Kilometre (Jan 12, 2023)
Really inspired by Erwin Wurm’s OHNE TITEL (RED SWEATERS FROM ONE MINUTE SCULPTURES), 2000–2003.
Also really enjoyed the irony that I could see in a lot of works, or how they acknowledge what they are in some way. As well, I took note of the importance that simplicity and deduction can play in conceptual works. Of course, the idea being the main focus of what the art is, there was a lot that I had not considered to be a part of the idea, like the words/definition that make up an object, or even a photo of an object, rather than just an object itself. To try and make my work align with what we learned about conceptual art, I want to have my work be titled in a way that bluntly, but possibly humorously, says exactly what is happening. As well, I want the work to have a sense of irony, or totally play around with how I can actually represent a kilometre in the most obvious yet non-obvious way. I like that this kind of art seems to push any boundary set upon it. In being inspired by the layout of Wurm’s work, I want to use a sequence of photos to represent a kilometre. I somehow would like to incorporate mycelium into this, as mycelium can span MANY kilometres but all without being seen. If not mycelium, I am also thinking of using math and sizing of images to be my kilometre. In this, I mean walking a kilometre without walking a kilometre at all. 1 kilometre is 1000 metres, and I was originally thinking that maybe I would use a bunch of pictures for each metre, but taking 1000 photos, or even compiling 1000 photos, doesn’t seem like a feasible task. I was also thinking about stop motion animation in this, and thought maybe instead of actual stop motion, I could just repeat 3-4 photos of me walking (a photo of each part of walking, one leg stepping, then up, next leg stepping, then up… etc). trying to figure out the math in how to do this. I feel like by making this math based, it simplifies the idea down into simple numbers but also still is a representation of the kilometre to an exact.
(Jan 13, 2023)
Could not figure out how to execute anything with mycelium, especially since it’s the winter. As well, I realized I was trying to create my work that it is too math oriented for me to properly figure out how to execute it, so in trying to figure out how to portray a kilometre, I thought more about how I can provide evidence of a walked kilometre. Then started thinking about how walking a kilometre is measured, and how a driven kilometre is way different in timing than a walked one. I realized that kilometres always stay the same in terms of distance but the time it takes to travel that distance can change based on many different things, even the person who is walking. Even the way you feel or the weather outside can make you walk faster or slower, and this is what allowed me come to the thought of how music often influences how I feel and how quickly I walk too. With this, I decided to record how long it took me to walk a kilometre listening to music I wanted to listen to in that time. The music I listened to was much more upbeat but also very fun for me to move around to, so I definitely walked a kilometre longer than the average person would. I also happen to be a very slow walker so that added onto my time. To take elements of what we have learned about conceptual works, I decided to use a very obvious, telling, and simple title for my work. I also chose to use a layout of collaged photos as I was still inspired by Erwin Wurm and wanted to see how I could depict things through photo still.
(Jan 16, 2023)
This is my kilometre that I presented in class (edit: now to be remade) ^^^. You can see that I described my thought process about it above the photo. Somethnig I spoke about in class which i thought would be an interesting addition here is that it can be interesting to use music to track how long something takes or use it as a part of travel and timing. When I was in middle school I would see how many times it would take me to listen to “Money” by Pink Floyd on repeat until I got home, and then in the future I would know it would take me a certain amount of times of listening to get back, and would just count how many times it would repeat, or even then in the last repeat, where in the song my walk would end.
(Jan 18, 2023)
After the critique, I have taken on the task of figuring out how I can make my work more physical and a more tangible, felt kilometre. I am thinking I will either record my feet walking for the amount of time it takes me to walk a kilometre with the music I listen to layered over top, maybe with screenshots of each song edited into the video? Or I may just have the music laid over the video because it is still obvious what I’m telling. Was really excited to see how Chelsea did her kilometre, I’ll be taking a look at everyone’s blog pages to see what others did since I missed the rest of class sadly :(.
“…idea determines the work”… how can I make my kilometre actually be determined by my idea? If I were to put my idea very simply, it would be how music can track time.
For our one-shot video, we wanted to do something that somewhat told a story. We also thought it would be fun for the sound to get very aggressive, and then slow down, to help create some interest and tension.
We were not quite sure how we wanted to approach this video as the footage we had captured did not seem like they would have easy cut scenes, but when we realized we could do this, we were very excited. We loved the idea of being able to create tension, and we were happy to hear the little residual strums that lingered in the video.
For this loop video, we also made the choice to consistently play the same note, rather than get aggressive and quite over and over, as so to really hammer in the monotony of the gesture and sound, but also because it would be good footage for a loop. In this video, we have looped the scene multiple times so you basically cant tell where the loop starts and stops. We were lucky to find a beginning and end that meshed perfectly to seem like it was a constant video rather than a loop.
Overall: For this project, Beck and I wanted to do something with an instrument and did our best to reduce down our gesture into something incredibly simple yet fun. We immediately knew what kind of footage to film for each video, except for the second video (the cut video), as it wasn’t as obvious as the other two videos were. In the end, we thought it would be fun to only include all of the moments before we strum the Guqin to create as much tension as possible to make it a constant build-up with no release. We enjoyed how our idea was a duet, which is also why we chose to name all of our videos “___ duet”, except for our sequence video which we thought the title was fitting for. We also really enjoyed that both of us were needed for the duet, it made it feel like a story or like a conversation between eachother. We took inspiration from Marina Abramovic especially.
(Feb 17th)
I loved going on our field trip on the 15th!!! At the Powerplant, by far, my favourite work was the installation by Amartey Golding “In the comfort of embers”. Immediately, I was shocked by how interestingly it was set up, with the dark entryway, deep red room, and low booming looping video, all brought it together to be both comfortable and enclosed yet daunting. Specifically, I loved one of the pieces hung on the walls, which I did not get the title of (below).
Beyond this installation, I also loved the interactive installation we went to at TPW. This was probably my favourite thing we saw throughout the whole fieldtrip. It was so meditative which I loved, and the environment was so perfectly curated to add to it feeling like it was a calm, comforting space. The music played was moving, and stuck in my head for a couple days after the field trip actually. I thought it was neat how if you could both pick apart each song from eachother as they played at the same time but also meshed together perfectly. I really value collectiveness, community, and connection, so this installation also made me feel really whole and happy. I did not get a single picture of this sadly, as I was too deeply immersed in the sound bath of it all to take my phone out.
(March 1st)
For my audio project, I have had two ideas circulating. I was inspired on our class on Feb 13, where we looked at some different examples of audio works, and noted John Cage and Janet Cardiff.
John Cage: sound gives us deep pleasure, music and laughter are only sounds of true pleasure
Janet Cardiff: music’s effect on us emotionally
I also took from our painting II class, where we have been looking at how technology can affect art, where I have used this idea mixed with what I took from Cage and Cardiff to create the idea to look at how technology both ruins and makes music better. With that, I came up with my first idea to play a song out loud, record that, and then play that recording out loud and record that, and so on. I wanted to do this 8 or so times, then splitting the song up into 8 different sections, and playing the part of each recording to line up with each eighth of the song, to become the song playing one time that slowly becomes further distorted and deteriorated as the song goes on.
This idea made me think about using music in a way that juxtaposes the point of music, where music is usually made to sound better, not worse, and that started me thinking about how I can create contrast in the sound I’m making vs the idea. Then, I remembered that I always carry a kazoo around in my jacket pocket, and thought it would be funny to see how i can integrate that. The kazoo has a terrible sound that is also quite distinct, and if I played something or said something serious using it, it would create a very funny juxtaposition. Talking mote about it with others, Oh Canada became the best song I could play that would not only be serious, recognizable, and funny, but also comment on having to sing Oh Canada every day through the first 18 years of your life, do playing it on the kazoo gets to make fun of it. No one likes to sing Oh Canada, and most people find it weird that you have to stand for it, take your hat off, and pause everything you’re doing for it.
(March 6th, 2023) O’ Canada Kazoo’d
In the end, I did end up deciding on the the kazoo, which I think was a great idea. I really wanted to play into it being really silly and weird and I felt like the best way I could do that without being able to see me (since it is only audio) was by playing the kazoo terribly. I made it super screechy and almost like I was screaming into it, allowing for notes to be wrong or off, and just super out of key and awful sounding. This combined with the very serious Oh Canada that we’re supposed to have respect and seriousness for created the exact juxtaposition I was hoping for. The recording was actually so loud that the mic couldn’t properly pick up the sound so it was clipped, making the sound very abrasive. Im not quite sure if this is bad, but for the piece specifically, I actually do like it because I feel like it adds to how unserious it is, because any serious or good piece of music, including all of the Oh Canadas we hear in school, are all nicely recorded and have much better sound. I wanted my Oh Canada to be nothing like those that we listen to in school and I don’t think this will ever be played on any schools morning announcements.
(March 13th, 2023)
For my self-portrait, I have a couple of ideas I am considering. First, is to create a sculpture or take a photo of a bunch of Jewish related objects that are arranged to look like a face. These items are those I’ve collected over the years and represents my partaking in the culture and how it is a part of my identity that is always growing. Also represents how I am very cluttered and sentimental, I keep everything, even if I may never use it again. Next idea is to record myself singing my Parsha from my Bat Mitzvah. I don’t remember the whole thing very well but I remember a lot of it, and I want to capture what of it that I do remember. this also represents my jewish identity and that it is ingrained in who I am and will always be a part of me and my memory, and that regardless of how much or little of my parsha I remember, I am always still jewish. Remembering less of my parsha the fact that I have a Canadian accent while singing it I also want to speak to my being reform Jewish. Further, another idea I have is to have a jar of my thoughts, or something that represents me. I often view my thoughts as a scrambling massive chaotic space of screaming flying thoughts racing around, and when I am trying to sleep at night and they get in my way, I try to visualize taking all of those thoughts and shoving them in a jar. I want to somehow represent myself in a contained space, maybe consider how I can also represent the difficulty I have in containing my thoughts. I also like the idea of containment because I tend to suppress and mask parts of myself, like thoughts or actions or parts of how I behave, so maybe I could use the jar as both representation of myself and the things in me but also of how I choose to keep parts of myself contained. Thinking of maybe filling a tomato pasta jar filled with my rooms garbage. Garbage is a physical display of a bunch of different things about me.
(March 15th, 2023)
I am still cycling through ideas for my conceptual portrait. While I like a lot of my ideas, I don’t feel like I like them enough to really solidify any plans. I want to do something I feel connected to, especially because its a self portrait. I think this assignment is kind of hard for me because I never know how to depict myself to others. I said previously that I often find myself suppressing or hiding aspects of myself, and doing that for my whole life has made it hard to really know who I am. Things I am currently liking from each idea is doing a task on video, speaking over the video somehow, and using a jar to represent my mind. The more I think about it, the more I feel like Id like to take a video of myself putting a bunch of my own garbage, trash, and scraps from my bedroom into a jar while speaking over the video either saying what item I’m putting in, or maybe Id speak over it and just say a string of my racing thoughts. Ive been thinking about representing my racing thoughts, so I could do it like that, and maybe I could put in specific pieces of trash I can find of mine that really say something about who I am. and somehow put in items that connect to each other in the same way my thoughts somehow connect to each other. for example, if I said to someone that I liked their shirt and they said thanks I got it from Florida, and then the next thing I say is “I love plane food for some reason its so good”. that seems like it came from nowhere, but in my head, since my thoughts are going so fast, ill have 3 different connected thoughts to the original thought, and then will carry on with one of those 3 to then have another 3 and so on. so in that example, what went through my head between shirt from Florida and I love plane food would be something like “yeah that’s a great colour and ooh I love going to Florida. I really miss Florida. I haven’t been there for years actually wow. I haven’t travelled much since covid. I haven’t even been on a plane actually. I love planes. I loves planes especially for plane food idk why but I always like it even though its gross”, and somehow Id think all of that in the amount of time it would take for me to respond to the person. even the way I write is incredibly similar to how I think, I write way too much and usually go on tangents. if I spoke over the video I think it would also speak to how I have multiple things going on in my head at the same time. while I’m having those quick thoughts, I also have other thoughts that respond to the original thoughts, and also usually have a song playing in my head behind everything else. sometimes there are so many thoughts I can’t hear any of them. maybe I could do an audio piece where I start talking like I think and then start responding to that with another voice that keeps talking over the other and then another voice and another until you can’t hear anyone or anything almost at all and its just clutter. my self portrait could just be that, and then I could even play a song lightly in the background too. or I could make that audio and then put a speaker that plays it inside of a jar. again, I still can just record myself putting specific trash into a jar, and then speaking over it just saying my racing string of thoughts, maybe info dumping about a topic I like? or maybe just talking a string of thoughts that are exactly like how I think. if I do that ill need to try to take note of what the actual processes of thoughts I am having are. anyways, sorry for the spelling and grammatical errors, I’m just using this to help me brainstorm and put my thoughts outside my head so I don’t forget them before I think of the next thing.
(March 27th) Conceptual Portrait
For my self-portrait, I decided the best way to show off my brain is by showing my many racing thoughts. I feel like racing thoughts and the clutter of thoughts is something many people experience, but these thoughts are representative of my brain and how my brain makes connections and strings things together. I was heavily inspired by 40 Part Motet, by Jane Cardiff, for the way in which I wanted to present this to people, where I am having 1 of 3 different audios play on all of our computers in the experimental studio lab. I want people to be able to hear all the clutter of my different thought strings while also being able to hear specific things in each audio, which is why being able to move around from sound to sound is how I want people interacting with this piece. I was considering finding some kind of vessel to represent my head or brain but this was so much more relatable and universal and interesting, and honestly, even more true to me because I am always moving around so having the chaos of everyone moving around through the noise is accurate to my brain’s chaos. Moreover, I have always been someone to be easily distracted, so much so that I cant even hear people over my focus, so this work being very loud and making it hard to hear anything other than the clutter also speaks to my inability to quite hear people when Im thinking or focused. I am unsure how to upload the piece to here, but I will once I figure out the best way to do so, maybe using my original audio I wanted to put in a vessel. The name of this work is “Sorry, I cant hear you, I’m thinking”.
(March 27th, 2023) “Sorry, I can’t hear you, I’m thinking”
This first audio is a mishmash of all 3 audios, with a bit of editing. This was my original audio before I decided to make it more interactive.
This second audio is one of three layers I wrote and recorded.
This third audio is the second of three layers I wrote and recorded.
This fourth, and final, audio is the third of three layers I wrote and recorded.
(April 3rd, 2023)
For my artist buttons, I have a few ideas circulating. The first idea is to make buttons that tell what you’re feeling, so you can change the button as you feel differently so people know you’re going to be really angry when they start talking to you maybe lol – or maybe you change your button when someone says something sad and makes you feel sad. Next, I was thinking of doing buttons with images of mushrooms of my favourite mushrooms, just because it would be a cool collection of a specific pin. Maybe I could just do pins of mushrooms in the Amanita family specifically, rather than all of my favourite specific ones. Another idea I was thinking of doing just a collage of images of either a literal heart or hearts like <3 and then wear it on my sleeve just to play on the “wear my heart on my sleeve” saying. Also, I was thinking of doing really self-aware buttons that question their own characteristics that don’t need to be the way they are, sort of a commentary of being aware of parts of yourself that are forcefully put into types of categories. It’s kind of like an indirect comment on how we are put into categories and given labels, and what the experience is like to have the awareness that you exist outside of these standards even though you aren’t viewed that way. This can apply to so many things too. Examples of what the buttons could say are “Why am I a round button?”, “I am a button to wear on the chest”, “I am a button to put on a bag”, “I am made of plastic, metal, and paper”, and “Why am I a button?”. Or could be a self-aware button by just saying “button”, or maybe it’s a button that is aware of its told purpose “Why are buttons only meant to be worn?”. I also had the idea of having a button that has a picture of a button you would sew onto clothing so it just looks like a big button. Looks at how a button is more than one thing. Also maybe buttons with an instruction like “wear me on your leg” “wear me on your chest” “give me to someone else”. Maybe it’s a pin that says give me to someone else and they just continue to float around as people pass them around.
Artist Buttons – Instructional Buttons
For my buttons, I ended up deciding on instructional buttons. I chose to make the button talk about the instructions like the button was sentient, saying “wear me”, “give me”, etc. This felt like the button became personified, so it literally was telling wearers/hager’s what to do. The main and first button I wanted to create was “give me to someone else”, as I was considering how a button can be shared and passed on, and kind of came from my thinking about the sister hood of the travelling pants. I then decided that instructional pins on HOW to wear them would be interesting, as we usually don’t think about other ways to wear a pin other than on your chest or on a bag.. but the limits of how you can wear them are massive and we never consider that. I was lucky to get some photos of fellow classmates wearing my buttons!
^^ it was in fact Wednesday when this pin was worn.
^^me and Johanna with all of our pins from classmates