Jaida

One Kilometre Essay…
{Fitting The Status Quo}

My idea for our kilometre assignment was an interesting journey.

I have created exactly one kilometre of Google Doc sheets in the format of a University paper.

The Math…

One kilometre is one thousand metres
Standard A4 paper is 11.5 inches in length
11.5 inches multiplied by 3.5~ is equal to one metre.
one meter multiplied one thousand times is equal to one kilometre
3.5 multiplied by one thousand equals to 3,500
round to the nearest possible decimal accounting the length of paper to equal exactly one kilometre, 3,580

The idea behind my piece is for the viewer to have their own interpretation on its meaning. Besides the first and last page, all the pages are blank.

So Much Red…

My colour walk started at the University centre, there I was starving and needed something to eat and drink. I took notice to my surroundings and the most interesting and prominent colour was red. Red is an attractive and bold hue, and it’s the best colour to grab ones attention. I saw the cart of chip sand one whole row was stuffed with Doritos with their signature red bag. Next was the Timmie’s coffee cups. More and more food became easier to find, like the cherry tomatoes in the food bar. While I waited for my Mongolian grill noodles, There was a polka-dot pattern on the wall, that I awkwardly waddled over to take a snap of it. I’ve never noticed it before until I tuned into this project. My biology seminar happened right after and I made my way to the Dairy Bush for the first time. Past the red traffic lights, I walked past the animal science complex and into the parking lot, where I found it kinda weird to see some many red cars in the lot. So much so it looks unnatural and unusual to see so many red vehicles in one place. I passes the cows and the horses and saw the iconic big red barn. Finally in the evening, I stepped up to play some hockey at the University’s rink. Had a friend take a picture of me next to the ice agains the red boards… funny enough, the one side is called the Red rink, where I played. (after winning the game) I come home to turn off my lights on my aquarium, where Channing Tatum likes to flash his red colourations. I love that guy.

Jeremy Deller:

Political, activist street artist. Focuses on poster printers and billboard signs for the public to view. He is a British artist so most of his political views stem under British references.

This poster was given away for free, but if you then sell it on you will be cursed and die a horrible death.

Routine

Routine

For the best experience, Please use headphones or turn volume up.

Thank you.

Video Assignment

*Listen on MUTE, please

Puppy 🙁
Loop by Jaida Strand & Lumin Manea

This video provided the biggest learning experience for us. We were determined to get as close to a seamless loop as possible while also capturing the tension of creation and destruction, chaos and organization. The action of swiping all of the objects off of the desk conveyed the frustration of these two opposing forces but in the editing process, we found that we could not make the video into a fluid loop. Going back to the drawing board, we decided to pick a single action from our sequence to encompass our feat. The act of one pair of hands drawing a dog and the other pair ripping the drawing out of the notebook captures the tension between order and creativity. In many ways, this revised idea is stronger than our original idea. The act of drawing the dog possesses a childlike innocence of creativity and playfulness while the opposing factors of harsh reinforcements of social normalities are embodied by the hands that tear away the page. However, viewers may also interpret tearing away the page as making room for future drawings, inciting an endless cycle of creation and revision. Many different interpretations can be made from the new loop since the viewer can choose which pair of hands or which action they are drawn to more.

That’s Not Right :/
Sequence by Jaida Strand & Lumin Manea

To reorganize our feat into a sequence, we stepped away from the narrative created through the continuous shot and loop. Our intention was to focus on the action of disordering and reorganization and thus generate a pattern oscillating between states of chaos and harmony. Thus, in order to pull the video away from a narrative and to hyper-focus on each action, we inserted a second of black space each time the desk had been reorganized as a pause before the hands of destruction reentered the frame to disrupt the orderly desk once again. It’s also notable to mention both hesitations in our movement before continuing our meticulous tasks. Viewers may interpret these hesitations as hints at a deeper relationship between the opposing actions, what each pair of hands may be thinking of, and if they are affecting the reactions of one another. In the final action of the sequence, the hands that introduce a phone into the frame turn into fists and slam the table after the phone is taken away. Thus, a narrative is suggested without actually taking place, leading viewers into the experience of the single-shot video which has a more overt narrative.

Put it Back >:(
Continuous by Jaida Strand & Lumin Manea

We filmed about four takes of our pristine desk setup being haphazardly altered and reorganized. Although we discussed possible actions beforehand, we did not choreograph a specific order of the actions. As we filmed, actions we had not previously discussed spontaneously occurred in each take. In between takes, we began pondering what symbolic meaning this feat could hold given that a narrative had begun to emerge from the hands of chaos and organization having to share the same space. The best metaphorical articulation we came up with was “order kills creativity.” However, this is just one possible interpretation of the work and each viewer may form a different relationship with the actions performed in this video, perhaps even allying with either the force of creative chaos or the keeper of order. Perhaps, instead, this video represents how “boundaries inspire chaos” or even how “every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” Though the focus is still on the feat of disorganization and reorganization, a narrative emerged without reliance on spoken dialogue, full bodies, faces, or a setting any larger than a desk. Thus, this work is not just an exploration of an action, but also an exploration of inadvertent storytelling.

Danio rerio

Danio rerio (Zebrafish) is a freshwater fish belonging to the minnow family of the order Cypriniformes. Native to South Asia, it is a popular aquarium fish, frequently sold under the trade name zebra danio.

“Zebrafish.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 7 Feb. 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebrafish.

To learn more about Zebrafish and how the fetus development process is documented, visit:

https://www.exploratorium.edu/exhibits/look-inside-developing-fish

CLOSET PIECE III

Watch me kill all the men I have slept with!

I chose to record me preforming Yoko Ono’s Closet Piece III because I wanted to take light on a dark/questioning piece written in Ono’s ‘Grapefruit’. recorded in a dog park close to my home I had a pleasant walk towards the creek that had been overflowing because of Spring. I grabbed a box, a kitchen knife and my rented camera and tripod to preform. I had a lot of fun doing it and was quite thankful no dog walkers witness me running around with a kitchen knife like a crazy person. (Even though I am in this performance piece). I think the video is pretty self-explanatory once you have read the part I took from Grapefruit. I have killed ALL the men I have slept with. I hurriedly collected their bones and placed them in my Gryphon pride box that once homed socks I was gifted, and let the current take them away with a branch of pine; (Those men didn’t deserve flowers).

Self Portrait

Self-Portrait-Of-Music-Ive-Listened-To-For-One-WeekClick To Download

Click file above to view Conceptual Portrait.

I chose to write out almost every song I have listened to through the week from April 2nd to April 7th. It is a conceptual portrait because Music is a big influence in my life. The act of listening becomes a part of my daily routine and so it felt like a good idea to create an Excel spreadsheet list of the songs and their genre.

I chose to keep the song and genres of each day separate and in a list because it is interesting to see how vast some of the lists get. I want to viewers to go through it themselves to interpret the data instead of presenting it to them in a graph. If I were to extend this self portrait to a month, or even a whole year, it would be much more extraordinary. This piece can also be copied into an instruction piece. I would title it then as: Record every song you’ve listen to everyday for one week. Including the band/artist and genre. Present your list to the audience.