Preacher's Victim

Preacher's Victim by Matthew Whalen

In the piece Preacher’s Victim, I explore the insecurities of my religious and spiritual beliefs and the changes I’ve undergone since I left home. Raised and confirmed Catholic, after leaving for college three years ago, I denounced my religious ties and have been searching for a spiritual home since. The piece consists of a radio-broadcast reading of the prologue to The Satanic Bible, backed by a classical hollywood score from the film The Sea Hawk to give an older broadcast feel. Also accompanied with a scratch film of a cross transforming into a pentacle, the installation explores the vulnerability of a faithless soul, searching for a religion to call home.

Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been listening to a lot of radio, stumbling across radical Evangelical broadcasts preaching to the faithless masses in Colorado. The point of these radio shows is to hail subjects, instilling ideologies in hope of gaining more religious followers. Conflicting ideologies attack our senses everyday and the radio is a classic medium of the 20th century to express religious views to the masses. I feel a vulnerability, but don’t necessarily respond to the radical preachers on the radio. I’m in a point of limbo, where I can fall subject to some hailing faith or ideology. The film shows this transformation, where my past affiliations change over time. On the other hand, the satanic broadcast is the origin of this transformation, taking advantage of the faithless listeners on the radio. I want to work with a larger space, maybe create a living room setting where these religious ideologies seep into the home. The film could project from an older TV and the radio broadcast rhetoric could be more concise. Continuing with this theme of religious vulnerability, I want expand this idea to a larger setting and maybe have a multitude of religious ideologies attack the viewer.

Still Life Photography Demonstration

Still Life Photography Demonstration- Jenna Maurice Montazeri

What happens when you watch old home movies... and you realize that your sister always had to follow the act of you- the loud, too perky, too conversational, overly dramatic little sister. My sister Sara and I grew up together and it is only just recently that I have been exploring the strange dynamic of our past. While watching a home movie I discovered a scene involving both of us competing in a "demonstration contest" at our local 4-H club where we had to demonstrate our knowledge of a certain subject matter, as well as demonstrate pose and public speaking ability. I did my demonstration on "The Five Food Groups"- a subject that was easy enough to chat about and make it look like I knew what I was taking about. I even planted a questioner in the audience to ask me "which food group tomatoes were a part of" so that I could show how knowledgeable I really was and let them know that, contrary to popular opinion, they were fruit. Sara, my older sister, followed my "act" with a demonstration about "Still Life Photography"- a subject she had apparently been reading about in a book that explored the topic much like a book about installing a new washing machine- very mechanical.

Sara performed her demonstration with shy eyes and head down. She didn't have the confidence in her subject matter to be completely sure of what she was demonstrating. There was hesitancy, but there was courage. I wanted to be her in that moment.

With this history in mind, the performance was not what I had thought it might be for me. Being in a room full of artists who know that the rules set forth in her demonstration are a bit ludicrous, the performance just ended up being farcical- and it was hard for me to keep a straight face at times. Looking back on the performance, I see it as just another way that I garnered attention- by "stealing" her perfectly (now) amazing demonstration and using it for my own selfish gain. A perfectly good intention now turned to something a bit tainted from the original thought.

I still think the performance was successful on a certain level. The irony of it is intriguing to me. I think I am still processing through it. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Since none of you knew the background, I wonder what your reactions to the piece were?

performance & installation arts 5104/4104: Grace Notes

Commentary works really well as an introduction to this fine piece. Sounds good on line - I kept it running while I worked - soothing and moving too. Nice work, Nick

Grace Notes

GRACE NOTES by Nicholas O'Brien

The score for this performance used appropriated + cut up samples from traditional Irish folk music and recording samples of my singing mixed live to create a rich texture of sound. After arranging the loops of the recordings and getting these in a kind of synchronicity, I then began to sing along with the recorded audio through a couple of different analog manipulating devices (pedals).

The performance and process of editing and appropriating from this folk music was an attempt to shorten some distance I feel with my Irish heritage. Three years ago I had taken some time to read a good amount of contemporary and canonized Irish literature and found that my own work unconsciously addressed very similar themes. I felt as though I should deliberately address some of these similarities, and explore how to connect my practice directly with some folk traditions in Irish culture. By choosing to go through these mediated and technological devices, I intended to make a gesture that spoke to the comfort and security I find within and around the web and network societies.

Grace Notes

GRACE NOTES by Nicholas O'Brien

The score for this performance used appropriated + cut up samples from traditional Irish folk music and recording samples of my singing mixed live to create a rich texture of sound. After arranging the loops of the recordings and getting these in a kind of synchronicity, I then began to sing along with the recorded audio through a couple of different analog manipulating devices (pedals).

The performance and process of editing and appropriating from this folk music was an attempt to shorten some distance I feel with my Irish heritage. Three years ago I had taken some time to read a good amount of contemporary and canonized Irish literature and found that my own work unconsciously addressed very similar themes. I felt as though I should deliberately address some of these similarities, and explore how to connect my practice directly with some folk traditions in Irish culture. By choosing to go through these mediated and technological devices, I intended to make a gesture that spoke to the comfort and security I find within and around the web and network societies.

A Short Narrative by M. Taylor

The inspiration behind A Story Narrative by M. Taylor was built upon a combination of character development, humor, and the contrast between confessions and lying.  While I’ve been exploring the function of internal and external perceptions, I intended to focus on the flow of consciousness versus its confliction in a given environment. 

An interesting idea I found while researching other artists’ is the idea of adapting to your studio environment and allowing that to influence the creation of your work.  Margaret Crane and Jon Winet, a collaborative pair, commented upon their acceptance into a residency with Xerox’s PARC Program that they didn’t need to rearrange their studio space, because it would be like going to a foreign country and only experiencing their own culture.  Therefore, I want to give into the characteristics of our classroom environment, such as the dimming lights, the movement of sound, and adapting to the awareness of other’s works that have entered and left the space. 

For character development, I created the structure of their behavior, reactions, and speaking patterns.  Within the environment I wanted to influence and adapt to the character’s behavior by setting up props.  Then, the character was free to act out.  An aspect of their behavior that wasn’t strongly seen was how the character was consciously taking from other’s projects.  I intended for the audience to recognize the references to other’s work, such as combing the hair, emphasizing on “living,” and quoting pop culture with “the pickles.”

Following the development, there is a specific process I find that I go through.  After I know the language of the character, I begin listening to them as I imagine the character talking to me.  After thinking about the possible conversation that we would have, I force myself to only think in their character voice.  Next, I let myself begin to "think out loud" and talk to myself.  I allow my voice to adjust to the characters'.  I don't begin to interact with others until I feel comfortable with the character's voice and it has begun to sound like the voice I imagined.  I feel that the behavior and body language of the character will become natural only after the thought process and voice of the character is achieved.

Overall, the humor and props were the most helpful in the development and performance of the piece.  I would like to explore the use of props more and going further into character development, such as exaggerated facial expressions.  

A call and response performance by Nicholas O'Brien and Kari Treadwell.

For this performance, Kari and I gave ourselves a very simple instruction set: follow the sound and motion of Kari's tap dancing with my hands. We resolved to dress as similar as possible to avoid any external visual influence. In order to get the most out of the volume of our movements, we decided to both perform on wood planks. Not only was this decision motivated by sound, but it also points towards a traditional history of tap dancing that we both felt was a strong part of the performance. Although we haven't explicitly planned any future performance, we have discussed how our own personal ancestries play a significant role in how we want to explore our bodies, our voices, and our actions. We felt that the location for this performance was well suited for the sound we wanted to create; a rhythmic and cacophonous space where initiator and performer (ie Kari and I respectively) would blend into one sound as the performance developed.

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