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.)