Sophia’s Work

Week 1:

1 km: Running Like a Lunatic with Bonnie and Manuel

A cement block 25 metres long, back and forth, reminiscent of the ‘suicide’ drills from pubescent grade 5 gym classes. Tragic. A 1 km run. Clonking around in Doc Martins whilst my wild cats (Bonnie and Manuel) frolic alongside me. Dad pops in too. All are intrigued and equally frightened by my antics. That was a genuine workout.

In more serious terms, the running was… Benny Hillesque. I wish I was a better editor; I would have totally put this song in the background:

Unfortunately I had already walked a kilometre during a previous attempt. I live in Turkey Point, a beachside village on the cusp of Lake Erie, and due to the cold weather and insane lake-effect winds, ice mountains have piled up in front of my house and the rest of the beach. I trekked on top of them. A -15 degree walk, many mountains and 5 hours of technological frustration caused me to cave in and create an easier fix- one that would help shorten the video. I am horribly out of shape and was losing daylight, so I thought the reservoir platform would make for better running grounds. I was dead wrong.

2 kms had already been completed before this second attempt, hence the 2.01 km starting point. I tried my best to reach 3.01 km, but apple watches are finicky sometimes, and I may have ran an extra couple of steps to complete my ‘run’ at 3.06 kms.

The quality of the videos went down as I edited, so I apologize for that. A huge airplane flew close to the beach and the fuzziness of the video totally removed it from view. It was pretty epic. Take my word for it.

Crisis alert, I have just been informed that the plane had to crash in a nearby farmers field. Here’s the article:

https://www.simcoereformer.ca/news/pilot-walks-away-from-plane-mishap-with-minor-injuries

This project reminds me of earlier works from Alan Resnick, who is one of my biggest inspirations. Please, please do yourself a favour and deep-dive Alan’s stuff.

Thanks for watching !!! : ) Hope I’m posting this in the right place.

3 Questions:

Sol Lewitt

Personally, I slightly disagree with Sol Lewitt’s statement that “when an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all the planning and decisions are made beforehand, and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.” I think the enigmatic or entropic dynamic of conceptual art should be encouraged, and not pigeonholed into a machine-like formula.

Limiting conceptual art to just a singular artist’s hands closes many doors. With present expansions in artistic thinking, doors have been opened to create multitudes of possibilities. Art goes far beyond the ideas of singular artistic originality. The ways in which we can present and accumulate these ideas are very different than previously thought. Works may rely on existential means, technological means, and social means for this experimental presentation. An artist with an idea may look to other artists to speed up artistic progress. This combines work from not just the first idea-maker, but with other artistic brains and their ideas. I recognize that he utilized other minds and hands within his work, which is respectable.

Despite the word perfunctory slightly loosening up Sol Lewitt’s statement, creating conceptual art can be thorough in execution as well. I do understand that a person’s lens regarding their specialized category of art can be based on personal experience. His experience with conceptual art is different than that of another conceptual artist, therefore his statement is completely fine. Going on a tangent. Yada yada yada.

Sol Lewitt
Yep, they’re Canadian…

Yoko Ono

I believe that artistic concepts can brim with calculative patterns and intuition. It is a very plausible and acceptable way of creating; nevertheless, conceptual art should not be limited to that method. The universe may find a way to help bring new objectives or surprises to conceptual narratives and individualistic expression.

That is why I appreciate Yoko Ono’s contributions to the art world. Her concepts include the magic of the everyday, of individual experience (not just of herself, but of other beings), and the notion that the art she creates is mostly out of her hands. She also sheds light on the atrocities, devastations, and other disturbances that plague the world. Yoko Ono embraces the idea that art can very much be made of the audience, such as with emotive or interactive responses, nature, happenings, and many uncontrollable factors that consistently dominate our lives as humans beings. It is a shared and connected experience through the means of creating. Personally, her works often pierce me with stinging emotion, such as deep reminiscence, pain, anger, and discomfort.

No comment regarding her contribution to the Beatles. None.

Bruce Nauman

I thoroughly enjoy the approach Bruce Nauman has to conceptualizing. He used some of the most mundane actions in his earlier works, such as repetition of simple movements, to create performance and video art. This way he breaks down the barrier of the materialistic, physical production of art which is more common of mediums such as painting or photography. He continues to spark wide conversation and broke barriers regarding the definition of what art can be. The concept of the action is of importance.

I especially love his neon works, and I think his use of neon animation is very effective. It is reminiscent of nighttime advertising and carnival signs. He simplifies glorified and powerful actions, such as having sex, or experiencing pain, and diminishes them into minimally framed animations, basic colour schemes, primitive text, linework and symbolism. I have always been drawn to neon signs in both an aesthetic and spiritual(?) manner. TMI. If you catch my drift.

Bruce Nauman, Disappearing Acts, 2018 Installation

Thanks for reading!! Have a Grateful day! (~);}

Week 2:

An Hour of Sitting

For my hour of sitting, I wanted to experiment with the relationship between sound and movement, or in this case, the lack thereof. To many people, music is a main source of mental stimulation, and each person’s experience with music is completely individualized to preference and an array of emotional responses. No matter the opinion, a reaction will generally spawn within the brain in one way or another when listening. Babies and toddlers respond and learn when exposed to music. For those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, music can be a way to spark familiarity in a confusing and disorienting existence.

It is very rare that I can sit still and shut up for more than a few seconds, especially in the presence of noise; specifically, music. I feel as if my brain is simultaneously in harmony and at war with sound. I am a serial whistler. It’s honestly a sickness.

An hour is not that long of a timespan, but when the mind is not entertained and the body is not in action, an hour feels much longer. The struggle between keeping a consistent stature whilst letting precious time roll by can take a toll on your mentality and physical comfort. I decided to use something to at least entertain my mind while I sat- not talking, not dancing, not singing, not twitching, not whistling, not tapping, not snapping- nothing: with a playlist. The playlist is exactly an hour and acted as my timer for this experiment.

We all know what happens when we experience joy through music and the physical reactions that take place, both knowingly and unknowingly. We also know what happens when we experience dislike towards music. I know how I react to music that I despise; with (not to be dramatic) burning rage and disgust. I am heavily opinionated regarding what I am passionate about and what I am not passionate about. I’m sure many will relate.

I filled the entire hour of this playlist with these godforsaken abominations. I was hoping that in forcing myself to listen, I’d give the songs that I hate a more thorough analysis. Maybe these songs could be the ‘enemy-to-lover’ storyline; if only I gave them a true chance to come out of the hard shell that encapsulates them.

I was wrong, and it sucked. To not physically grimace at each song or run and turn them off was a special sort of willpower that I didn’t know that I had. I managed to be reactionless, but my mind was screaming in silence. The itchiness of my wool sweater irked me as well, and I should have just slouched right as I started the playlist. Keeping a good posture is a challenge.

I took a time-lapse of this hour since I don’t have another person around to take a picture. This photo is a still from that time-lapse. I look pretty fed up.

In the performance, ‘The Artist is Present’, Abramovic’s sheer determination and concentration to keep eye-contact with the strangers is astounding. Being still and focused on another person’s gaze takes courage. Facial recognition is such a vital part of human instincts and survival, much like the recognition of noise. The eyes are truly the window to the soul, and many struggle with eye contact in day-today life due to this powerful social and biological connection. We can read so much from another person just from their eyes. Like noise evolving to music for pleasure, empathy and facial recognition has evolved into a means of complex communication reserved for us in the world.

Here’s the playlist. BNL is awful.

Week 3:

Flying and Apologies

I threw my beloved stuffed animals off the balcony. I felt so bad I thought it was only appropriate to give them a kiss in apology. Like when you slept with every stuffed animal as a kid so no one got offended. Don’t be fooled, there is definitely a soul within the stuffing. Throwing Sparkle off the balcony was difficult, she is my oldest Webkinz. I thought it would look cute but kissing them each on the lips was a weird choice I know.

Week 4-5

Pandemic Portraits

★ Steve and Celeste ★

Celeste: Celeste was kind enough to volunteer as my first pandemic portrait.

”I keep getting one piece of bad news after another and don’t have time to process my emotions.”

She is a personal friend of mine and she had been bombarded by a plethora of bad things all week. I was trying to manifest goodness for her but unfortunately life can be A LOT sometimes and doesn’t go as planned. I hope she’s doing better now : ) !!

Steve: Steve is someone I ran up to. Probably startled them. I was nervous. I asked him and his coworker if they could help us out with the Pandemic portraits and they agreed. Steve unfortunately introduced himself which I did not specify that he wasn’t supposed to do that, so we cannot use the footage. He was extremely optimistic and was avid about spreading positivity.

”Hey, I’m Steve. I’m glad that the days are getting longer; it’s light after six o’clock nowadays. It’s been a beautiful sunny period for the last six weeks or so, it’s all good!”

Thank you for the positivity Steve! We all need it right now 🙂

★ Lily and Pup★

Lily: ”Stress.”

Puppy: *drooling*

I saw Lily’s puppy and I knew I had to interview her. She was extremely kind and when I told her the prompt, she took quite a while pondering what to say. She settled on the word ”Stress.” which was very relatable. Unfortunately there was very loud construction going on, so I messed with the audio so we could hear her response better. I regret not asking her the name of her puppy : ((((

Thank you Lily for your time! : )

Impromptu Masks:

I don’t have a reference for this one. There’s a bra on my face. That’s it.

Masks aren’t particularly the most glamorous things in the world. There has been a prominent disconnect from identity and self expression due to having to cover the majority of our faces. As much as people tried to wear decorative masks, I personally feel like wearing cloth masks do a disservice and are counterproductive to the proper function of masks. I’d much rather wear safe surgical masks, and they aren’t very flattering unfortunately.

I do not like hiding my face, emotions, makeup, etc. Some days it’s nice when my face is not up to par (per say), but I feel as if I cannot express myself. I was talking with a friend today; we went out for lunch the first time and I hadn’t seen her full face before, though we have been friends since the first day of classes this semester.

I live in a dorm in South, and my room is very baron. This week has been really stressful and these objects are a couple of things that tickle my fancy whenever my grey jail cell of a room or lack of sleep is bringing me down. A lot of people are depressed due to the dullness of life, and the lack of social interaction and facial recognition. Empathy is the root of all things human, which includes human aesthetic. Facial recognition stems from empathy as well. If only we could wear our most favourite objects on our face instead of the masks.

Week 7

Button Making : Conceptual 10 Second Cats

I wanted to have limited time in order to strip an idea down to its most basic meaning, while also using sporadic movements and thoughts to create something new and fun.

I have been doodling cats my entire life, and always put a celebratory cat drawing in cards for my friends and family. I wanted to see how my stylistic drawings of cats would evolve if I only gave myself 10 seconds to draw each one. It was stressful, but it was successful in the fact that each cat has its own spur-of-the-moment personality.

Each of us have our own visualization of a cat, a quick one that pops into our heads when the word is mentioned. Cat. Ears, round face, little cheeks and whiskers, big eyes. This is merely the concept of a cat, and not it’s true form. Giving yourself only ten seconds to draw a cat breaks down its form into something childlike and basic.

I was also thinking of digging up cat drawings from my kindergarten days, or possibly creating an exercise that involves classmates by making them draw a cat in 10 seconds so the cat’s concept varies from person to person.

Putting each cat on a button lets the button holder have their own unique pet cat to keep.

Edit: I totally forgot about this brilliant music video my They Might Be Giants. Sort of a similar conceptual breakdown. Maybe this was my subconscious inspiration.

Week 8

Audio Piece: Sightless and Soundless Sonata No. 20 in G Major, Op. 49 No. 2 by Ludwig van Beethoven

Playing with mask covering my eyes and ear plugs in my ears. I cannot hear or see.

This assignment was a tad bit frustrating due to the absence of two essential senses that I rely on to play my conservatory pieces. I experimented with playing sightless and soundless while improvising, but it ended up sounding ok surprisingly due to my comfortability and knowledge of tones and chords. I felt as if my fingers were comfortable creeping unknowingly when improvising. Beethoven songs, on the other hand, are a lot more technical. Dynamics, tempo, general movement and location of fingers all factor in when playing a more challenging piece. It’s interesting, one mistake was obviously enough to skew the entire song onto a different path. I have this song tight within my belt already but without knowing the location of my fingers on the keyboard, once I got further along in the song, mistakes became extremely audible. I played this for my grade 8 piano exam last year, and my technique now is far beyond this song- I consider this Sonata a warm up lol (my ego and confidence in this song has been damaged lol).

Note the buzzing of the piano, it could definitely be a mixture of the piano- (piano strings sometimes buzz, I don’t know the exact reason. This is a piano located in the basement of Alexander Hall, and is the best piano out of the three practice rooms. Pianos are never perfect)- and also the force and drive of the dynamics I was expressing. It was definitely a lot louder due to my lack of hearing, and also because I find when I am learning a song or am having a brain fart during a song, I let go of all expressionism in order to be as accurate as I can with the notes (even though expressing a song with proper dynamics and mood is equally as essential as getting the notes correct). Also, my Blue microphone I used was sitting directly on top of the piano, which then vibrated and picked up a lot of the buzzing. I generally use it for shitty demos for my personal music and totally forgot that I should have put it away from the piano.

I relied extremely heavily on muscle memory throughout the song, the beginning being smoother than the further parts of the song. The beginning of the song is the most comfortable for me; I’ve played the beginning gazillions of times. This song is a 4 minute piece, so once I get further into the song and run unto… the runs of the scales, and also octaves and jumps to lower and higher notes in a sporadic manner, I fall apart very quickly. Distance is hard to determine when you cannot see or hear. I feel like I did pretty good regardless though.

I also wanted to pay homage to the struggles that Beethoven had experienced in his life as he aged; he experienced extreme deafness (60% of hearing loss) by the time he was 31 in 1801. He developed three distinct styles within his playing and composing, and pursued writing beyond the development of his disability. He started hearing high pitched tones, starting from his left ear and travelling to his right eventually. There is lots of speculation regarding this deafness, some people arguing it was caused from lead poisoning, and some arguing it was caused by typhus.

Obviously I’m not half as good as Beethoven was. This recording is like nails on a chalkboard to me. But I like to think of myself as just ‘Glenn Goulding’ it. (Glenn Gould was a famous Canadian pianist who specialized in Bach and Beethoven, and critics hated him because he played around and experimented heavily with tempo and dynamics in respected songs which were generally played with great discipline.

Final Portrait: Lil Irrelevancies

Firstly, I wanted to create a portrait symbolizing my mother’s talent in floral design and colour. My mom has the best taste, but unfortunately she doesn’t feel that way about herself. I wanted to celebrate my love for her and her taste through a portrait. I had a few ideas but none of them seemed to work, and both my mom and I were struggling to pinpoint a general theme or concept, which in turn caused stress. I wanted to save her portrait for a later date so I could truly take the time to make the portrait as expressive of her as possible.

Flipping through an old notebook, I discovered a few odd phrases which were scattered randomly throughout the notebook. I tend to whip out my journal to write down phrases that are important to me in the moment, in order to not forget the importance of the thought. Curiously, I totally forgot many that I had written in this particular journal. No matter how hard I rubbed my temple I could not remember,

The idea popped into my head to create a conglomeration of all of these little thought blorps. Once important, now forgotten. The word irrelevance popped into my head, merely for the reason it describes these blorps perfectly ( and I just like the sound of the word) ‘Irrelevancies’ sounds too pretty to mean what it does. Through reexperiencing them, we create new meaning. It is a blank slate for new interpretation. Celebrating these irrelevant thoughts. The illustrations resemble what the blorps describe, just to create more substance to the pages.

2 thoughts on “Sophia’s Work

  1. Hi Sophia! I appreciate your sense of humour and tremendous effort in your works so far – I still love when you subjected yourself to awful music – the spirit of a real performance artist. Try to aim up past teen obsessions, and dare to explore more complicated experiences. can see the effort you are putting into using the equipment and learning editing – and your contributions to class – good work!

  2. Hi Sophia, nice to hear your beautiful Sonata piece again!
    Congratulations on all of these works – the buttons, the audio piece, and the Conceptual Portrait zine discussed in class.
    It was a joy having you in the class – thank you for your tremendous participation and insightful comments. I hope I’ll see you again in Experimental 2!
    Diane

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