Danielle

For the final exercise of a conceptual portrait, I decided to display my growth in necklaces. Partly inspired by the artist Katie Patterson as she created her fossil necklace. I have always been interested in how people display themselves through clothing or accessories. In this project, I layered necklaces that were my favourite to wear as a child until the ones I wear now. Looking back, each necklace takes me back to a certain place and special meaning.

Week 10: Conceptual Portrait

Notes:

On Kawara

  • I woke up
  • I went
  • Sent post cards of times and traced maps
  • Date paintings

Teching Hsich

  • Clocked in a time every hour with a portrait for a year
  • Subjecting self to very intense things
  • Motives behind work?

John Baldessari

  • “I will not make any more boring art”
  • Line/ text work
  • Takes things literally

Kelly mark

  • punches in and out of her going to her studio – artist labourer
  • Hiccup

Micah Lexier

  • Portraits of David from ages 1 to 75
  • “David then and now” – 10 years later

Katie Patterson

  • Plays with nature and senses
  • Made recordings of glaciers
  • Mapped dead stars
  • Fossil necklace
  • Future library

Adrian Piper

  • Calling cards

Sophie Calle

  • “take care of yourself”
  • Got women to interpret the letter

Final Portrait Ideas

Take an idea and put it in a physical form:

  • Making lists
  • Using texts
  • Assigning task and documenting
  • Record beginning of meditations?
  • Failure will be apart of the piece
  • Take a thing and reinterpret it in a bunch of different ways
  • Necklaces throughout my life – childhood to now*
    • A take on the fossil necklace and David portrait
    • don’t take it too literally – try not to describe it too much
    • a small sentence/description of each one
    • timeline of life displayed in grid/line form

Week 7: Audio Art

  1. Notes from 3 works of audio art
    1. Artist 1: Anna Ripmeester – Pipes in “C”
    2. Artist 2: Janet Cardiff’s – The Forty Part Motet
    3. Artist 3:
  2. Proposal
    1. Ideas:
      1. Play all of friend’s demos at once – layer
      2. Kitchen fan & roommates harmonizing to it?
      3. Something to do with record player
      4. Guitar tuning of some sort
      5. My roommates warm up sounds for her choir
      6. Announcing things throughout the day…?
Chaos in the Kitchen

This audio piece is a collection of sounds from my household including my roommates. I was inspired by a previous classmate’s audio art of “Pipes in C” and decided to take a similar approach to my piece. In the background of the audio, I recorded my roommate practicing his violin from another room, this may be interpreted as an addition to the social distancing portrait where listeners can actually hear him play. Layered over, I recorded a very awfully noisy fan in our kitchen and often me and my roommates find ourselves trying to jokingly harmonize to it, so in turn, I decided to record this everyday occurrence. Throughout the fan singing, I was able to catch a clip of my other roommate warming up for her weekly choir sessions.

Week 6: Mask

Notes on Darcy Stienke Article

Since I am not going out in public nearly as much, I feel as though the only time I am able to see people are in essential places, such as the grocery store. In public (or anywhere) it is the polite thing to smile at people and not being able to see people’s expressions or emotions through their faces creates a bit of anxiety in itself. At times when I don’t look particularly great on a day and have to out, I enjoy wearing the mask as it hides possible insecurities, however, the social possibilities outweigh how I feel.

What I found interesting to read in the text was the notion of the unknown. This term resonates with me in relation to the unknown of what the future will hold regarding the pandemic and life in general.

In my opinion, I would have to agree with the article when it is mentioned of the feeling of being incomplete, “my identity, never that solid to begin with, fraying…”. I’ve spoken to many that have said they prefer the masks and others not so much. I don’t particularly have a fixed side, and I see positives and negatives (hehe get it) to both sides.

Week 4: Video Portrait

Social Distancing Video Portrait.

“It’s made me appreciate ordinary human interactions way more and it’s made time enter a looping state of being very short and very fast in a time never felt before.” – Toby

I decided to film a video of my roommate in his room as if he were to practice violin. As his practicing has been apart of an everyday routine I thought it could be cool to film this typical routine of normal life at this time. (Also I’m not sure why the video looks so yellow, I didn’t edit it).

When looking at the work of Adad Hannah, I was reminded of another Instagram artist that goes by the name of @humansofny. This page is simply a photoblog of portraits and interviews of people on the streets of New York. I find it so interesting reading all the stories people have to share. Below is an image of the page.

Week 3: Defenestration

For this week I had the idea to defenestrate a mask. Considering masks have become such an essential part of our everyday lives, I thought it could be interesting to see how it flew out a window and may mean different things to others. As simple as a mask is, this exercise reminded me of all the worn and discarded disposable masks I’ve been seeing on the ground. From a environmentalist perspective this saddens me to see all the pollution that will most likely persist over many years in an almost apocalyptic way.

Week 2: Be Still for 1 Hour Exercise

For week 2 I decided to sit on the frozen river in my hometown for as long as I was able to outside. I was also trying to think of where I could go that was out of my comfort zone. As you can see there were people skating in the back. The whole time I was worried about someone asking what I was doing but that didn’t end up happening.

I was able to get my partner to take pictures of many angles around the river. When I started off on the ice I was squatting but then realized I was getting quite cold and my legs were getting sore, this was around the 15-minute mark. I was able to sit for about 45 minutes in total before I felt like I was turning into ice. After completing this task I have a completely new appreciation for Marina’s work.

Week 1

Sol LeWitt: For All To See (Notes)

  1. How does Sol Lewitt express the notion that “the idea is the machine that makes the art” in his work? What does the artist’s actual hand have to do with the final work in a conceptual art context?
    1. Sol Lewitt expresses this notion that “the idea is the machine that makes the art” through the concept of planning and assembling his work beforehand similar to an architect or a contractor with the machinery of some sort. Since in the case of For All To See, LeWitt produces the idea and plans the piece and instructs a team to perform the work. The artist’s hand has to do with the instructions he assigns to the artists with a degree of trust. Since he isn’t able to be present with the artists and cant guarantee his envisioning, this may lead to the notion of the machine and how the artist’s hand becomes a tool in the greater product.

Yoko Ono Reading From Grapefruit Book

  1. Where do you draw the boundaries around the artworks in this video? What are the artworks? What strategies and tools does Ono use to challenge the viewer? Do you like any of these concept-works? Discuss.
    1. I enjoyed all of the works that were listed and I feel as though depending on how one views art, the lists could be considered as their own or as a whole artwork. The artworks described range from tangible/physical to spiritually and metal pieces, some explained with a direction more than others. One may consider each piece Ono’s way to improve being and experiencing life. Possible strategies and tools Ono used to challenge viewers may be that not every audience would view such work as art and could inflict anger in some, on the other hand, they make me and possibly others to appreciate a new perspective on life. For example, the piece of burning and following a ritual after writing something negative is not uncommon and I feel as though it is practiced everywhere, as well as the mental wellbeing vs room space piece was very intriguing for me.

Bruce Nauman – True Artist

  1. Describe two works by Bruce Nauman (include images) where he frames every day actions (non-heroic, banal) as art. How are they “framed” as art, and what does the framing do to our understanding and experience of the actions?
    1. “If I were an artist in the studio then whatever I was doing in the studio must be art”
    2. In order to consider something beautiful you have to have an idea of what’s beautiful and that’s what hamstrings you from the get go
    3. Manifest mediums based on ideas
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Coffee Spilled Because the Cup Was Too Hot – 1966-67
  • If I said I’ve never spilled or burnt my mouth because my coffee or tea was too hot I’d be lying. Nauman framed this everyday disaster by possibly following the rule of thirds in the canvas as well as contrasting colour schemes including warm and cold scales. This is framed as art as it is being cast in a beam of light displaying its importance and how quickly something like this can happen but no one notices it framed this way.
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  • These pieces were displayed and quite literally as normal and everyday notions bluntly. The words “normal desires” occur every day to everyone no matter the thought. The piece on the right that’s written backwards saying “pay attention mother fuckers” may have many interpretations, one being how we all get caught up in our everyday worlds and often are not present in the world. This could be the artist calling on the viewers to either pay attention to themselves or himself or awaken anything.

Exercise 1: Make a Kilometre

Possible Ideas:

  • Walk beside and around the trees near the river and trace tracks for 1km
    • Make a shape within the trees?
    • Take a screenshot of the ariel view of the park? & trace where I walked
    • Someone take a picture as I walk around?
  • How long does it take to walk 1 km? (11 minutes)
    • Make a playlist for that many minutes?
    • Is this too simple?

I ended up going with the tree idea:

During:

  • Got odd looks zigzagging from tree to tree
  • Tracks ended up kind of looking like a tree !!
  • Surprisingly took longer than I thought

One thought on “Danielle

  1. Hi Danielle,
    W1: Notes on Sol Lewitt, Yoko Ono, Nauman complete and great comprehension of the main ideas, Kilometre image and description are good – I appreciate how you didn’t know exactly what would happen, and also avoided the easy idea of a kilometre as being a direct route
    W2: Image of Abramovic/Stillness gesture, and description are good – even better that you sat on the ice, in a big open space – the exposure in various respects gives tension to the gesture, as does the fact it was in public, and it tested your limits too! But glad you didn’t go past the danger line!
    W3: 6 conceptual sentences are great, Defenestration image and description good – perhaps a bit easy, and maybe you could play with more angles, compositions, or more masks – or something – but we’ll see how this is a portrait of our time eventually!
    W4: 1 Distancing video portrait, and description – so nice! I really like the still of a musician – who isn’t making any noise – there is a tremendous tension, and extra silence in that! And a great change from a lot of portraits of students in front of their laptops…

    Overall, good evidence of curiosity and full engagement with material, and level of understanding of critical ideas at play, keep improving technical investment and effort,
    and keep seeing how far you might go with experimentation – like not knowing how your tasks will play out – and pushing yourself to make surprising and original new images/videos/gestures.

    Looking forward to hearing more from you in class, and if you would like to talk with me about your work in progress, readings, exercises, one-on-one comments on your work, and grades – send me an email in the morning to book a 15 minute appointment during the optional contact hours: Thursdays 11:30-2:30.

    And you can show up to a zoom meeting with Nathan anytime during these hours to ask your questions, and get tech support for using software and finishing your projects:
    Mondays and Thursdays 11:30-4pm.

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