Need to Unload – Conceptual Portrait

Need to Unload portrays an overthinker whose mind is always flooded with jumbled thoughts. This lack of organization and thought clarity can become overwhelming on a day to day basis. A person may automatically/naturally resort to repressing their emotions and thoughts (i.e., bottling them up), which end up being collected in their mind rather than processing them, reflecting, and letting them go. Need to Unload presents something internal manifested into something physical I can see and hold. This presentation of thoughts makes it seem like useless unnecessary content and garbage, emphasizing the importance of personal work, self-maintenance, and overall the practice of good mental health.

Note: After rendering the video, the areas in focus are no longer sharp.

Buttons

The buttons are photographs of eyes (left and right) that are to scale (life-size) and are placed on the wearer’s breasts. The buttons reference a well known phrase, “my eyes are up here”. This is said to tell the looker to stop looking at the person’s chest lustfully. It can also reference other sayings such as “eyeing you up”, when looking someone up and down at their body when considering them attractive.The button eyes stare directly back at the onlooker who is ogling at you. This creates a reverse effect that usually occurs. The onlooker gets uncomfortable instead of the person being looked at. These eyes look like they are surveilling any unwelcoming wandering eyes.Some animals naturally have spots on their body that look like eyes. They were evolved for intimidation to draw predators away from the prey’s vulnerable areas of the body. Creatures such as bob cats who have eyespots on the back of their ears, butterflies, moths, birds, and reptiles have these defensive spots to induce more avoidance. Similar to animals who have naturally occurring eyespots, I have created these eye buttons as a way to test if it will also decrease the chances of predators ready to attack.These buttons give a lighthearted take on it and makes it silly.

Conceptual Portrait – “Need a Space to Unload”

As long as I can remember, my dad would call me a space cadet; always zoning out and living within my own mind. I’ve also been called an organized person, but I cannot seem to do the same with my own mind. I don’t journal either because I claim I don’t have the time, I am paranoid someone will read it, or I do not have the need. When I was a child, I had a diary, but I had a habit of ripping the previous pages out and throwing them away. Need a Space to Unload let me realize the benefit of writing in a journal. I have had vulnerable thoughts and memories that have been physically spilling out in public since Need a Space to Unload (literally caring around my thoughts). In addition, seeing this pile of crumpled up paper has created more stress and disdain for myself, making me want to organize it…perhaps in a notebook?

I’ve been walking around and going to class with these physical thoughts in my backpack. I kept collecting more and more too. It was frustrating and annoying to have, because it was harder to find items in my bag and it took longer since pieces of paper kept falling out. I felt more like a disorganized mess. It was interesting to have something internal manifested into something physical I can see and hold. It was surprising how easily the written thoughts can be collected. I am curious to see how this process would develop in a week or longer. 

Need a Space to Unload portrays an overthinker, especially one who does not journal. Thus, a mind that is always flooded with jumbled thoughts. This lack of organization and thought clarity can become overwhelming on a day to day basis. A person may automatically/naturally resort to repressing their emotions and thoughts (i.e., bottling them up), which end up being collected in their mind rather than processing them, reflecting, and letting them go. This presentation of thoughts makes it seem like useless unnecessary content and garbage, emphasizing the importance of personal work, self-maintenance, and overall the practice of good mental health. 

The backpack serves as a capsule or cargo symbolizing the skull that carries the load. Meanwhile, the crumpled up piece of paper presents an idea that is devalued and/or dismissed. The school backpack illustrates how a busy mind is distracting and disrupts work flow. This object is associated with the viewer’s relatable experience of searching for something lost in your bag. Hence, it represents how an excess of jumbled thoughts make it difficult to focus on daily tasks. In addition, the longer a thought ruminates in your mind the more damaging it can become. This is also the case with any loose papers left in your bag. They get gross, dirty, stained, ripped, and hard to read.

No crumpled up paper has the same writing. Each is different from one another. They vary from content, length, text size, expressiveness, questions, memories, fears, secrets, unspoken truths, vagueness, clarity, and so on. It’s more personal and intimate in written form, because you can see the personality, the care or rush of the pen, and gather more hints about the person who wrote it.

Conceptual Portrait – Ideas

Idea A:

Painter’s Hands:

• Photograph my hands at the end of my painting session
  • I am kind of a messy painter. 
  • I always manage to cover my hands in paint.
• Option 1: Create a series
• Option 2: Overlapping images of my hands covered in paint
  • Play with opacity
  • Accidental paint onto print (minimal)
    • Let it float around my painting studio surface 
    • Handle the print with my dirty hands

Idea B:

The Backpack

• Option 1: Photograph myself wearing the backpack
  • View from behind (covering the figure)
  • Side view (crops out figure partially)
• I am notorious for carrying a large/heavy backpack
• Option 2: Bring it in (physical)
  • My prof once joked around saying
    • “You can fit in there”
    • “You can fit your whole life in there”
  • Pack the bag with my “cartoon uniform/outfit”
    • Black and white sketchers 
    •  
    • Black pants 
    • Earbuds
    • Glasses 
  • Also pack it with what I am most known for or introduced as (identity)
    • Paint supplies 
    • Identity as a painter (my past, present, future)

Idea C:

Studio Workspace

• Photograph my painting workspace
• The equivalent of someone’s bedroom 
• Everyone’s set up is different and says something about them

Audio Art – “I don’t love you.”

“I don’t love you.” depicts a difficult message that needed to be said.

This piece illustrates both people in a relationship through the experience felt by the listener, and the woman (voice) trying to work through her thoughts and emotions. The worst parts of an experience (i.e., a conversation) loop in your head, leaving you dizzy, distressed, and even defeated. The longer it plays in your head, the worse it gets, the harsher it seems, and the more it hurts. The middle of the audio plays the same words from the beginning, but the delivery is more aggressive, sharp, and cruel. No matter how this message (of not feeling the same way) was presented, those words (“I don’t love you”) would have always been painful to listen to and end up repeating in their head. Even when those specific words were not used together, that was all they heard.

The individual speaking is confused about how they feel towards that person, but certain they are not in love with them…not yet.

Video Art

Sage McKenna & Ana Sofia Silva Elizondo

The one shot named “Clutch” expresses stress and anxiety through the constant stretching and tugging of flesh and skin. Many people hold so much tension in their hands. Some may take out their nerves on their hands by digging their nails and fingers into their hands enough to make an imprint; while others do self-soothing motions. The longer “Clutch” goes on, the more uncomfortable it is to watch, because like the rest of the videos in this series, it can trigger the viewer’s own anxiety. It helps them recall their experiences and reflect on what their own stress signs may be.

Anxiety consumes and overrides your thoughts and body enough to take over parts of your body involuntarily. The videos focus on the nervous tick/habit rather than what causes the anxiety. By shooting a close up we were able to isolate everything else and hone in on small gestures that usually go overlooked. In addition, the black background represents the solitude and feeling of going through this experience alone. The darkness illustrates the negative emotions and turmoil one faces that causes them to fall into their nerves like a void.

The loop video called “Restraint” triggers the viewers’ urges to check and re-check their phone, which feeds anxiety. The setting is entirely black, which reflects the abyss of the digital world that we are so easily seduced by. Once you hear a ping, everything else in your surroundings goes quiet and you hyperfocus on your phone. Everything is black and dark besides the light and colour emitted by the screen, which only draws in more attention and allure to this device and what it has to offer. “Restraint” plays with the viewer’s addiction and habits, showcasing the universal gestures of double tapping, clicking, scrolling, and swiping. The video exposes this temptation and calls out the viewer’s own self control and resistance. 

Video #1:

The One Shot – “Clutch”

Video #2:

The Sequence – “Sink”

Video #3:

The Loop – “Restraint”

Kilometer

I drew a kilometer. I measured how many times I needed to draw and redraw a spiral on this paper. There are 39,370 inches in a kilometer. Each spiral is 360 inches, which means I needed to draw it 109 times. This process helped me enter a meditative state because of the counting and the repetitive movement. This hypnotic spiral movement made me lose track of time. It reminded me of when you zone out in the backseat of a car after looking out the window for an hour. When this happens, I begin the ride focused and aware of the environment, but the farther I get and the longer I am looking out, my vision blurs and I enter a meditative state. This video begins with me following the initial spiral line, but I reach a point where my mind relaxes and I let my hand and wrist go free.

Pipilotti Rist

Post an image from one of Rist’s videos that you are most interested in. Summarize the action of the video. Who is performing, and how? Describe the images – including framing, colours, and movement. How did she shoot and edit the video? Describe the sound and how it interacts/enhances/competes with the images. How is it installed in a gallery – in terms of projection/scale/presentation in a context of other things? How does the work strike you?

Rist performed “Ever is Over All” and is the main subject of the video. She is in a giddy happy mood, playing with, and moving a flower around while she strolls down a street smashing car windows. The camera frames her full body and sometimes close ups. She is also shot from two perspectives. One is facing her, and the second is profile, on the other side of the cars. These shots are edited together, cut one after the other. The video is played in slow motion, capturing the window shattering, her movement, and the fleeting interactions and expressions of the people around her. The majority of the colours in the video are cool, such as blue and green, with the exception of red. The audio reflects the slow paced visuals and the performers carefree mood. There are three audios that play in the video. One is the shattering of the car windows and the second is a song, and the third is of a bird chirping. The song as long held out notes of someone humming, accompanied by percussion, a guitar/bass, and a piano.

“Ever is Over All” is installed in a gallery on two large scaled walls. This video is played using two projections that overlap (faded) eachother. The left side is the video of her smashing windows and the second video on the right are slow swerving close up shots of the flower on a field.

Rist has had a long career in video art making – how do you relate it to the kinds of video that you might see all the time on Tik Tok or You Tube, in our time? Reflect on her performances and also – on her ideas (particularly about women’s bodies, and sexuality, exposure, behaving strangely or subversively…) and how they play out from examples in her works.

There are a few differences between Rist’s videos and TikTok videos. To begin, many of the videos on this platform are trends. So, they are different versions of the same thing (audio and action). Most times TikTok videos are done for humorous entertainment rather than a conceptual artistic idea behind the performance (not all). Another difference between her videos is the duration. Her videos don’t have a time restriction, which means it can be as long as she pleases according to her creative vision, unlike TikTok. Although, the concepts of sexuality and women’s bodies are present on TikTok and YouTube, and overall heavily present in the media. There are plenty of videos online that have people behaving strangely in public to evoke laughter or cringe, some sort of reaction in the viewer, just like Rist’s videos.

Experiment: While still at school – put on your sweater/shirt INSIDE OUT. How does this change how you feel? Is it changing how other’s are treating you? If you can wear your sweater/shirt inside out all day – make a few notes about the results of this very small change in your presentation in public. Is this a performance? Why?

Wearing a shirt inside out made me feel idiotic and goofy. I feel like this action changed my behaviour more rather than how others behave around me. I was more cautious in not drawing any more attention to myself. No one treated me differently or mentioned anything. People went about their day as usual. Under different circumstances, I believe this could have been turned into a performance, if it was more out of the ordinary and ridiculous enough to evoke strong feelings and reactions from viewers.

Marina Abramovic’s Performance Art

My first impression of Marina Abramovic’s performance art was that this artistic form could be a simple repetitive action, or it could also be drastic and painful. Some aspects of her performance may be “problematic” and are not suitable for all audiences. Her art can be interpreted as theatrical self-harm; for instance, cutting a pentagram into her stomach using a razor blade, whipping her back, or lying inside a burning star until she faints due to the lack of oxygen.

I admire Marina’s dedication and passion for her craft. She goes beyond creating art for the love of it or as a career. Marina gives herself to it. She gives her mind, body, and spirit no matter the breaking point. The Artist is Present showcases her willingness and determination to complete her artistic vision. She risked her physical and mental health by sitting in the same position for seven hundred and thirty-six hours over the span of months. I found her performances also have some aspect of public psychological and social experimentation. The Artist is Present displayed the importance and power of vulnerability and human connection to even strangers, which contrasts with our behaviours and routines in this digital era that has created a new form of distance from the people around us. People crave human attachment and connection; and this performance shows that we don’t even need a verbal conversation to share raw and genuine emotions. I enjoyed the spiritual and transformative experiences that resulted from her performance.

“When you perform, it is a knife and your blood. When you act, it is a fake knife and ketchup”

This quote reminds me of a point in the documentary when she decides not to include illusion and magic tricks in her art. Marina’s performances display her emotions, her struggle, pain, blood, sweat, and tears (i.e., whipping her back). It is raw and true, not make-believe using smoke and mirrors. This distinguishes her work from others and makes it more valuable to what it is she is giving to the audience. Thus, this presentation evokes the viewers’ emotions and gut reactions capturing them and preventing the viewers from leaving due to them thinking it’s fake. Her performance art used bodies as vessels and pushed them to certain limits (physical, emotional, and social/cultural acceptability). A feature Marina uses in her art is time, such as when she was driving around in a small circle for over twelve hours. She also likes to play with space when performing. An example would be people having to walk between a naked couple. Performance art aims to evoke viewers to feel or react in some manner. This art form requires physical stamina and a memorable individualistic presence. Performance art is about the shared experience and interaction between an audience member and the actor.

Performance art sets itself apart from traditional art in museums or from the conventions of the commercial art world. To begin, a performer can not be confined to an area of a museum, unlike a painting or sculpture displayed on the wall or floor. The art itself uses or is a human being instead of a non-living material. Moreover, performance art is expressed and presented differently. For instance, it has a time from when it begins and ends. Although, Marina has worked her way around this. She has performed in the museum immobile for hours over months for The Artist is Present. Viewers walked up and stared while the artwork did not move similar to how the audience would interact with a sculpture in the museum. In the example of The Artist is Present, I believe the duration of the performance added to her art. Although, I don’t think she needed to be that extreme to the point where she was risking her health. As for her other performances, she shouldn’t need to work in the confines of traditional art medium conventions and focus on what works for her concept.

Kilometer

For this assignment I wanted to exhibit what once was a kilometer apart before the continental drift. The primary subject matter is a Cynognathus fossil head. The Cynognathus is an extinct land reptile that lived in the middle Triassic period. Fossils of this animal were found on two continents (South America and Africa). Thus, these discoveries helped support Wegener’s Continental Drift theory. I wanted to showcase an organism that would walk on/between what is now two continents separated by the South Atlantic Ocean. I find it interesting to think about how this mammal could walk only a kilometer from Brazil to Angola!

The circular and curved intersecting marks represent latitude and longitude lines. The two lines moving across the fossil head depicts the shape of where South America and Africa used to meet and connect. The lines representing the globe are also used as a way to move the viewer’s eyes across the composition to express the travel of a kilometer.

Artist Buttons

For my artist buttons, I chose to do a take on the gentrification of Little Jamaica and the appropriation of Jamaican Patois in Toronto. Over the past couple of years, the “Toronto Accent” has become very popularized, especially on social media. Other countries have even made fun of the accent and the ‘slang’. Although Little Jamaica has been labelled a Cultural Community, there are no descriptions for what that means, and the neighbourhood continues to suffer from gentrification, construction, and post-COVID impacts. ‘ur a jerk’ is a button surrounded by the names of streets that make up Little Jamaica. ‘ur a jerk’ is also a play on words for jerk seasoning. ‘yah nuh kno patwa’ means ‘you don’t know patois’ with a photo of Jackie Mittoo, who introduced reggae and ska to Canada from Kingston, Jamaica. A photo of a record shop worker in the 70s with the words ‘love the culture, take the culture, make it your own’. Almost all the record shops in Little Jamaica have been shut down and even with the Cultural Community label there is little to no chance of shut down businesses coming back. ‘Wagwan Gentrifier’ is designed like a business tag. The man in the photo owns one of the oldest and only tailor shops in Little Jamaica. The Sunday Cleaner is a newspaper in Kingston, Jamaica, showing how in 1985 Ottawa banned restaurants and distributors from calling Jamaican beef patties, ‘patties’ and said they had to be referred to as ‘pies’ or you would be fined up to $5000. The reason for this is that, at the time, a beef patty was for a hamburger, which is why today we have to specify that they are Jamaican patties. For the last button, a picture of Randy’s beef patty shop in Little Jamaica. It opened in 1975 and was originally in the Ward, the first multicultural community in Ontario. The community was started by free Black people and those who escaped slavery in the South, and later Chinese immigrants as well. The shop took a hard hit from the Metrolinx being built and COVID. It was announced it would be shut down permanently in February 2022, and Drake offered to buy it but the deal never happened.

This community has suffered so much and yet Torontonians have taken this culture and language without fighting to save it for those that introduced them to it. My Mother and Grandmother took comfort in this community when immigrating to Canada, as many immigrant communities do. Toronto is one of the most diverse cities in the world, cultural communities should not be suffering to this extent.

‘Sanctuary: twenty-year-old girl edition’

The vision behind this project was how our beds are reflections of us as people. We spend a large chunk of our lives in bed, and it’s the place where we feel the most comfortable, mentally and physically. For this project, I was only able to access the rooms of women between the ages of twenty and twenty-one, however, I see it as a documentation of how our lives look and how they may change if this project is continued in the future, or how it can be compared to different ages and genders.

Your bed is a sanctuary; it feels safe and warm… that’s not always how they look to others. I wanted to take a very “harsh reality” type photo and then one that emits the light at the end of the tunnel. When opening the door at the end of the day, it’s as if your bed is on a pedestal, angels crying out.

Audio Art

“Chasing Childhood”

I wanted to find a way to articulate how I want my future to be. When describing it, I find it difficult to communicate the feeling that comes with it as well. For this assignment, I decided I wanted sound to paint a picture. I combined the sounds of a marsh, with birds and crickets, chipmunks. Then, cars driving on a wet road outside and listening to people laugh in the other room while doing dishes in the kitchen. Curling up by the fire with a cat, listening to my neighbour’s wind chimes. Going to concerts. People singing Happy Birthday because I have only had three parties in my life and only one has been on my actual birthday. The sounds of kids playing, not because I want kids, but because I picture a future surrounded by my friends whose children call me their aunt. Finally, a bike bell, that I imagine riding through a park, during a storm because it’s my favourite weather, saying hello to people I know. I can see all the images that accompany these sounds. It brings me great comfort to think about a simple life like this.

Video Art

Sage McKenna and Ana Sofia Silva Elizondo

For our video art assignment, we wanted to express some ways people physically deal with anxiety. Many of us deal with these feelings in similar ways, the videos themselves are even meant to radiate this through the screen. The “void” we are stuck in with our thoughts and feelings is represented through the black background; so you are focused only on the action.

‘Clutch’ represents grasping for comfort where you can find it. Digging at your own hand thoughtlessly because it helps to ease the mind. The length of the video makes the viewer more and more uncomfortable watching the desperation in the movements. How long will it go on for?

‘Restraint’ is a video anyone with a phone can relate to. We have prioritized human connection through our devices and need the affirmation that someone is reaching out to us. We feel the need to be informed at all times with huge influxes of information being thrown from every direction. Our phones are how we don’t feel left behind. The title is ironic; there is no restraint. What if in the last 8 seconds, I got an important message and missed it? Only one notification pops up on the screen that stays mostly black until someone taps it, hoping for something new. Anxiety comes from this access to everything at once.

The close-ups of these actions are meant to immerse the viewer into the mind of a person dealing with a lot of noise in their heads. The discomfort is there to put people in this person’s shoes without the distraction of a face, or sometimes even a body.

Pipilotti Rist

‘Worry Will Vanish’ (2014) by Pipilotti Rist shows a blend of highly detailed videos of people, nature and other objects that might be difficult to depict at first glance. Described as a “journey inside the human body, based on a three-dimensional animation”.The colours are incredibly vibrant and it is easy to feel a sense of nostalgia and peace while watching, which is Rist’s exact intention. There are points in the video where trees are overlapping with the inside of a vein and strips of wavy light and bubbles with such high contrast that it feels psychedelic. There are extreme close-ups of hands that bring both extreme comfort and discomfort simultaneously. She pans up different body parts and plants, editing in layers from different videos, all while a very strange acoustic guitar accompanied by odd chirping and electronic sounds, high-pitched ringing and jingling that is quite overstimulating, but compliments the piece. It is installed by being projected on the walls (and ceiling in some cases); viewers are invited to take off their shoes and lie down on big cushions to gain the full experience. Without the sound, I could easily watch this video for hours happily. Having the scale be so big and experiencing it in a “slumber party” type way heightens the work because you are completely encapsulated in it.

Rist’s work is certainly something I might witness on YouTube or TikTok. People are very creative nowadays and I have seen artists and content creators do similar things, especially to ‘Be Nice to Me’ where they break the fourth wall. However, in regards to the actual messages Rist has, there might be some obscure things that a person could certainly find if they dug deep enough. The thing about her is that she is able to confront viewers directly and successfully, which I find a lot of people online are unable to do since trends and attention spans are so fleeting. A lot of artists now also seem to stray away from vibrant colour in videos and Rist uses high contrast to compliment her message, whereas critics see it as ‘too cheery’.

During the inside-out experiment I found that my own self-consciousness is what really made the difference. I had some friends from class point out my shirt, which was very nice, and it definitely took some weight off my chest telling them it was for class. Yet, stepping out of class and realizing that if they noticed, so did everyone else, made me attempt to shrink myself down. Originally, I wanted to walk around confidently, as if I had no clue something was off, but in the end, I couldn’t bring myself to. I couldn’t tell everyone around me that I knew my shirt was on wrong, but I also had to remind myself that no one cared. I wore a shirt that wasn’t obviously inside-out unless you looked at the hemming, so there really wasn’t much to be embarrassed about, but it was interesting how something so slight could change my day. I would say that it was a performance because there was intention behind it I was looking for reactions from people.

Make a Kilometre

For my kilometre, I wanted to show a kilometre of sound. Every sound has a frequency that can be calculated at a specific distance (distance= speed/frequency). So, the distance of sound for this note (F) is 345(speed of sound) divided by 345Hz. Meaning, 345m per sec./345Hz = 1m of sound. Unfortunately, due to my own background noise feedback from the room I was in, my video goes to 346 Hz, but the F note is 345 Hz. I then played the note at 2x speed 1000 times. If we add this together, we would get (345/345)x1000 = 1000m or 1km.

The editing software I used distorted the audio, apologies. The original sound is also linked.

Marina Abramovic

When first viewing Abramovic’s work I was incredibly intrigued, even though her performances were described as self-inflicted violence and “provocativeness”. In most performance pieces that include these same themes, I see it as someone looking for shock value, yet in this aspect, I never felt as if that was what Marina was going for. There were instances where people described her work as a shared human experience at Marina’s own risk. The way she chooses to perform her art, possibly because she is the “mother of performance art”, there isn’t any emotional disconnect from the audience, which seems to be her main goal. It was obvious from the beginning that every individual performance was equally important to her both artistically and emotionally.

This performance piece was the most recurring in the documentary and as odd and uncomfortable as it seems at first, you cannot deny that every person interacting with it is okay doing so. However, I think the relationship between the performers and the audience is both admirable and problematic thing about it. The audience member must choose who to face and are doing so at the risk of the performer. There is, unfortunately, a very big possibility that an audience member will take it too far and act inappropriately towards a performer. Even though this would be predicted and the performers understand going into it, there is a question as to whether or not putting another person in that position is worth it for the sake of the art. When it is Marina, she is, at least, putting herself in that position. We saw multiple times how people entered the space and “broke the rules” in front of Marina herself, I can’t imagine if people tried to pull something similar, or worse, with the other performers. The performance puts everyone involved in a vulnerable position.

Something Marina’s art has shown me about performance art is how physically demanding it is. She, and the other performers, take on a very challenging role for her art and do so while fasting. There was also Marina putting herself through an excruciating amount of pain and was doing so as a way to almost take that pain away from her audience or show them how she can relate. Her absolute willingness to put herself in an agonizing position because she wants people to know that she cares and isn’t acting. She is described as always performing and saying that when you open the door to pain you enter another state of mind, showing her dedication and resilience.

I think the reason performance art resists many museums is both because of its non-traditional nature and the space it takes up, but also the way that people interact with art generally. Performance art, for Marina, should not just be viewed but interacted with. I think the reason she can find some sort of loophole is because she lets her audience know that she treats everyone equally and is seeking out individual connections. They want to participate; it isn’t something they just want to see, and in some cases, she almost forces them to participate but not in a way that they aren’t willing to do so. She is bringing everyone out of their comfort zone and leaving them with something they will cherish for the rest of their lives because of the respect they are shown.

Kilometre

I decided to represent a kilometre by writing the word metre 1000 times on tape and creating a new role of what could be considered “measuring tape” (1 kilometre=1000 metres). The kilometre itself is not made up of numbers or other units of measurement, but rather of words. The process of this constant action of writing one word over and over until the desired results took approximately 2.5 hours with no breaks. The conclusion I came to with this task was that writing a metre 1000 times takes up 2 rolls of tape and a lot of time. The task itself is tedious and happens within a state of zoning out. The writing on the tape shows the passing of time as my writing gets more sloppy or has grammatical mistakes. The word “metre” sounds weird to me after completing this art. The constant spelling of a word, a single thing taking up so much space in the mind, it weakens the word after a while. Multiple times it had me questioning is this how its actually spelt?

Pipilotti Rist

Question: Post an image from one of Rist’s videos that you are most interested in. Summarize the action of the video. Who is performing, and how? Describe the images – including framing, colours, and movement. How did she shoot and edit the video? Describe the sound and how it interacts/enhances/competes with the images. How is it installed in a gallery – in terms of projection/scale/presentation in a context of other things? How does the work strike you?

The video “The 4th Floor to Mildness” is an interactive video which was played at a museum and gave the viewer an experience like no other. This work immersed the viewer into an underwater world and allowed them to relax and feel as if they had become a part of the art. Two screens hang from the ceiling beside each other displaying videos of underwater scenes and showing the movement of water, plants and other living things. The sound of the ocean (water moving) plays in the background as a sense of peace and relaxation falls upon the room. The viewers focus on what is happening on the screens from a lying position as the room is filled with beds of different shapes, colours and sizes. I found this piece to be interesting to me because I found it quite endearing and peaceful to watch. I am a person who finds the ocean to be disturbing and quite frankly scary sometimes. I feel like Reist’s own perspective which she shared gives me a new feeling about the idea of the ocean and lets me see the other side of the sometimes unnerving waters, that sometimes it is peaceful and relaxing.

Rist has had a long career in video art making – how do you relate it to the kinds of video that you might see all the time on Tik Tok or You Tube, in our time? Reflect on her performances and also – on her ideas (particularly about women’s bodies, and sexuality, exposure, behaving strangely or subversively…) and how they play out from examples in her works. 

Rist has a unique way of making videos in order to send a message or get people to think. I definitely think that her videos, or just style in general relate to some videos on the internet, especially in the modern day. People have become more open with their creativity, thoughts and actions on the internet and allow themselves to be who they are without shame. I’ve definitely witnessed creators trying to create videos that can sometimes look weird or disturbing, especially on TikTok. It reminds me of those videos where people don’t talk much, but whisper to the camera and make faces without caring if they look attractive or proper. I find videos like this to be more interesting because it is different from the norm and usually create an impact. it’s similar to Rist, she just does, without caring what others think or how they perceive her because it’s her art and her creation no one elses.

Experiment: While still at school – put on your sweater/shirt INSIDE OUT. How does this change how you feel? Is it changing how other’s are treating you? If you can wear your sweater/shirt inside out all day – make a few notes about the results of this very small change in your presentation in public. Is this a performance? Why?

wearing clothing inside out or backward is something everyone has probably done accidentally at some point in their life. it is an inevitability and sometimes goes unnoticed, but when noticing what happened, it is often followed by embarrassment about not looking proper and how others might have perceived them throughout the day. Putting on clothing the wrong way on purpose just feels wrong overall. In my mind, clothes are meant to be worn a certain way and I would have never done it on my own on purpose because, who does that? But when I did it, it wasn’t so bad. the world didn’t end, nothing bad happened and the clothing looked pretty much the same except for seeing some seams and tags that would usually be on the inside. I didn’t really mind or care, its just clothes overall.

3 Feats- Video assignment

For this video assignment Sal and I decided to focus on the subject of “cake”. In each video we preform an action using the cake that in one way or another is “unnatural”. In our loop, Sal and I sat on the ground while we dig into a cake, ripping it apart and eating it with our hands. For our one shot, Sal sits in front of an already destroyed cake (from the previous animalistic eating) and eats very proper with a fork and knife. The final video, I sit with a cake with candles and after I blow them out, smash my face into the frosting and sit and stare at the camera. The videos provide contrast with one another as its the 2 opposite ends of the spectrum of eating, fancy and animalistic. It was interesting to work with this subject because cake is a thing that usually reminds me of parties or birthdays and fun and happiness. So it becomes a bit odd that 1 or 2 people (depending on the video) are just sitting in this blank white room with a birthday cake and exhibiting odd behaviours. Overall, I had fun creating these videos it was a great learning experience despite all the frosting getting stuck in my hair.

Audio Assignment

“What are your last words”. A common phrase that is emphasized within life, books, and movies and is often remembered and cherished. Often the person tells people they love them, reveals some kind of secret, or new information which changes the direction of the story entirely. But, what about those who don’t get the moment to say those words? In horror movies, the victims often don’t get the chance to utter touching last words, because it’s a horror movie, it doesn’t matter. But what if there was an emphasis on those words, what would it sound like? I compiled audio clips from the movie “Scream” of each character’s last words before dying, allowing one to pay more attention and hear the final things uttered before death. In the end, it became a bit comical, as the words weren’t sincere or loving or important. Often the character is scared or just says something dumb before their death. But it became interesting because the emphasis suddenly made it something to think about. It begs the question, are the final words still so important when it suddenly isn’t so nice and heartfelt?

Conceptual Portrait

My home, Goodbye.

This is a conceptual portrait of my childhood home which me and my family will be moving out of soon. Each of these images holds great importance to me, even if they seem insignificant. A once-new house now holds hundreds of memories engraved in its structure. It has seen all stages of life from when I was a small child and now an adult, having to say goodbye. We have lived in this home for 14 years, and it is a home, not just a house, even when we are long gone. I wanted to focus on parts of the house that I won’t be able to take with me, parts that may seem simple, but I will miss. They hold deep memories of loss, happiness, and anger, reminding me of the ones I love and the simplicity of childhood joy. It feels as if all that child-like excitement and wonder has left an impression, an impact, and is now being left alone, with no one but me remembering the significance of it all. All of these things combined create a sort of portrait of not only my life, but the life of my family who lived here and all grew together. It’s sad, I won’t see these things anymore or be reminded of a hundred memories with just a glance. But all things end and fade away, and I’m excited for the new stage of life, to make new memories, and to transform a different house into a home.

My home, the place where I have grown and lived for most of my life, my final goodbye.

Buttons Buttons

Dreams

For the final assignment, I made buttons based on dreams. I’ve always found dreams interesting, how everyone can have the same dreams and the events that occur in my own dreams. It is interesting to think about. Why do so many people have the same/ similar dreams? What do they mean? How do we know what is real and what is a dream? I decided to do each button based on common dreams that people have. Flying, falling in love, choking, teeth falling out, being naked, and being chased. For each button I created a design that represents each of these dreams, with text following that says different phrases such as “It’s a dream”, “this is a dream”, “it’s just a dream”, “Is This a dream?”, and “It’s not a dream”. As the buttons progress, the dream turns into a nightmare, and you question if you are actually dreaming, or if this is real. The buttons can be put together to show a kind of story or be alone as a statement to make people think about dreaming and reality. I wanted these buttons to be something that was colourful and soft, it was inspired by my own dreaming process where everything is similar to reality but more chaotic and colourful. I feel like these buttons are a statement piece that catches attention through the colour, and then provides a layer of deeper thinking.

Marina Abramović

1. What are some of your first impressions of Marina Abramovic’s performance works, based on the documentary? Use an image/example of one or two works to describe aspects you admire and aspects you might agree are problematic.

2. What have you learned about features of performance art based on Abramovic’s work? Name a few key features according to her precedents. Include an image to illustrate. Consider her quote “When you perform it is a knife and your blood, when you act it is a fake knife and ketchup.”

Marina challenges her physical limits and endures physically demanding or even risky performances in some of her works. In the documentary, we hear the quote “Performance is all about state of mind”. We glimpse a portion of the rigorous training Marina puts the 30 selected artists through to prepare them mentally and physically for the demanding task of performing in a gallery setting. Although only snippets of the training are shown, much of it appears to involve activities that help focus and clear the mind, such as sorting grains of different colours on a plate. Prolonged periods of sitting or standing prove to be extremely taxing, not only on the body but also on the mind. In the documentary, we witness how Marina’s piece “The Artist is Present” takes a toll on her both physically and mentally, particularly after months of sitting in a wooden chair. Some of her works delve even deeper into exploring physical discomfort than “The Artist is Present,” as exemplified by “Rhythm 10.” In this performance, she stabs various knives between her fingers, occasionally drawing her own blood. Unlike in a movie or play where such blood would be entirely fake, Marina’s pain is very real. She uses this genuine pain as a means to liberate herself from the fear she has of it.

3. Discuss the ways performance art resists many museum and commercial art world conventions. How does Abramovic solve/negotiate some of these challenges, and do you find these compromises add to, or undermine the ideas at play in her work?

The documentary featuring Marina highlights numerous performances that actively involve the audience. For instance, in “Imponderabilia,” two performers stand nude in a doorway, and audience members must pass between them. In most museums, viewers typically glance at artworks briefly before proceeding to the next work. However, Marina and other similar performance artists demand the audience’s attention and participation. There is a connection being made between the artist and the participant in performance art such as “The Artist is Present.” Throughout the documentary, we witness individuals shedding tears as they gaze into Marina’s eyes. This connection cannot be framed or sold, as is often the case in the art world. Nevertheless, in Marina’s MoMA exhibition, she combines traditional artworld practices of presenting works on screens for brief observation and featuring live performers who require interaction from the audience. This approach caters to both ends of the spectrum: those who prefer to watch performances on a screen and those who seek to engage with live performance art.

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One KILOMETRE

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Pipilotti Rist

1. Post an image from one of Rist’s videos that you are most interested in. Summarize the action of the video. Who is performing, and how? Describe the images – including framing, colours, and movement. How did she shoot and edit the video? Describe the sound and how it interacts/enhances/competes with the images. How is it installed in a gallery – in terms of projection/scale/presentation in the context of other things? How does the work strike you?

The image displayed is a snapshot from Pipilotti Rist’s work titled “Ever is Over All.” In this video, a woman strolls happily along a sidewalk, clutching a long, flower-shaped object that, from time to time, shatters the windows of the cars she passes. Her attire, a light blue dress with red heels, evokes the image of Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz” travelling down the yellow brick road. On the right side of the screen, videos of a red hot poker flower are featured. The camera captures uncomplicated, slow shots, alternating between side and frontal views of the woman, allowing viewers time to absorb the actions unfolding in the video. Throughout the video, the sounds of a chirping bird and a humming woman play in the background, occasionally interrupted by the jarring noise of shattering windows.

What particularly stood out to me in this piece was the woman’s relaxed and graceful demeanour despite committing literal crimes. The contrast between her joyful expression, the upbeat music soundtrack, and the violent act of smashing car windows is incredibly intriguing. Watching it almost feels empowering, especially when we witness the approving glance from the passing policewoman.

2. Rist has had a long career in video art making – how do you relate it to the kinds of videos that you might see all the time on Tik Tok or YouTube, in our time? Reflect on her performances and also – on her ideas (particularly about women’s bodies, sexuality, exposure, behaving strangely or subversively…) and how they play out from examples in her works.

Additionally, Rist’s video art usually involves prolonged, immersive experiences that might last for several minutes to hours, requiring from viewers sustained attention and contemplation. In contrast, TikTok is known for its short, concise videos typically restricted to one minute or less. Viewers don’t have to think too deeply while scrolling through TikTok at 1 a.m.

3. Experiment: While still at school – put on your sweater/shirt INSIDE OUT. How does this change how you feel? Is it changing how other’s are treating you? If you can wear your sweater/shirt inside out all day – make a few notes about the results of this very small change in your presentation in public. Is this a performance? Why?

I felt incredibly self-conscious while carrying out this experiment. In my mind, I imagined people were staring and wondering why my shirt was inside out. Even though no one asked any questions, I felt like they were secretly judging me. Over time, the embarrassment faded and I started to forget that my shirt was even inside out. I believe that this action could be considered a performance. Even commonplace acts, such as clothing choices, can take on performative elements in the field of art and self-expression when used to convey ideas or prompt thought. So, whether or not wearing your shirt inside out is deemed a performance depends on the context, intent, and how others perceive it.

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One Feat, Three Ways

The One-Shot: Dinner Time

We initially planned to feed each other food while wearing blindfolds for our one-shot video. After giving it some thought and doing some more brainstorming, we concluded that this was a little too safe and went with a messier food, like spaghetti, along with the addition of the idea of eating with enormous utensils instead of a blindfold. On the day of filming, we decided it would be even better if one of us fed the other instead of just having one of us eat the spaghetti by themselves. This allows our videos to all have the same overarching concept of feeding someone.

The Sequence: Ways to Feed Someone

For our sequence, we wanted to play with the different dynamics between two people feeding each other. At first, our sequence was gonna be us eating different foods using various angles and shots, however, this idea also changed over time. As seen in the video, we chose to portray a mother and child, feeding a person who is sleeping/dead, up high and down low, standing far apart, and using a big spoon and a tiny spoon.

The Loop: Endless Feeding

We filmed this video first, and it’s definitely the one that required the most takes. The spaghetti was so soft that it kept breaking every time we tried to eat it. We also had to keep reshooting so we could bite off the noodle at the right moment to capture the tension.

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AUDIO ART

Meals of the Day

While brainstorming for this assignment, I thought about the various sounds that I hate. One of the first ones that came to mind was the sounds of people eating. Whenever I come across mukbang videos on TikTok or YouTube, I always cringe as soon as I hear the chewing sounds that they make. As a certified Ipad baby who can only eat while watching something, I usually drown out the sounds of my own eating. However, for this assignment, I embraced the sounds and focused solely on them.

While recording, I purposely tried to make the eating noises as nasty as possible, even eating with my mouth open at some points. I also chose foods that I knew would make distinct noises, such as the chips that I chose for the snack.

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Conceptual Portrait

proposal of ideas

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been someone who enjoyed creating things. I’ve picked up so many hobbies over the years that I can hardly keep count of them all. Some were short-lived while others I still do today. I have quite a collection of my leftover crafts from my hobbies and thought it might be a good idea to use these objects for this assignment. I’m still a bit unsure of how I would display these crafts, but one of my ideas was to create a sort of “gallery” of my unfinished and completed works over the years. There’s also the artist Micah Lexier who displays objects in an organized manner, such as in “Twelve of One.” I could also approach my final work similarly, but of course in my own way.

Above are just some of the examples I have of crafts from over the years. I also had the idea to focus on the hobbies that I have right now and make a sort of “portrait of a reader” or “portrait of a crocheter” but I have no idea what I could do with those ideas.

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my collection of hobbies and crafts

For this assignment, I’ve decided to do a conceptual portrait of myself using the various crafts and hobbies that I have completed (mostly didn’t complete) throughout my life. Since I was very young, I’ve always had the habit of picking up hobbies or starting projects that I would work on intensely for a week or so and then forget about for years. In my video, I display a few of these projects, as well as add commentary on when the projects were started and their level of completion. Although I am very well aware that I have this habit, I will continue to have a million unfinished projects lying around my room, waiting to be finished. I really like the idea that these messy and incomplete projects each have their own moment to shine, momentarily leaving the storage box they were crammed in. Most of these objects haven’t seen the light of day in many, many years. Each of these works also shows what kind of taste I had throughout my life.

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BUTTONS

what’s the weather?