...graduated!!

August 7, 2010... graduated from the VCFA MFA program in Visual Arts with classmates who are the best people imaginable.

...starting a new studio journal blog [post-graduation].

http://workinginthedigitaldivide.blogspot.com/

Spaces of Social Lo-fi - Inside/Out at the residency (inside gallery, video surveillance installation)

Spaces of Social Lo-fi - Inside/Out at the residency (outdoor audio installation)

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post cards... & finally a title for the project

some installation clarity...

Some great dialogue today, with my artist-teacher, provided some much needed clarity and direction.

For the exterior bench installation, I am going to focus on the installed audio and abandon use of the windows. I feel this is a good decision, as the windows are a distraction from the audio (and the audio experience is the point of this project).

I am very excited about furthering my explorations with audio and collecting more noises.
I already have some very interesting and connective audio "threads" which I am excited about. More posts to come. As always, much more to do.

installation trials

Sound is the dominant component of this work. Collected social noises flowing over a public space meant to allow a certain degree of introversion and solitude [bench]. For the past several weeks, I've been performing a certain degree of surveillance... collecting a wide variety of public and social noises from places such as: Mall of America, restaurants, grocery store, and amusement park. I am interested in the way in which individuals interact with one another in various public spaces.

In addition to exploring these various social & public noises, I am also working through various sculptural arrangements for the installation. I've been using a variety of collected windows, playing around with lines of sight, placement, and gesture. There is still something lacking in this arrangement. I'm going to print some imagery on mylar to adhere to some of the window glass. I will also be experimenting with materials to create visual distortion. More work. Much more.

surveillance of a chicago street block- audio_ captured (unedited)

I am currently collecting surveillance-type noises & video which contain evidences of either mass socialization or operational public interactions between individuals. Through trials and reworkings I am now experimenting with collecting noises and audio which contain evidences of mass socialization from public places. Below is a 16 minute track of collected audio from a linear street block in Chicago. This week I will record various interactive noise from restaurants and a mall. Next week I will record airport noise and applause from a performance.
I will then try out this new audio collection with the park bench installation (at a public site) for documentation and critique.
My hopes are to present passerby's with a multi-layered experience of displacement (socially, bodily, spatially) of sensory input and expectations. Through this use of displaced audio (in conjunction with the park bench) those engaged will need to work to reconcile notions of public and private as well as introverted spaces and spaces of surveillance. The windows set into the ground in front of the bench (at varying positions and degrees) are meant to operate as metaphors of social constructs -- as frames or evidences of architecture, community, industry and civilization (in various states of flux, operation, and existence).

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blubs about Bench [exterior/interior] project

Bench [exterior/interior] is a two part project centered around two site specific architectural fixtures (one inside, one outside) at the Wood Gallery at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Both parts of the work are related in the sense they will both contain at least one window and one bench. In both works the bench operates in a utilitarian manner; as public seating and as positioning mechanism. There is something very public about a bench. No manner where they are installed, people generally feel welcomed to use them. When we sit on benches, we sort of assume their accumulated spaces within our own, creating an instant familiarity which borders on momentary ownership. As passerby's and viewers engage with work (by sitting on the bench), they are presented with multiple rifts with which to seem. The confrontations begin.

The work itself does not rely on the positioning of viewers on benches for operation. What the benches do, is offer viewers alternative experiences to navigate different rifts and antagonisms (for the sake of forming new meanings and associations). As both benches are positioning device within the work, viewers will most likely be looking for visual cues, within their position, as to what they should be looking toward or looking at. For the exterior bench, viewers will look out toward a small gathering of windows coming out of the ground (at varying degrees). The exterior bench will also have a pole mounted speaker set directly behind it, lowly playing sounds of people socializing and laughing in large groups. The windows set into the ground are meant to operate as metaphors of social constructs. Simultaneously, they also operate as metaphors for democracy, industry, and civilization within the displaced setting of sound and exterior public space.

The interior bench will be placed directly in front of one of the gallery's 3 x 20 foot rear-facing windows. Within the window sill will be an etched piece of glass. On the glass will be a projected video of a sequence which illustrates the obscurity of activities which occur within interior spaces. The window in this part of the project works in two ways: as utilitarian framing device (to watch the video), and metaphor for the liminality which exists between culture manifest and culture understood. The video sequence operates as fetishistic documentation of spectatorship as well as trigger in assuming a comfortable distance from culture as spectacle when received through video media.

working plans [bench]

Below is a rough illustration for the upcoming work I will be setting up in Vermont for my graduate exhibition. The plans include an audio track which will run on a loop through an installed outdoor speaker. The bench is a pre-existing public structure outside of the Wood Gallery.


Below is a very rough version of my audio track. I plan to re-record the train noise as well as the crowded room noise for another version. Click play to hear the work in progress.

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Throughout the planning process, many ideas have come and gone. Here is one of my favorite mistakes. It is a gaudy interactive intrusion to a public space - obnoxious yes... but changes public space into spectacle, with complications. Difficult to see from the crude illustration, the bench is upholstered with soft red velvet in the sculptural manner of a large peony - petal like. Underneath the bench are installed bird barbs.

architectural fixtures

In the everyday grind and grid of cell phones, www, ipod, digital tv, email, facebook, twitter we are connected more than ever, right? - but at what level and what loss? As human beings we work, play, and dwell among one another within physical spaces, some of which are in nature, others constructed to varying degrees via the disciplines and practices of architecture and construction. I like to think of architecture as an artistic practice which places organizational emphases on the meeting of two needs within society; the physical/spacial and utility/function. Both of which are vital to addressing daily needs of being human and possessing a concrete sense of self. To have no understanding of one's physical or spacial is to be purely metaphysical or metacognitive [which is altogether impossible and it denies us of the physical part of ourselves]. This brings me to wonder about societal utility and function. These words are wholly descriptors of physical tasks. Within a building an elevator is constructed and installed to carry the physical self up and down within an elevated structure. A chair is built and made to provide a comfortable seat for a human body. All things considered, our world is full of historical fixtures and practices to support the needs of the physical self. Why then, are we so incredibly addicted to the new virtual realm of digital, simulation, and virtuoso? What is it satiating within us that is worth the denial of our analog selves?

I'm asking myself these questions as an artist because I'm feeling a loss or void of my physical self and all that is grand about the physical world - anything that is still "real". I'm feeling a need to make work which evokes an appreciation for bodily sense of self. An articulated sense of real vs simulation [in compared to... or perhaps within the context of...].

I'm currently working to alter a window and a bench as a way of working out these issues. This work will also be part of my graduating MFA show. Wish me loads [lots of them] of luck. This is a very tall order.

Some highlights from the residency

Artist in residence lecture by Carlos Motta

http://www.icaphila.org/exhibitions/motta.php
Carlos Motta at ps1 in NY

Guest artist lecture by Lisa Sigal
Lisa Sigal at Whitney Biennal 2008


Faculty workshop (photography and nostalgia) by David Deitcher

Faculty lecture (History of sound art) by Dont Rhine

Faculty lecture by Michael Minneli

Faculty lecture by Mario Ontiveros

Final Semester Begins... graduate show approacheth

And so it begins... my final semester, graduate show, process paper. During the last residency, we chose our spaces in the gallery for the upcoming graduate show in August. Space was very limited (due to the fact there are 17 of us).

I chose two small spaces; an unusually tall, old, arched window inside the gallery and a bench which sits in front of a walkway and large fountain directly outside of the gallery main entrance.

For this exhibition, I am interested in exploring the social spaces of introversion and what these spaces represent within the social sphere. I plan to create a series of sculptural, installation works which further explores this notion. Recently, I have come to an awareness of my own introversion. Since coming to this awareness I have become consumed by the constructs which make these spaces manifest and how they operate within culture.

My friend David, loaned me an article which highlights the significance of windows in some historical works of art. I am anxious to read this, as I feel that much of the space we create socially has to do with perceptions.

Performativity of the Body; Body Mechanics [Video Studies]

Swing Arm from Ulik on Vimeo.

Rear View from Ulik on Vimeo.

Birdie from Ulik on Vimeo.

Semester 3 Installation [version 1]

Revised installation...

stamenesque, sculptural forms of reverie and the process of making

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I am in the process of making several related works, in response to the three Dickinson poems, which explore the role of the bee as performer (and the audience/viewer as bee). I am playing with the idea of scale, making large stamen-like forms which hang from the ceiling. Above are some of the hanging sculptural forms [stamen] I have been working on. I haven't photographed them all together yet, but my intention is for them to hang a few feet apart so that viewers/participants are able to navigate around them. There is still much tailoring (sewing and fitting) to be done to the exteriors. Additionally, I am working on three large drawings of clovers and poppies which will accompany the forms. Below is a sketch of my planned installation.

Reactions to Emily Dickinson

Dickinson's work appears simple in its everyday context. It is striking for its accessibility and openness, making its relevance uniquely suitable to its reader. I've selected three specific poems to work with. I've selected them based on their connectivity to one another and heavy connections I've formed with them in connection with my own work. So much of her work seems to be heavily grounded in introspection, yet she is so clever and mature in the associations she makes to nature, sexuality, love, sense of self, and the emotional realm. It is this "ownness" that interests me. It is a surety which transcends loss and void and it is remarkable.



To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.





His oriental heresies
Exhilarate the Bee,
And filling all the Earth and Air
With gay apostasy

Fatigued at last, a Clover plain
Allures his jaded eye
That lowly Breast where Butterflies
Have felt it meet to die-






A Bee his burnished Carriage
Drove boldly to a Rose-
Combinedly alighting-
Himself-his Carriage was-
The Rose received his visit
With frank tranquility
Withholding not a Crescent
To his Cupidity-
Their Moment consummated-Remained for him-to flee-
Remained for her-of rapture
But the humility.

some gallery pics

There are many fantastic works in the student gallery this residency.
Here are just a few...
Scott Cantrell
Dennis Hart
Susan Holt
Kate Renner
Tariq Gibran
Some other residency pics...

Residency Lectures

Guest artist (and CalArts professor) Shirley Tse, lectured about her body of work and talked about her studio practices and creative processes. It was a profoundly interesting lecture, as Shirley unraveled the deep impact and connection between manufactured materials, globalization, and foreign exchanges. Here is a link to Shirley's website. http://shirleytse.net/

Lecture by guest artist, Mary Lum. Mary talked about her creative processes, involving collecting various things, shooting photos which reveal relationships, and arranging. Here is a link to some of Mary's work. http://www.frederieketaylorgallery.com/2009Jan.html

A fascinating lecture by our artist-in-residence, Leslie Hewitt. Leslie spoke about her work with 3rd cinema, Project Rowhouse, and some of her photographic works, such as her Riffs series. Here is a Whitney Biennial 2008 link showing some of her work. http://www.whitney.org/www/2008biennial/www/?section=artists&page=artist_hewitt

Faculty Contemporary Art Historian and Pomona State (CA) professor, Marie Shurkus lectured on the topics of Relational Aesthetics and Affective Labor. Truly fascinating. This lecture was very profound for me and for that reason. I will be shifting away from feminist studies this semester and toward relational aesthetics and affect. I am interested in exploring how the role of the viewer in art occurs as both performer and audience to produce affect. By doing so, the viewer's body becomes part of the form of the work. To investigate this further I will be extensively studying a specific work by Felix Gonzales-Torres. More to come on this topic... no doubt.

Faculty, artist and CalArts professor, Ashley Hunt walked us through his current video project. It is a project which explores and gives voice to the tragic loss of forgotten prisoners during Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. As the video progresses, it becomes apparent that the prisoners were not the only ones forgotten...
Ashley narrated the video in person while sitting at a desk in the front of the room. This "in room" narration was very powerful and added to the meaning of the work. Here is Ashley's website. http://www.ashleyhuntwork.net/

Faculty Art Historian and International School of Photography professor (NY), David Deitcher, lectured on artist/educator Tim Rollins + K.O.S. Here is a Crown Point link to check out more. http://www.crownpoint.com/artists/rollins Here is Tim Rollins website link. http://www.diacenter.org/kos/

opening reception

Last night was the opening reception of the gallery spaces here at the residency. There are so many intriguing works to see and interact with. This is my first time exhibiting work which falls under the umbrella term of "installation". The video projection is difficult to see in the photograph. It is a projection of combined three sequences and web-appropriated images which run on a loop.
More pics of other works from the gallery coming soon....

20 hours of road with the pink, furry man

Boxed pink, furry man... heading for 20 hours of road... then installation begins. I tested out the projection. It works... which is always good. more to come.

The Atlantic Highlands One Minute Film Festival 2009

exécution de baiser, (my performance kiss video) was selected for the Atlantic HIghlands One Minute Film Festival on July 18th in Atlantic Highlands, NJ. Visit Film One Fest for more info. To see the video on archive.org click here> http://www.archive.org/details/ExcutionDeBaiser

pink, furry man (and his girl) go on a road trip

Today, I brought my installation to the U of M West Bank Arts Gallery (Minneapolis) for a working crit with my mentor, international artist & professor Andrea Stanislav. Andrea's crit was really great. She has phenomenal conceptual insights, technical experience, and contemporary knowledge about art to offer. I have been very fortunate to work with her this semester. Because of it being summer, the gallery in the arts building was empty so I was able to set up my work in there. Many good advantages to setting up work in a gallery-type setting. It allows for the simplicity of the work to be taken in wholly.

Still many last minute technical things to finish up on the pink furry man's casted parts and some video to put together to project. I am looking forward to working on new directions for this project and finishing it up for the showing in Montpelier in August. Andrea and I talked about including some domestic items in the installation (allowing viewers to fully enter into the experience as an environment). I will be including items, making them white in color... creating an emphasis in the two figures and their engaged actions. I will be bringing a 6' x 6' white, shag rug along as part of the installation... as well as a small white table, a white ipod and headphones (for viewing a "gaze" performance video sequence... and listening to a specific playlist of songs), a white pillow or bean bag chair, and a small white, metal vanity. I plan to play with the arrangement of these items when I arrive at the residency. Largely, much will depend on the space I receive in the gallery. The installation will be titled, "My Big, Pink, Furry, Pony" - suggestive of both; typical American girls' toy and female fetish object.

pink, furry... phase one

I've put together my pink, furry installation figure to check for issues relating to balance, etc. Much more to do....

Casting with Bondo

After much failure casting with spray foam, I have decided to carve down my foam figure parts and re-cast them inside my molds while casting the parts with Bondo. This has worked much better... although Bondo is quite nasty (toxic) to work with. The only unfortunate issue is the added weight on the figure.... hoping it will not throw off the balance.

modeling the face for the installation figure...

Still much to do in tweaking the face model before mold making and casting. I will be making a two-part plaster mold and using spray-foam to make the casting. Hoping this will work well as I need something lightweight, rigid, fairly durable, and paintable.

... casting with foam has been a bit challenging. The venting in the molds doesn't work as predictably as with metal casting... lots of air bubbles. I'm on my fourth set of castings, in search of better results. Today I tried using Bondo to fill air holes. Tomorrow... sanding begins. More to come....

Learning How to Shoot

Learning How to Shoot, combines tragic news reports [IRIN Radio] with a close up shot of my mouth glutonously eating a banana and nectarine. The main audio was taken from an IRIN Radio interview [2008] with a captured and enslaved Ugandan girl. The interview is overlaid with another less dominant track from today's date from Afghanistan. This is the first version. I'll be shooting other alternate footage clips to go along with the audio... just to see what comes of it. I'm hoping for more thought provoking imagery... as the audio is quite powerful.

Audio is an important component of this video so you may want to adjust the volume on your computer. If you'd like to read more about the Ugandan story visit IRIN Radio: http://www.irinnews.org

Installation figure...

The figure for my installation, "Subjugated Gaze" is progressing. I am nearly finished with the internal wire frame. Next will be to experiment with foam casts for the hands and face. Then... time to cover the wire structure with the pink faux fur.

Initially, I had cast a masquerade type mask from iron to use with this installation and planned to have a second figure [made from barbed wire]... but now I have decided to keep the installation more simple... less convoluted with diverging concepts. In order to keep my intentions direct, I have decided to include only the male [voyeur] figure engaged in looking at the female, nude intaglio [subject]. My intent is to explore the historic-female subjugated gaze and sort of reenact it through understandings of visual pleasure and how it plays into our identities.

... more to come...