the experience of your audience in real-time. There is no limitation on how you choose to do this.

Everyone is an Artist

"Every human being is an artist, a freedom being, called to participate in transforming and reshaping the conditions, thinking, and structures that shape and inform our lives." -Joseph Beuys

Intermedia Visiting Artists This week!!!

Intermedia + Cinema & Comparative Literature present:
A public lecture and live performance by artists Sabine Gruffat & Bill Brown

Public Lecture: Sabine Gruffat & Bill Brown
Wednesday, February 24
6 - 7:30 PM
3321 Seaman Center

Time Machine, Performance
Thursday, February 25
8PM, Public Space One
129 E. Washington St. (Basement of the Jefferson Building)
Free!

Time tourists unite!

Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat set the dials and push the levers while guiding you through the fourth dimension! Our machine will be carried on the breezes of parallel universes to return you to your rightful futures and pasts.

Riding frequency waves of sight and sound, Sabine Gruffat will navigate by the red, green and blue stars of electronic constellations. Watch and learn about Real-Time Rendering, Quartz, and Max patches as she steers you through the sensory drone of the digital and analog hyperspace.

Dropping out of the temporal flux and onto the lonely highway, Bill Brown will take you on a guided tour of memory's roadside attractions. Brown will pilot the machine toward the irretrievable past and the inaccessible future by way of scratchy records and the hazy glow of 35mm slides, narrating the interspatial monuments of our
extemporary voyage.

BILL BROWN: Reading, slide projection, digital video, and records.
SABINE GRUFFAT: Real-time rendered audiovisual performance with analog video mixer and game controllers.

More info:
http://www.sabinegruffat.com
http://www.heybillbrown.com

Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook (just sound it out) - Contemporary Female Thai Artist

"Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook’s output makes the work of a critic easy. Since turning to video in the late 90s she has unfolded an oeuvre that approaches questions of the relationship between life and death in the manner expected of all great art. By turns, Araya’s imagery is contemplative, mysterious, questioning, illuminating and provocative." -Art.Signal




(Unknown Title) from "Those Dying Wishing to Stay, Those Living Preparing to Leave"
(okay, i realized it's not children slumped over. i think that was the image i was getting when i first heard about this piece!)


"Wind Princess White Bird" 2002 from "Those Dying Wishing to Stay, Those Living Preparing to Leave"


Newest project! - I feel like the villagers in the art world most of the time.


"Renoir's Ball at the Moulin de la Galette 1876 and the Thai villagers group II" 18 minute video

For more information go here! --> http://www.rama9art.org/araya/index.html

Happenng- 2007 New York

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N8VsdaX8RM

Sharks and the Jets

#2

I dont explain myself. I dont find it necessary. I touch items everyday. I don't think about it, I just do. Items are not important. They explain, but NO one will ever understand. These items describe me. but only as much as you can see and understand. So much more is behind them. it is not to be explained. it is not to be understood. These items people see everyday. People dont see them as being possibly something more then items. It is to be understood that they are truly just things. These things are out of my world. Put them into your own. What do YOU see? do you see what I do? It is a finger, a glass, a guitar, hair, a purse, and a burner. But does it actually mean something. Did I take these pictures because they were around. cause they were easy to take a picture of? or because I want you to know me because this is the only way I will ever let you know me? Or because I think these items photograph well. what is it? why do you even care about it? It is me. It is my context and only mine that these 6 pictures will ever make sense.

Project 2

For the ‘Appropriation and Recontextualization’ project (pictured below), I chose to use a set of heirloom dinnerware, gifted to me by my mother. With it, I explored the way that location affects the viewers (as well as my own) understanding of the item itself. I wanted to consider the way that environment and treatment of physical objects drastically alters, on an emotional level, our reactions to people and to the objects themselves.

I chose to use this particular set of china because of its emotional tie to myself and to my family, as opposed to a brand-new package from a store, or a used or borrowed set from Goodwill or a friend. The foreknowledge that the dinnerware is a personal gift from a family member drastically changes the viewers, as well as my own, interpretation of and response to the set of china as seen in different locations and environments.

I photographed the dinnerware in several different settings, in a home environment, outside of a house, and beside a household garbage bin. I also photographed the imprint that the box left in the snow, visually representing the absence of the items in a physical sense.

On a personal level, I am not at all attracted to the physical and aesthetic qualities of these plates (I’m rather fond of Fiesta Ware, actually). As a clumsy person, the qualities of bone china (tendency to chip, crack, and shatter) make me nervous. However, as a personal gift from my mother (whom I am extremely close to), the items take on a new meaning: they are now representative of a family history. However, having come without a detailed story of their former use (only that they had once belonged to ‘someone’ in our family), they are still partially bare objects to me, devoid of any real or substantive meaning.

In this project, I tried to visually reproduce the steps that I take mentally in trying to find a place for these items in my home, family, and life. I look forward to learning the detailed history of them in order that they find a place on my future dinner table.

Project 2: There are so many terrible puns here, it blows my mind.

Project 2!

I can remember my childhood memories like it was yesterday. I think about them almost everyday. I had a wonderful childhood and I documented this in the form of these pictures. I used a Barbie as my object because they were one of my favorite toys. My sister and I would play with them for hours and I will always have that picture in my head. So I decided to use these memories in my project.

The first picture is taken in the store. My sister and I would save our allowances for weeks just to buy a new Barbie. We would spend a long time in the store picking out the perfect one.

The second picture is a group of images put together to show movement. This represents the memories of us actually playing with the dolls. We set up dollhouses and rooms and would play for hours.

The last photo represents the dying of the doll era. When I was younger I thought I was going to play with dolls forever, but as I got older I found new interests. The dolls may not still remain in my life, but the memories will always be in my heart.

Project 2 -Being a pack rat is a tiring thing to be!

I am a pack rat! Anything that comes into my possession that has the least bit of meaning, I keep. In the back of my mind, I always think there might be a reason I need the item. The main things are: Receipts, tags off bought items, special bags/boxes that merchandise is sold in, work schedules/availability sheets, former class folders, agendas, emails, letters, cards, flowers, makeup, event ticket stubs, ski passes, movie stubs, lights, ccorks, notes (class notes and notes from friends... yes, i have some from 7th grade.. and I'm not joking), bobby pins, and lastly lists that I creats (like this one).. particularly "to do" lists and "wish" lists. It's almost a compulsion. I had no idea what I was going to do for this project, and then I started looking around for "junk" and found that I have multiple places where I "hide" these useless items that I can't seem to get rid of. This project is somewhat therapeutic because by me using these worthless things, it makes me feel like htey did have a meaning to be kept; and that reason is to be used on this project. Finally, I can let go of them!