I Am: Blog 2

"I Am": Process

I was originally inspired by the work of Candy Chang. Her work deals with the community. I love her "Before I Die" Project which was basically a large wall space that allowed for people to write their own responses to the prompt "Before I die I want to..." I thought this was such a fantastic way to get individualized and unique answers, while at the same time bringing together a community of people that wrote on the same board.

I remember being struck by the idea that I could do something similar with a very different type of prompt. I wanted to create something that also involved the community to interact with and to express themselves. The idea that I wanted to deal with is creating a positive space for a community.

When going through difficult times I often look down on myself and find it hard to look at myself in the mirror. However, one of the things I learned through therapy was to use positive affirmations. I would write "I am..." statements on sticky notes and stick them to my mirror. In this project I want to encourage other people to make their own positive affirmations and add them into a collective, positive statement about ourselves.

I had originally planned on making a large scale installation type piece, but as I felt strapped for time and was unsure of what kind of space to do it in I found myself looking for other options. I decided to turn the work into more of a performance piece and form it around a video.

The piece turned into a more personalized setting and meaning. There were thirteen participants, including myself. I asked each person who participated to write down a meaningful positive affirmation about themselves on a sticky note. They were then told to affix it to themselves and then put it on the mirror. After that, I would stand in front of the mirror, taking in each newly added positive statement.

I think that each person came away with a stronger sense of self and positive feeling about each other. I think that in that way, I achieved the main goal of this project and felt accomplished. I was especially proud of the way that the video turned out.

I Am: Blog 1

I Am: Artist Statement

When going through difficult times I often look down on myself and find it hard to look at myself in the mirror. However, one of the things I learned through therapy was to use positive affirmations. I would write "I am..." statements on sticky notes and stick them to my mirror. In this project I encouraged other people to make their own positive affirmations and add them into a collective, positive statement about ourselves.

The project created a positive experience for all who were involved. The task allows each person to focus on an aspect of yourself that your are proud of and giving it a medium to share that with the world. By highlighting these parts of yourself the best of you shines through and reflects into the world. I think the importance of sharing this with the world around you is that other people can find positivity within themselves as they see you finding yours. While this project was small I believe that internally visualizing these positive affirmations, allows them to grow and spread into positivity in other people throughout the community.


Images:

Video:

Love: Blog 2

Love: Process

When I started thinking about this project I was mostly just excited to start working in a new medium (other than Braille). I had been previously caught up in the idea of using Braille and had difficulty even coming up with this project. First I had to look up how the short and long sounds can be made and also how the word "love" would be translated.

I spent a lot of time considering what objects would make the best sounds for this project. In working on the project I found that metal and hollow wooden object make the best resonating sounds. I also practiced tapping out the word several times before filming. I tried to integrate it into my every day life.

To complete the project, I enlisted the help of the fantastic filming skills of Liz Craige. We used her FlipCam to capture the video. When filming we used many different objects in various spaces to repeatedly have me tap the Morse Code. Each object was filmed of me tapping the word "love" twice.

Finally I had to learn more about how to film. I had to change file types of all the clips. Then I edited together a complete piece of video that exhibited the sound and visuals of me tapping out the same word multiple times. I found the act of tapping the specific pattern multiple times to be relaxing and meditative. It was a very fulfilling piece personally. I tried to capture this to the best of my abilities through the video aspect as well to share my performance with others.

Love: Blog 1

Love: Artist Statement

My work often deals with words and translation. Propelling myself from previous artworks that use Braille, I have used this performance art piece as a means to work in other methods of transmitting textual information. I wanted to use Morse Code, which can be transmitted through sounds of beats with long and short signals.

This is a recorded performance in which I beat out the word "Love" or  " . _ . . _ _ _ . . . _ . " on various objects and people. The video captures five minutes of tapping out the beating twice for each object. Tapping the Morse Code over and over again creates a repetitive pattern of sound. This piece uses everyday objects and combining their collective sound to make a meditative resonance of the word "love" and perpetuating its meaning into life.

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Video:

Final Projects

Project 1:
I am....

Inspired by Candy Chang's Before I Die Project.

I wanted to create something that also involved the community to interact with and to express themselves.






When going through difficult times I often look down on myself and find it hard to look at myself in the mirror. However, one of the things I learned through therapy was to use positive affirmations. I would write "I am..." statements on sticky notes and stick them to my mirror. In this project I want to encourage other people to make their own positive affirmations and add them into a collective, positive statement about ourselves.

I want to put up a mirror and paper that says "I am___" on a wall for about a week and see the responses that are written.






Project 2:
 
Propelling myself from working with Braille as a medium as difficulty for translation I wanted to try working in other methods of transmitting textual information.

I decided to try using Morse Code which can be transmitted through sounds of beats with long and short signals.

This work will be a performance art piece. I want to beat out the word "Love" or  " . _ . . _ _ _ . . . _ . " I will make these beat sounds by tapping on myself. I will do this in a public space.






Another idea that I thought of later was to maybe incorporate this into another therapy that I use called EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) or Tapping.

Project 2 Ideation

Initial Ideas:
I wanted to do a kind of installation piece of Braille writing.
I was inspired by...

http://www.fatcap.com/artist/know-hope.html
and

http://www.antonparsons.co.nz/Gallery/

...but.... it would take too long....

so...
I was given the idea to have Braille written on my skin.

http://boingboing.net/2010/01/30/chinese-braille.html










What I want to do... wear minimal white clothing, white blindfold, have Braille written all over my skin with paint and/or glue. I want to "see" people's reactions. I want to reach out to them and have them touch me. Bring awareness to being blind, not just in the sense that you can't see, but also what you purposefully ignore.

"Touch me. It's so easy to leave me all alone with the memory of my days in the sun.
If you touch me, you'll understand what happiness is." -Cats

New Genres Post

Guillermo Gomez-Pena
 I was not super impressed by this artist. I don't know if I was expecting something even more crazy than Stephanie had worked him up to be, or if I just didn't connect enough to his work. I definitely understood where his work was coming from with his background as a Mexican American. I see how his work works with identity and misconceptions and culture. However, the only work that I really was interested in was the one where he and another artist acted as Native Americans that were presented in a cage. The reactions that were captured were interesting.

Alfredo Jaar
Of the works that we discussed in class by Alfredo Jaar, I liked the one with the flowers the best. I think the concept along with the exhibition space was really interesting. He used flowers as a symbol for intellectuals and gave the flowers water and light and soil. He also blew harsh fans towards the flowers symbolizing the governments control and how harmful that was towards letting the flowers grow. I thought it was cool that this installation piece was exhibited across the way from a government building and really brought the work to life.

Yinka Shonibare
 I loved this artist's work with mannequins. They are dressed in clothes made from beautiful fabric. The fabric is batik which originated in India but was adopted by Africans. I also like the concept of them being headless and implication that has. This particular piece show below is talking about when the different European countries were having heated discussions about who would have control over what parts of Africa for trade.