Wouldn't it be nice if everything was the way it's supposed to be?

In Wouldn't it be nice if everything was the way it's supposed to be? I created a space and posed a question. I am interested in intimacy and personal spaces like bathrooms and bedrooms as part of that investigation. With this installation, however, I worked intuitively, not fully understanding the room as I made it. I didn't even fully understand the text on the floor as I wrote it, or the video of the ocean; I just knew they belonged there.

I set out to make a bedroom that would make me happy, and hopefully make others happy as well. I wanted to initiate interaction with the viewer through the text and objects. I wanted to work in a corridor so that the viewer is confronted with the space and can pass through it, almost like a ghost, and decide whether or not they want to stay awhile. Or even decide if they want to use the alternate hallway next time.

For me, the work is a lot about a longing for an idyllic world, a sort of world where it is normal to invite people to sleep in your room, a world where tea is always readily available, and a world where kitschy collections of woodland creatures abound. Through the video of the ocean, the houseplant, and the owl and deer figurines, I reference a sort of perversion of the natural: something is removed from it source and brought indoors in a bittersweet way: I love watching the video of the ocean or sitting near the plant, but I would rather be at the actual ocean. Inside, it becomes static.

Whether the room is an empathetic joke to someone that feels like they live at school, an oasis between classes, or a bizarre curiosity, I want the space to produce thoughts surrounding home, privacy, displacement, and this institution. I hope to make more rooms in the future where they don't belong, re-contextualizing this private space.

I have loved seeing the interaction: someone added an owl to my collection, and we are now friends. Someone else made my bed and washed all the mugs for me. Someone else (potentially) stole a mug. Someone else borrowed a book. Someone watched me sleep and someone took photos of me sleeping. Someone else left a note. Someone stored some objects in the room for safe keeping. Someone moved the plant to give it a bit more sunlight. Wouldn't it be nice if everything was the way it's supposed to be?

Mein Kinder

This piece began out of admiration of the space and the proximity that I have held to it thus far this semester. I do not think many people use this room to shower, It is very old and at first sight a bit creepy. I have grown very fond of it and found myself wanting to become part of the space. I feel an intense sense of loss in the space and was drawn to the holocaust because of the nature of the room and shower set up. As I spent time in the space and listened to what the space needed I felt as if there was a ghost who was searching for her children and who died long ago but could not find peace with out finding her children. It is a piece of struggle and loss. I have experienced loss in a long drawn out manner on multiple occasions and have had to watch intense suffering and struggle occur in others who knew that they were dying or losing something very important to them. During these experiences the body begins to react in an almost ghost like behavior and starts to go into automatic pilot where nothing else matters but "mein kinder" or whatever the loss may be for each person. There is a moment that occurs prior to the loss and this moment is very interesting to me. It has a sense of intense fear and also a beginning of one giving into the loss and allowing acceptance to occur. This moment can be felt over and over again as I experienced in this piece. However I was stuck in this moment for the desire to live and save my children was too strong to allow me to completely die and therefore I became a ghost tortured in her own existence. Unable to give into the realization of the loss and move forward I became stuck in the loss but never fully able to experience the loss therefore I was stuck in the moment before the loss.

conflicting perceptions 2 experiment

conflicting perception 2 experiment

This piece was meant to be the “sequel” to the first performance, conflicting perception. 

Overall, for this altered perception, I wanted to concentrate on communication and hiding.  How do we know we are always speaking to someone? Is it unconsciously or consciously?  Perhaps, our conversations are just dreams or even hallucinations.    

My intention was to experiment with separating the audience from the performance.  I found that I prefer to incorporate the audience.  Otherwise, I would make sure to disrupt the consciousness that was I unintentionally created in today’s performance.  Overall, I was able to see what to add and take away in my next piece.  It was a good experiment with this idea I wanted to present.  For the book, I thought it would be funny if he was reading a book about consciousness.  I had previously thought of having him read, Kokoro by Natsume Soseki.  

After I watched the video, I can see how the audience would have read Nick and Tara as being parental units because of their posture.  I have some ideas about costumes, so I would like to try that next time in a piece.  I don’t use the theme of family in pieces, so I find it odd that could be interrupted as such.   

Basically, I think the piece was interesting and successful by itself, but I think the next performance of conflicting perceptions 2 needs to be more surreal.  Therefore, I’ll regard this one as the experiment. 

Response: Bodily Noises

I cannot say I have ever experienced anything as exotic and fierce as this display of human emotion through bodily noises. This exercise was intense, intensely intense for me if that makes sense. In all honesty I have been on an everlasting rollercoaster of emotions and to hear the production of collective emotional noise surrounding me, not to mention in the dark, was actually quite frightening to me. The way I have been feeling lately- up, down, really down- was no match to the level of emotional burden bestowed upon me. The black space and continuous noises were inescapable. I really didn’t know how to react. I was too scared to react. Eventually I found myself humming a continuous hum, something I concentrated on to escape all the noises that made me so uncomfortable. This was probably one of the first times I have ever tried meditating.

What I realize now is that this experience was something far greater than just standing around in a circle, eyes closed, using the body to create noise. Something happened that is difficult for me to put into words. My emotions were taken from me, I was silenced into nothing, and they came back to attack me.

"Labyrinth" by Darwin

This large, cascading web was woven late in the night, under the haze of the fire's eastbound smoke.  Weaving it made me feel timeless.  Hip-pop and drunken slurs drifted through my ears as I dipped over and under, around and and between the five trees.

Usually that kind of crap bothers me:  I hate the injustice of rampant alcohol consumption, I hate the racism behind Hip-pop.  But as I wove, the rhythmic movement of my elbows and fingers soothed me, and I felt wise like the spider that wove the story of reality.  The space that sits quietly to the side of the high-traffic path to campus became a labyrinth of solace.  The blue yarn glowed in the hazy damp air.  Looking out from the inside of the web was like looking through fire: everything was vibrating at a minutely perceptible frequency.

In class, I think some humans felt stimulated by the piece.  I think this owes to the vibrancy of the light blue color, the texture and delicacy of the yarn, and the scale of the web relatively.  I noticed that some felt compelled to look at it from new angles; to try to look up at the sky through it; to use it as a lens through which to renew the world.

We came up with some great ideas that inspire me to continue making large-scale webs.  The integration of sound, possibly in the story of dreams is one idea.  Another is regarding material-- creating something elastic that could be stretched and played with, or a reliably sturdy weave that people could lay on.  Also, wouldn't it be fun to look up into the sky and watch the clouds pass, or snow fall through a big, lofty dream-catcher?

-Darwin

Project 1: In Memory of Fuddlescum Kiki

Does the size of an object really change the viewer’s desire to stare at it?  According to kawaii* (cute) culture from Japan, it does.  The use of kawaii articles is one way I conflict themes.    In Memory of Fuddlescum Kiki, kawaii is visually manifested within the installation, but deviates from its usual message to become the opposite, dark humor. 

The installation was meant to be subtle, but overpowering once the viewer becomes engaged with the piece.  This is the kawaii effect, where “cuteness” has the ability to control the viewer’s gaze.  I meant for the lighting to enhance this experience as the viewer might start to feel awkward with the subject matter of viewing of the deceased. 

Funerals or exhibitions of bodies decorate and celebrate bodies, making them the spectacle.  This topic is not limited to humans, but also includes pets.  I find there is always a curiosity towards the experience that I wanted to explore.  In regard to previous experience, I have to ask myself: is this a subconscious desire to remain young or merely a sarcastic representation of the past?  I find that the connection with this curiosity remains even with artificial or “unreal” objects.  I regret that I can’t replace Kiki, but I have no desire to fix it either.      

Dark humor and sarcasm, conflicting themes, and influence from Japanese culture are constant themes within my work.  In addition to this, how can the better understanding of our brain function help us understand ourselves?  Or how far are we able to analyze our subconscious to know what force is in control?  Perhaps, our brains are far beyond our understanding and control.  In the end, we are left with subtle clues, such as the kawaii effect to realize that we are the ones at the mercy of our brain’s function.

In the future, I plan to explore lighting and the color of spaces when I display this work.  Also, I want to explore repetition by creating several other similar pieces through different characters or various funeral scenes with the only one character.  I think I would still use the same “shoe box” format.     

*A subculture psychologically relating back to traumatic effects of atomic bombings and expresses the desire to remain young.  Also, considered a part of Japan’s national identity of harmony/love, cute culture manifests itself into prefectural and government mascots.  

"Pink Tacos" by Paula Tsiftilis

Pink taco, beaver or axe wound are all slang terms that have been used to describe the vagina. I find it especially interesting , how the term "pink taco"in our culture can be associated with the vagina. I see humor, as well as a degrading side to this, since a complex female reproductive organ can be related to a food, something that is thoughtlessly desired and consumed.

Lately, I have been thinking about the male/female binary and exploring the suffocating influence of social systems upon sexual identity. The objects I create represent the daily experiences of these social constructions, and through layering or dissecting these forms and experiences I discover hidden lives. Here, I have created these delicate objects which suggest a sexual form, and put them on display, for the potential to be critiqued or even consumed.

After shaping the tacos and letting them become firm, I dipped them in pink house paint. In class i had displayed them on top of a vanity mirror, but here I have them on a gold tray which can slightly change the meaning. I thought about the advice I got and altered the piece by placing a silky flowered pattern fabric on the table, instead of the canvas. I feel this was a good change, but I believe there is an even better fabric to suit this installation. I imagine the final fabric to be a dark silky purple with a floral print, that is long enough to touch the floor. I also started drawing on the tacos, to further explore hidden layers. This is definitely a piece that i will be thinking on ways to improve throughout the semester and I want to continue working with the image of a pink taco throughout a series. I usually create hybrid forms that are neither male nor female (or sometimes both), but at the risk of looking like a feminist, I am currently fascinated by the female anatomy and its relationship to consumption and humor.

Eventually, I am interested in creating these small sculptures in an edible form.

learning disability

With this piece I desired to re-create my initial struggle with learning the drums when I was 19. I had an incredibly difficult time getting my limbs to move independently and in synch with one another. It took about a month just to get the most basic 4/4 beat to even sound like that was what I was trying to do. I remember my instructor’s vehement frustration with my inability to just get it together. I remember not even wanting to make eye contact with him. It’s not like I wasn’t trying, I just really struggled with it. Being asked if I have a learning disability is the most offensive well-meaning thing anyone has ever said to me.

I wanted the tapes to be an extension of each of my limbs that play different parts of the drum set (high hat, snare, kick). He used to tell me to practice for 15 mins each day so the duration of the piece was supposed to be like a practice session even though it was about 6 mins short of that. I wanted to mimic the frustration of not only myself but also my instructors. My intentions aren’t to provoke or annoy but simply to share in the frustration of something that was an incredibly difficult/impossible task for me to get my grasp on. But, don’t let it seem as though I didn’t think the possibility for annoyance wasn’t possible. I didn’t think the noises would be annoying but rather the process of watching me try to synch all three would be cumbersome and perhaps empathetic.

I think telling the audience to stand may have been a mistake. I did want you/them to feel somewhat authoritative (looking down upon someone struggling with something) but commanding them to stand I think disrupted any sense of hierarchy.

"It's so boring here without you" by Adam Milner

I love this bench. I affectionately call it my office because I can often be found working on it, as I have no better space in the building to work. I enjoy seeing each person walk in and out the front doors, spy on who uses the elevator to go the second floor, and greet people as they emerge from the basement to gain a moment of cellphone reception.

It's so boring here without you is based on the idea of a sterile, harsh, angular space becoming warm as people fill it. On the first day back to classes I decorated the space and made tea and cookies for whoever wanted to join me for a moment on the bench. I occupied it from 9 to 5 with the exception of our class time. This text was inspired by that event on some level. It speaks to loneliness and a longing for human interaction and proximity.

The text was meant to be both personal and universal. I was hoping the meaning would change depending on who was occupying the space. At moments, the text seemed to be from the artist, at times it came from the person sitting beneath it, and at other times it came from the wood itself. To whom it is speaking also varied throughout it's existence.

I wish it could have stayed installed longer, and I would like to continue this idea both in this space as well as in other areas around campus and the city.

Jenna M M- "Second Installation"

I detest the sounds that come from mouths full of food. The crunching and swirling, the mashing and nibbling, the swallowing and slurping. All of these sounds are hard for me to handle. For this piece, I wanted to present these sounds in a situation that made them inescapable- but I also wanted them to be playful and interactive.

My installation consisted of the sounds of chewing, crunching, smacking and swallowing playing loudly from hidden speakers at the top of a large stairwell. The sound could be heard all the way to the bottom, but was clearer as the participants neared the source. On the way to the source there was a table. On it sat a note with the printed words "go ahead..." and a bowl full of bright orange carrots. My hope was that the participants would take a handful of carrots and join in the making of noise, creating a sort of "smacking symphony."

The installation was a a success in my eyes, however, I still feel like the stairwell was not the perfect place in which to house it. My first choice was to somehow hide the speakers in the elevator in the VAC. Elevators are such a place of entrapment because you cannot break free from them when they are in motion. They offer a very tightly closed space usually filled with the awkward silence of strangers being thrust together for short periods of time with nothing else to do but to stand there. The smacking noises would have only added to the awkward reality of an elevator experience and would also have forced the viewer to endure the sound for an allotted amount of time. The elevator would have mimicked the situation that I face in life when it comes to feeling powerless and trapped when lip-smacking ensues. Another option I thought of was to hide the speakers in a very quiet section of the library. This would have aroused a sense of curiosity (hopefully) but also would have been quite annoying to those who had set up shop there to study. Both of these options I asked permissions for, and both requests were denied. So, I went with the 3rd best option of making the piece participatory. I feel that it might have been a success, although I would have liked the participants to chew their carrots louder (and I could possibly turn the speakers down a bit) so that more of a symphony of smacking could have been created.

Thank you for your participation.

-Jenna

Photographs by Adam Milner

mine and yours

Mine and yours, then and now, you and me, yesterday and tomorrow, Sunday and Tuesday, together and apart, love and you, ninos y viejos, laugh and cry, here and gone.

I believe I will know more about this piece in a couple weeks or years. It takes me a bit or forever to process my movement and ideas. I hope in the future I will have a more personal understanding of what it is I am doing/saying/believing/evoking which will help further inform the piece. I know my themes in this piece and other pieces of mine are struggle, relationships, love, loss, grief, childhood and the feeling of being trapped. I have enjoyed making the video of this piece because i believe it has helped me see into the piece a bit more. I love the contrast between the shoes that Greg and I are wearing. I think the piano represents many different things including childhood, happiness, love, loss and freedom. I also find it interesting how people can be so intimate with others that they have just met. Below is a link to a video that I edited of the performance. Music by Dawn Landes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6yKtRKWf14

Thank you so much to the band=), film y photo crew and a super thanks to Greg my dancing partner who had no idea he was going to have to hold me up the entire time.

booking rooms from tomorrow on

Hello again,

Mildred said you can begin booking installation rooms and spaces through her from tomorrow on
for AFTER Oct. 3rd - in fact sooner you book the better because this class
is kind of out in left field so act soon!

conflicting perception

conflicting perception

It is possible for anyone to experience hallucinations or dreams whether it be from lack of sleep, chemical imbalance, or glucose deficiency. Through performance, a persona of Cam caused the unconscious (an internal perception) to confront the conscious audience. The audience’s reaction became an experiment; whose results were left to chance. Can people disconnect themselves from verbal command? How great is the affect on their conscious state of mind when they realize the subject spoken to is not within their field of perception? “Fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism—something it is like for the organism” (Thomas Negal, 1974, What Is It Like To Be a Bat? The Philosophical Review, Vol. 83, No. 4, pp. 435 ).

My intention was to test reaction of the audience and address this aspect of the perception of reality and unreality.  Most of the performance was led by audience reaction, so minimal planning was involved. 

In the future, I plan to work with this similar idea and expand conflicting perception by performing a longer piece with a larger audience.  More regulations will be created as such “audience comments” or specific words will trigger the character’s performance.  I will practice and experiment with other unintentional audiences so that my speech and performance can become even more natural or professional.  I’m also thinking of adding additional characters whether through myself or another actor.  

Picture 1 from Performance, Conflicting Perception, 2010.

Picture 2 from Performance, Conflicting Perception, 2010.

please post your performance write ups

Thanks for all the good work you are doing.
Beautiful performance & installation scores on blog -
VERY nice photo by Kari. Please everyone put up your own
descriptions.

Here is a schedule for upcoming weeks

WEDNESDAY, 9/15 - VIEWING, DIVIDE CLASS INTO GROUPS
MONDAY, 9/20 - EXERCISES
WEDNESDAY, 9/22 - DISCUSS READINGS + PERFORMANCES
MONDAY, 9/27 - Performances & Installations
WEDNESDAY, 9/29 - PERFORMANCES INSTALLATIONS
MONDAY, 10/4 - MUSIC WORKSHOP WITH MARK MCCOIN
WEDNESDAY, 10/6 - WORKDAY - CONSIDER MEETING IN GROUPS

"Forbidden Doorknob"- by Jenna Maurice Montazeri

Doorknob fitted with 500 pins all pointing out creating a porcupine effect over the doorknob to my studio.

I chose to work with the idea of fear in my first attempted installation. I often have fear around the act of conceptualizing as well as carrying out the concept as a work of art. This fear is a very common one, I am sure. Insecurities as well as lack of discipline get in the way of my productivity. Having an actual "studio" space that is all my own for the first time is a very daunting idea. Although it is something that I have dreamed about and wished for, now that it is here I find myself timid and unsure of my own capabilities. This piece symbolizes the idea that sometimes I find it impossible to break through the barrier of that studio door.

I found it interesting that most people did not interpret this piece in the way that I intended. The notion of the studio space belonging to me automatically, in the minds of others, put me INSIDE of the studio, and they read the doorknob as my way of aggressively guarding my space. This is an interesting idea to me because I often observe that fear leads to insecurity which then leads to aggression. So, it seems as though my piece has come full circle in our collective minds.

"All by myself/I will always love you" by Adam Milner

The tandem bicycle is very interesting object to me, both aesthetically and for its symbolism. When ridden alone, there seems to be an element of excess involved, as well as a great example of loneliness. The idea of being alone on a bicycle for two has been used in various song lyrics and is both cliche and poignant.

In All by myself/I will always love you, I wore a shirt with a big pink heart on it while riding alone on my tandem bicycle as "All By Myself" by Celine Dion played through a tape recorder on my back. I then picked up people that I came across and invited them to ride with me. When they sat down on the second seat, I asked them to change the cassette to Side B, which was "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston. When they got off the bike, I asked them to change it back to Celine.

In this performance, I hoped to create a lighthearted and cheesy atmosphere while facilitating and creating bits of relationships with those I encountered. I hoped to create a little utopia where it is normal to invite strangers and friends along for a bicycle ride, as well as to communicate through dramatic songs what is not often said. In this world of mine, it is acceptable to admit both loneliness as well as absurd, pre-mature infatuation or devotion. I wanted to create an interactive situation where people could get involved at their will. I hoped that by making the passenger change the tape for me it would be a humorous and tangible experience that illustrated the situation in an excessive way.

My performance would exist best in a longer time frame, and I would like to continue to do this for hours at a time when I have such time (and before it gets too cold). The morning of my performance I had to get new tires put on my bike, and I considered just walking it around with flat tires because it would be an even bigger symbol of desperation. However, I am glad that I was able to ride around with people because then the narrative could become one of shifting emotion, with hills and valleys of both loneliness and glee. I think in its truest form, the bike performance would not have a set audience or time frame, but could be an activity that I incorporate into my day and simply ride around campus, meeting people and giving them rides.

In a lot of my work I am attempting to create a relationship somewhere along the line. I think in this piece, that objective came through. I would hope that as I continue this act, I would have the opportunity to meet people that I would continue friendships with. (Today as I was unlocking the bike to take it home, I ran into a new student in the department and I got to ride her home on the bike. It was perfect, and I hope that these situations can happen as part of the performance.) I hope that my admission of desiring the viewer's love and approval can come across in my work and be vulnerable in the sense that this goal is rarely admitted but is--in my opinion--at the core of a lot of art.

(Photo by Kari Treadwell.)

"Self-Portrait in Blanket Fort" (Gregory Davidson) - Reflection

With this installation/performance, I wanted to show how I see myself, as a child stuck in the struggles of an adult world that although painfully real seems to make less sense and have less real substance than the world found in our imaginations. I intended to show myself barely fitting in my blanket fort playing alone, sitting in the waste of my adult life. I wanted the performance to begin with me crawling into the fort and lighting a cigarette, then playing with my toys until I finished the cigarette, put it out, and end with me crawling back out. The durational component didn't happen in as much of a structured fashion as I intended; I was unexpectedly shaking a lot and ended up getting my cigarette wet from the bubbles and squirtgun and breaking it before it was half done, so I ended up lighting a second one and, not finishing it, the ending of my performance wasn't as clear as I had hoped. I think the shaking, though unintentional, added to the performance and made it more successful. I think the placement of the performance, under a picnic table outside Sewall, worked because it referenced a home (the dormitory) and also, as Frances pointed out, contrasted well with the dorm since it is the most expensive residential program at CU; but I wish I could have come up with a better location. I think the performance was successful in communicating what I wanted to. Some people interpreted the bubbles and squirtgun as being gestures to shoo people away from the fort, which was surprising to me; I didn't expect that interpretation. Also, it was noted that the bubbles and squirtgun seemed to reference sexuality or masturbation, and I think the performance placed too much emphasis on that specific interpretation; I would try and change how those elements worked so that the reference was more subtle. Frances also saw the performance as referencing homelessness, and that is something that I'm struggling with right now and definitely an element, but it was a surprise to me that that came across so much in the performance as well. I think the performance being so personal to me along with it being my first one made it difficult for people to critique, and instead it became (as Justin told me) more of one that the viewer would absorb. Overall there are some refinements that I think I could make to the performance, but in my mind it turned out to be pretty successful in regards to how I intended it.

Performance & Installation scores

Please remember to post your scores on the blog.
One score per piece.

Try to avoid spelling and grammatical errors - it's important to
write clearly, especially for a general public.

I have re-invited those who have not responded to blog.
More books will be added to reading as they are scanned -
Nick and Amha have both generously offered to help with scanning.

So let's see some action!