Want to freeze all the food and take them out of their containers and set them out
thinking about Rachel Whiteread and her casts of objects, specifically her series of resin chairs
noticed how the chair casts which show the negative space beneath a chair between the legs are functionally still chair looking, like small stools
the food in my piece is still food, but they are more casts of the inside of their container since all conventional functionality of consuming them is gone
the foods become their container removing any functionality or way of eating or drinking
this removal of function speaks to the fact that they are abandoned food, food waste
they are really now just physical space takers in the fridge with no intention by anyone to consume them
this displays them as exactly that, stripped of the veil of their containers which suggest some sort of intention to store keep or preserve
This piece communicates the medium so effectively, as Diane said in class if this was played in a gallery space on a CRT television it would look like she is somehow inside the box of the television pressing against the glass of the screen
It could also communicate the opposite, that she is witnessing us on a screen and we are looking out towards her
After watching the full Be Nice To Me piece the moments of her against the glass with makeup were by far the most captivating
you can follow the trace of the colour and intended shape on her face to be pressed onto the glass and warped and then picked up again and printed back on the skin
the patterns the colours made that were indicative of her movement and which stayed on her face and the glass
and then when the video plays in reverse being able to almost predict where she goes through the smears of makeup and spit
such a cool way to engage the viewer
I think possible prompts for this piece would be to engage the viewer in as visceral as possible through the medium of a screen, using the divide to create intimacy with the viewer
im assuming the performer is Pipilotti herself
Week 6
Week 6 Notes
The Case for Video Art
What sets apart video art from other video media?
Early cinema was inherently experimental because there was no standard for creation yet.
Sony porta-pak- changed everything for video art
portable
Nam June Paik
Zen for Film 1964
Minimal, focus on the process and mechanism of video
Shigego Kubota
expanded cinema
when films exited theatres
sculptural videos
playing with projection and light and the viewers’ involvement
Had Video- Art Prepared us Enough for Zoom Meeting
Vivian Castro
iconologically the face occupying the whole frame of an image was rare in painting
“video is the first medium that is used to being so focused on the face, differently from film”
interesting distinction, also what about still images
artists using the “potency” of the smaller camera
referring to the intimacy ascribed to it
physical closeness = intimate experience my be simplifying it a bit or maybe I have too narrow a definition of intimate experience
intimately unnerving?
intimately unattractive?
the narcissism of the medium, the longing for absolute video feedback to become like a recorded mirror
On Boomerang (1974)
anxious energy so much of it
drawing lines between Holts experienced distance between thoughts and the slowing down of connecting thoughts and words. “Do we have trouble making connections between thoughts? Are we expressing everything we want to?”
frustrations more to do with the medium than the content.
but is it also then the context, I don’t feel frustrated or tired when I’m on calls with friends, but school it can be mind-numbingly annoying
Why is that?
“impulse for participants to talk all the time”
this this this this
it is either silence or a monologue, so difficult to keep a social rhythm
being “surrounded by ourselves” on the screen
“online meetings are the ultimate modern life’s immobility.”
to Castro, this social isolation of the self on the screen through video art was precursory to what technology like this would do to us in real life, outside of an art context
Candice Breitz
Legend (A Portrait of Bob Marley) 2005
Queen (A Portrait of Madonna) 2005
Loved the moments between tracks the waiting, or when people are feeling it and start talking to the recording
I viewed the videos before reading and it’s funny I didn’t pick up on a geographic specificity in the sample of people shown, I don’t know if I imagined it as just indicative of the fanbase demography or what.
It does feel like a study of a group of people, almost like interviews of a specific demographic like you would see for a documentary around a single person or a community of people or experience.
their artist is their shared experience, their community, so it makes sense that the manner of the interview would be their music
I don’t know if I ever picked up on the critical aspects of mainstream entertainment itself but rather the culture it inadvertently creates
something so streamlined in its production to be shown from the other side, in an infinitely diverse way, is an interesting point of tension
Factum Trembley, 2009
so so so impactful on me
the narrative form of their answers is almost too perfect, speaking too their twinhood
Albeit Breitz makes many cuts to communicate her perspective through her subjects (repeating a phrase of one of them later in the video, almost responding as a third connecting member of the “conversation”(?))
she draws attention to contradictions between the two separate accounts or differing opinions on single events, its fascinating to see the spectrum of experience so clearly on such a minute scale
Video Piece Notes
obstructing the webcam
with wax paper or plastic wrap
created a fuzzy or crystalline effect
I kind of want to formally and visually play with two obstructed (abstracted) laptop cameras back to back, walking around them
thinking about Bruce Nauman’s walking pieces
maybe play with the audio freaking out when the two microphones pick up the same audio and reproduce it
audio of me talking?
Week 4
Notes:
Adad Hannah
Mainly photographic practice
Interested in tableaux vivant, the french practice historically to get live actors and performers to pose in recreations of famous paintings
Focus on the bodies movement while being still,
Moment of the pose, when the subject freezes
tableaux vivant spreads that moment out
watching a video of someone standing still while they themselves stand still prompts the viewer to examine their bodies more carefully
almost like a Foucault mirroring
Movement in stillness
Even in his still photographic work like The Screen, there is a focus on one’s own bodily awareness, the skin beneath the exterior skin
I wish that one model wasn’t looking at the camera, breaks from the shape trying to be created
Vancouver Sun Article
Hannah goes deeper into his process of capturing these covid portraits
Used long lens and went to public spaces and asked people if they wanted their photo taken
Having a blown-out background associating with “deep conversation” feels like a stretch. I think there is no emotional intimacy given in these portraits but rather bodily vulnerability
He are being given access to these people in a way even they themselves are not aware of
How the body moves in this moment of posed tension
The videos expose how people think one ought to look while being photographed, especially in the ones of people playing a sport it is revealing how much sports media effects the posing of “what people playing sports” looks like
Hannah asks questions about the pandemic to each of his models and their words are quoted beneath each portrait
I don’t know how I feel about the necessity of these quotes in the work, while yes they do feel heartfelt and play into exclusively present sentiments surrounding the fear, stress and adaptive nature of our current lives, I think the videos could stand alone, or just names could be given. The quotes are too similar to “Humans of New York” for my liking.
Self Portrait a la Adad Hanna: Party
The thing I miss most at this moment in time, self-indulgent as it may be, are my friends. On the screen behind me is one of the many recordings I made at a friend’s birthday party two summers ago. This documentation of that night was more impactful to me viewing it now than I probably ever had imagined it to be when I made it. This work feels like documentation in response to that video; responding to a record of an experience that feels so far away at this moment.
Formally, I wish to experiment with tableaux vivant-ish things more, especially with this camera (a very old digital Pentax) which gives away quite quickly that the viewer is watching a video, through the pulsating of the camera refocusing and shivering of the horizontal grain. I like how the edges of my figure are fuzzy, I look even more still than if the video quality was better and my movement instead seems now to be caused by the grain itself.
I didn’t want the image on the screen to be clear to the viewer, as that would be obviously distracting but also personalizes the video to me, which is not my intention. I want the viewer to see that it is a video of some sort of party playing in contrast to the dark monotone stillness of the scene. A video of such abundant joy and energy within one that has seemingly none. Perhaps a metaphor for our current situation. 😉
Week 3
Notes:
Hiba Abdallah Artist Interview: McMaster Museum of Art
projects embedded in social practice, text exploring locality and civic agency
We remain profoundly and infinitely connected
human connectivity as an interconnected feedback loop
visual art and human biochemistry
Practice – Communities
social engagement
most works are collaborative projects
projects are led by the people Abdallah works with
back and forth, a feedback loop
results often in a text work (book, billboard)
interested in the intersections of art and civic responsibility
drew connections between Windsor and hamilton as post-industrial cities
“Two tales of City” (2012) revealed hamiltons often looked over the historical textile industry
COVID’s effect on work:
how languages intersect and how words change from day to day
how language shifts over time
covid changed the context of of her work as other present contexts will change it in the future
Banner Candidates:
An Awful Lot of Cultural Material
“Interesting” hangs
“interesting” also flirts
relationships, aging
Self determination. the fact that the stove is portable
boring art on the walls of the schools
An Awful Lot of Cultural Material
I wanted to take an ironic approach to the placement of my banner, at first picturing putting it around the car metal scrap yards that are near my studio. But then I found this spot on my search for scrap and thought it would be perfect. The covered-up graffiti, the bland colour pallet, the lack of seemingly any of the “cultural material” as the article probably intended to mean.
However, the scene is simultaneously superficially absent yet internally filled with cultural material regardless. All of these small elements on the periphery of our considered world are reflective of our culture. The North American romanticization of the highway. What motivates the censoring of graffiti on a highway underpass? The fence to obstruct people or animals (?) from crossing the highway. Im doing a poor job articulating it but basically, I liked that the placement of this statement (almost an exclamation) here in a place where the definition of cultural material is shifted to encourage a closer examination of the everyday and banal.
Week 2
Notes:
“The Optics of the Language: How Joi T. Arcand Looks with Words” Canadian Art
Native misery apparent in everyday aesthetics
the Optic of the murderer of an Indigenous woman
“optic” is the lens or filter by which one looks and from this looking ropes what is seen into an encounter humming with all sorts of potential”
Bushby’s optic is a part of “settler horror”
This optic ropes indigenous people “the ante-Canada… into a representational field where all things… can be put to violent use.”
“I got one” phrase when Bushby murdered Barbara Kentner
The second paragraph is wildly confusing, super flowery
“modes of enfleshment”
in summary, words encapsulate simultaneous danger and pride by creating worlds around them
like how “one” in terms of Bushby’s “optic” creates “death worlds” for indigenous people, violence in everything
the “double-bind of enunciation” ???
“savage call to being with a more spacious one (word world?)”
is Arcand answering this call?
Arcand’s using words as “emotional architectures” which “change the visual landscape”
Arcand titles her new word world “Future Earth”
References Maggie Nelson (American Writer) speaking of words being able to “incite “the outline of a becoming””
Is Arcand inciting “a becoming” through her commandeering of Cree syllabics into everyday aesthetics?
In an aside reminder to self to read “Something Bright Then Holes”
Bushby’s use of “one” as a “refusal of a name and the humanity that comes with it” shows the “terrible mechanics of language”
Arcand is subverting these mechanics through presenting language in a native futuristic way
Arcand is “mourning language loss” of the Cree syllabics but through a method that signifies a “world-to-come”
Onto the Work
Here on Future Earth
“where Arcands photo-based practice and interest in textuality synched”
These images are to thought about as an “alternative present”
digitally manipulated signs and replaced original text with Cree syllabics
shows us a present parallel to our own allows us to “loop into a new mode of perception”
shows us “the rogue possibilities bubbling up in the thick ordinariness of everyday life” where they weren’t before.
the power in the mundane language around us once changed becomes clear
Using signifiers of nostalgia Arcand orients the viewer to “think back on a future past” not “a Utopian Elsewhere”
“The mise-en-scene of settlement”: interesting
Her new world portrays deep meanings separate from “terra nullius” and “myths of Indian savagery and degeneracy”
the bucolic untamed wilderness, the stillness (stagnancy) in that false landscape
instead, “a future (built) atop the decayed remains of coloniality”
Joi T. Arcand, Sweetgrass Store, 2009. From the Here on Future Earth series
Week 2 Assignment:
Joi T. Arcand, Sweetgrass Store, 2009. From the Here on Future Earth series.
and
Germaine Koh, Dear Mercer, 2006, printed letter, from Dear series.
Both of these artists are repurposing textual media to fit their own created purposes, however the scale of both the mediums and the message could not be more different.
In Germaine Koh’s Dear Mercer (2006) she utilizes a practically obsolete and banal media; the telegram, as a way of conveying her disinterest in participating in fundraising events. The telegram is simple, always stating “I AM SORRY TO SAY I CANNOT PARTICIPATE, GERMAINE KOH”. The repeated use of this text along with the unorthodox medium turns what could be an banal emailed message into an artist’s multiple which the gallery oftentimes frames and auctions off at the fundraiser event. This piece utilizes double meanings and methods in every aspect of its appearance and function. It is simultaneously a rejection of the acquisition while still providing a “work”. It is also simultaneously a piece of ephemera and a printed work that is now privy to formal examination (ie. the placing of the text, the way the telegram is cut, the texture of the paper.). These double meanings confront the viewer, at first belying its complexity and depth through its seemingly banal, almost bureaucratic appearance.
Joi T. Arcand’s Sweetgrass Store (2009) along with all her images from the “Here on Future Earth” series utilize different text in much different ways. She digitally replaces texts from storefronts and other building signage with Cree syllabics in a way to stake out a parallel present future that asserts indigenous presence and prosperity taking over the remnants of a colonial prairie landscape. Instead of repurposing the text of communication, she commandeers the text of place, ownership and power within the landscape. The scale of this textual shift is much larger than Kohs’ it is far more charged than the wit and cynicism of Kohs’ telegraphs.
Nathan Kasprzyk-Heuff, Student Dining: Mind Full vs. Mindful, 2020
Student Dining: Mind Full vs. Mindful was inspired by Christian Jankowski’s The Hunt (1997) in which modern advancements are contrasted to primitive ways getting food. So, I asked myself where there was a similar interplay in life involving food. I realized that my eating habits change when I am under stress, especially as a university student during COVID-19 and final exam season. But there was another culprit—the over reliance one of society’s greatest advancement: the smart phone, an innovative modern tool providing instant volumes of information whether it is history, news, or social media. This work shows the addiction to modern technology and how when eat when our mind is full. Eating when in a “mind full” state is to be unaware of the food and variety of utensils in front. We eat with the same frenzy speed as we live our lives, unable to disconnect from our phones as it is our priority. Although I want to eat the soup, I do not use my rational thinking when under stress in this case. Instead, I become primitive like in Jankowski’s work when in a “mind full” state. The “mindful” state in this video is demonstrated when I am calm and centered and surrounded by plants and my cats. Although a spoon (correct utensil) is not used to eat the soup in the final clip, slow and mindful eating is the correct tool and hints to choosing whether to use it or not. Moreover, our state of mind is important for approaching food.
Creative Process:
Go beyond just improper use of food utensils like fork used to eat soup…Add a context!
Main things at time of creation: Final exam season, COVID-19 Pandemic…translates to major stress and lack of focus and connection towards food
WEEK IX: FOOD ART
IDEA 1: Combination proper and improper food eating techniques
Source of inspiration: Christian Jankowski, The Hunt (1997)
This work featured primitive food hunting techniques from the hunter gatherer era set in a supermarket during the present day
This represents rebelling against present day innovations
This work would be similar to The Hunt, but involves eating food on plates instead of hunting in public indoor settings
This would also feature and unusual/improper eating techniques (e.g. eating spaghetti and meatballs with hands, eating a sandwich with a knife)
IDEA 2: Play on Words
E.g. Strawberry: straw connected to a berry
E.g. To “butter up”: knife putting butter onto a slice of bread
Bread Making Activity
WEEK VIII
Nathan Kasprzyk-Heuff, Social Distance Hangout, 2020
This video consists of two contrasting ways of spending time during isolation amid the pandemic. The left half features reading and flipping through pages, while the right is playing a video game through the clicking on the controller.
WEEK VIII:“BREAD THE RISE AND FALL” PODCAST
Bread is well known for its captivating aroma and delicious flavour, the foundation of daily meals, and for being one of the key sources of food in the “wheat and grains” category of the food guide. Bread is also viewed as a symbol of companionship as it is meant to be shared within others as a loaf. The simplicity of bread ingredients is parallel to an easy way of building society, as it teaches us civility such as democracy and who we are. Bread is also associated with religion as it is used in church because Jesus first used bread; the combination of yeast with water and grain is compared to process of creation. On a scientific level, bread does not grow from the earth, but through a miraculous process over the 10 000 years of nature and human labours and skills, from hunter gathering to farming—Neolithic revolution.
However, enlightenment thinker John Jacques Rosseau also stated that the growth of agricultural correlates with the growth of inequality. Although this revolution reduces the physical labour needed, it is also known accelerating global warming and the depletion of the oceans; agriculture depends on suppressing biodiversity, humanity’s largest footprint on the earth. also root to diabetes, obesity etc. Some also believe that bread has shifted the balance of power as the wealthy wear able to store grains and wealth, and power over people and could lead to slavery. Although bread has brought rise to the negative aspects civilization including war, tyranny, and slavery, it is also symbol of equality: no matter who you are, everyone needs a source of sustenance of recently good quality, sufficient quantity, and accessible pricing.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many have been baking bread to limit the contact with other people when outside of their houses. It is also possible that those struggling economically have also been baking instead of constantly buying bread from the stores.
The comparison of bread to civilization and religion were striking for me because although I always knew how popular and essential bread has always been, until now I never knew about the profound impact on social and economic classes, as well as greater acceleration of global warming and depletion through agriculture.
The phrase “oceans apart” fits perfectly with COVID-19 as many of us are isolated, far away from each other. The spread apart figures were glued into their phones to make it seem like at first they just captured an insta-worthy moment and are uploading it, but no, there is much more to that. As part of the current “new normal”, electronic devices have become a significantly more normal part of our everyday lives from doing work, entertainment, to communication including playing games through iMessage’s GamePigeon. Filmed at a beach on the shores of Lake Ontario, no background music needed since the waves already did the job!
CLIP 2:
Nathan Kasprzyk-Heuff, Is Anybody There?, 2020
There is no music in the background, but the captured sounds include the activity in the parks including the tennis courts and kids having fun, and the large echoing perfect for representing the loneliness and emptiness. Although playgrounds have reopened in July as part of Stage 3 of reopening, activities like swinging close together are still more likely to be impacted than with others like tennis.
ADAD HANNAH:
In his clips, the figures are centered within the frame and show the entire body. All figures included were centered within the frame ranging from one person, to multiple people close together whether within an immediate household close together or from separate households and wearing masks. Captures the everyday moments of life and is set in various settings within a city that can be related to the pandemic, whether it is a crowded downtown environment, or a wide open but sometimes populated park. Ambient music is also added to the background of some of the videos and sound surprisingly realistic like it was added during the post-production stage.
My favourite clip was the man in boxing gloves. Although it makes it seem like he is waiting for the opponent in order to practice, it this clip still reminds us to continue doing whatever excites you, as long as the safety measures are followed.
My source of inspiration for the second clip, Is Anybody There?
THE DEVELOPMENT OF MY CLIPS:
CLIP 1:
A park setting where the two figures are maintaining physical distancing on benches and glued into their phones?…Yes, but how also about a windy lake to represent the phrase “oceans apart”? BINGO!
The dark and cloudy weather during the day the clip was shot perfectly matches the lonely and grim tone of COVID-19.
Okay, the figures were not centered, but the space in between is. Both figures were not from the same immediate house, so physical distancing was maintained instead.
CLIP 2:
Inspired by Adad Hannah’s Social Distancing Portrait 17-Dimas
Use a playground setting when not many people are using those places despite the reopening…try a slide…aha! Do that but at a swing by occupying the right and leaving the left one vacant!
PHOTO I:
Nathan Kasprzyk-Heuff, Daring, 2020
The first book stack is constructed like stair steps and represents an evolution and final product from combination of going from being daring and creative, to being rebellious and ‘badass’, to being even more rebellious and creative—in this case creative cursing. Getting creative and ‘badass’ starts with you…daring greatly. Cursing is a common form of being offensive and breaking rules, but many also use it in a humorous way. It is important to bend the rules at times, think outside of the box, let the creativity flourish, and embrace the wild and rebellious part within you.
PHOTO II:
Nathan Kasprzyk-Heuff, Up, Up, and Away, 2020
This second collection of books is another evolution style like the first image, but involves the progression from learning how to fly, to the voyage through outer space. The transition from the Flight Training Manual to the book about Helicopters was chosen because helicopters fly differently from conventional airplanes, but if you learn to fly an airplane, you can then easily learn to fly other types of aircraft. The Voyage Through Space book is the largest of the four books and is positioned at the top not only because the outer space is infinite in size compared to the finite Earth, but also because the concepts of space exploration and potential colonization on other planets are highly fascinating and discussed topics nowadays.
PHOTO III:
Nathan Kasprzyk-Heuff, Links, 2020
The third collection of books involves a combination of titles involving music and art from both history and digital technology, along with a book about how computers work. Unlike the evolution style in the previous two, this work was organized in a sandwich style to represent the interconnection between music, art, and computers. The art and music history (Art History and A History of Music in Western Culture) books are at the opposite ends from each other, with the two digital technology books (A Short Course in Photography Digital and Music Technology) still at the opposite ends but closer towards the center. How Computers Work was placed in the center to indicate that computers are used virtually everywhere and are essential in the 21st century; computers and the evolution of technology is also noticeable and crucial in both music and art. Although computers may seem to take center stage in the musical and arts fields, the history of the arts from the past few centuries and millenniums are equally important and there would be no digital music nor art without this history.
WEEK II: USING TEXT AS ART
LOOK AT: Artists who use text in their work including: Yoko Ono, Jenny Holzer, John Baldessari, Barbara Krueger, Geurilla Girls, and Shelly Niro. And more contemporary examples including: Nadia Myre, Joi T. Arcand, Jon Rubin, Eleanor King, Micah Lexier, Lenka Clayton, Alisha Wormsley and Germaine Koh.
John Balderssari:
I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art, 1971
Tips for Artists Who Want to Sell, 1966-1968
Lenka Clayton:
Fruit and Other Things, 2018
Germaine Koh:
– Dear Mercer, 2006
Yoko Ono:
– Grapefruit, 1964
– Billboards since 1960s, e.g. Fly, 1996; War is Over, 2008
Jenny Holzer,
– Truisms, since 1980
– Survival Series, 1986
Barbara Kruger,
– Untitled (Your body is a battleground), 1989
– BELIEF+DOUBT, since 2012
Guerrilla Girls,
– Guerrilla Girls Definition Of A Hypocrite, 1990
Shelley Niro,
– The Shirt (detail), 2003
Joi T. Arcand,
– Northern Pawn, South Vietnam, 2009
– Amber Motors, 2009
Nadia Myre,
– Indian Act, 2002
Eleanor King,
– No Justice No Peace, 2015
Jon Rubin:
– The Last Billboard, 2010-2018
WRITE: Select TWO artworks from above to write about. Compare and contrast the different ways the artists use media (materials, platform, format) to express their message. How is the medium relevant to the message in each case? How are viewers expected to relate to the text in each case? (Write approx. 250 words).
Shelley Niro, The Shirt (detail), 2003
The first work that I chose was The Shirt by Shelley Niro. This is a photograph-based artwork from the lens of First Nations people criticizing European colonialism in America and consequences in the present day by parodying tourist souvenir tee-shirts and photographs . An Aboriginal woman is in the center of the work facing the camera, wearing a bandana with the American flag graphic, and wearing the tee-shirt with the texts. An American landscape is in the background of the work, adhering to the takeover and destruction of the land of Aboriginals. Rather than stating where the one or multiple people were visited, it states the impact of colonialism, in this case violence, annihilation, massacring, and that the next generations of the ancestors do not get as much as what the white European backgrounds get. No post-production effects were applied to this image and the materials used in this work already effectively communicate the issues.
Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Your body is a battleground), 1989
Untitled (Your body is a battleground) by Barbara Kruger is the second work that I chose to write about. This is another photograph medium like many of her other works as it features an appropriated close-up of a woman’s face portraying feminism. However, unlike Shelley Niro’s The Shirt featuring a landscape in the background, this work only features pure black and white images with a regular and inverted half, allowing the focus on the woman’s face and texts. This work is also larger than The Shirt as it was created to emulate a poster for the April 9, 1989 Women’s March in Washington for supporting legal abortion, birth control and women’s rights. It also differed from The Shirt as effects were applied to image after it was taken. The key titles within this work are in bold white on red background and hence the march, the small title says “support legal abortion birth control and women’s rights”, while the largest and central title is “Your Body is a Battleground.” Kruger states that pictures and words both work together for rallying and there is a combination of photographs and assertive texts that challenge the viewers.
WEEK III: BANNERS
The Three Movements, 2020. By Nathan Kasprzyk-Heuff
This banner was created to represent three major movements that are still prevalent in the 21st century. The bold stencil font was chosen in order to stand out visually and fight against domination, violence, and oppression.
Media: Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, printer paper, string, shot on an iPhone 11 camera
Stylistic Features, 2020. By Nathan Kasprzyk-Heuff
The second banner uses the phrase “stylistic features” with fonts using detailed features including serifs and slabs, italics, red and yellow colours, distortion effects, shrinking and increasing sizes, as well as outlines. A string with party cup lights was chosen to create an illumination effect, shining the light on the text.
Media: Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, printer paper, string with party cup lights, shot on an iPhone 11 camera
PROOF THAT THESE PHRASES CAME FROM DIRTY WORDS INTERESTING:
I used to hate eating, It made me sad, Because I felt like it would lead to me looking the way I dreaded looking. I am mad at how much time I have been concerned about things that do not matter, Hanging on to mean things people have said, Calling me a slut, a whore, ugly, And I actually let myself be upset by it, And wasted my time being upset about it, Upset that people found me ugly. I am mad that female beauty standards are rooted in pedophilia, At one point in my life i wouldn’t let myself eat because I wanted to look like that, All of the time I have wasted removing my body hair, Making myself look younger than I am, Like I looked like when I was a child, To be beautiful the way I’m told I should be,I am mad at how much energy being afraid of people who didn’t like me, People who thought I’d somehow done something to wrong them, Kissed their ex boyfriend, Didn’t give them enough attention, Lied to them, And when I wonder why I did these things, It was to make other people like me, The endless journey to be perfect. I’m mad about all the times someone has made me not be myself, My parents telling me i couldn’t wear something, Dye my hair a colour, I can’t pierce my nose if I want to work there, People judge me by how I would look on the outside, Don’t get tattoos that you can’t hide, What is the point of being yourself, Being authentic, if you have to hide that to be professional, That my clothing can tell more things about myself than my mouth can, Can looking like I want to because I want to look like an art piece Will take away from me ever being taken seriously, From everyone thinking I am beautiful. I am mad that I have to pay to be alive, That I have to work tirelessly only to give it all to someone Who was fortunate enough to have the money to own a house, And make me live there And to pay to get an education, To have a good job, To make enough money, To one day live in a place that belongs to me, We all go through the motions, And in the end, We all get to the same place, We die. And then what? I imagine as I am dying I will feel regret for trying too hard to please other people, I will regret wasting the energy and wasting the time, And mostly I will regret all the food I didn’t eat, And all the things I never tried, And it is because I want to be beautiful to people who see me, And that it’s never really mattered if I’ve felt beautiful to myself, As I am dying I will regret the food I never ate, Because then I will be dead, And that will be the end.
This performance was very much inspired by Marina Abramovic, specifically her work ‘Art must be beautiful, Artist must be beautiful’, as well as her work ‘The Onion’. I chose to eat fruit in my video because there is a cliche eroticism of women eating fruit, however, I did it in a way there is very messy and off putting, while talking about how much validation I feel I need from other people. In Abromavic’s piece ‘The Onion’, she i eating an onion by biting it like an apple, and complaining, while crying. My dialogue was heavily influenced by the voice over in ‘The Onion’, instead of complaining about things, I decided to talk about how frustrated I am with myself.
FOOD ASSIGNMENT NOTES
video
me eating really colourful food with my hands
similar to cherry video
talking with my mouth full
complaining
Complaining about people who were mean to me
Complaining about how I am 20 and just found out I have ADHD
Talking back to all of the mean things people have said to me
Ask if I can record a therapy session and then use its dialogue
making people uncomfortable by my words but laugh by my demeanour
Nihilistic but not in the sense of giving up, but in the sense that nothing matters except for how I feel about myself
orange slices
juice in wine glass
grapes
cherries
pomegranate
apple
fruit spread
play on eroticism of women eating fruits
PODCAST REFLECTION – THE RISE AND FALL OF BREAD
Unlike many people currently, the act of baking bread holds a very special place in my heart. Not because it is a comfort food, or because one of the most intense pleasures to exist is cracking open a fresh loaf right after removing it from the oven, but because baking bread has actually connected me with the most important people in my life.
Before I was born, my grandmother, my dads mother, had a brain aneurysm and was left in a wheel chair, with very poor memory, and very little of who she was left of her. As I grew up, I always heard from my relatives, that I reminded them of her. She was an incredibly strong woman, she had four kids, not very much money, a farm, 18 siblings, and was an artist. To this day, I wish I could’ve met her when she was still herself, I have so many things I wish I could ask her. When I was young, my family and I would visit Tignish, PEI, the town where she grew up. Her sister Lois, my great aunt, taught me how to bake my first loaf of bread, and biscuits, and pastry. I realized it was so much more than just baking bread, because these recipes that Lois had, the ones that were her mother’s, and her mother’s mother’s, were so important to her, that the act of teaching me to make them with her, was somewhat of the ultimate form of her expressing her love for me. I have carried this with me for my entire life, and it has lead me so many places I probably would not have gotten to if it weren’t for bread.
In my second year of university, I was at a bar, and talking to this girl, who I would later call my best friend, about how I bake bread. She asked me if I wanted to come over later that week, and teach her. I obviously said yes. When I got there, there were way more people than I thought there would be, all anticipating a three course meal of various breads I had planned to make. First course: plain white bread, crust softened with olive oil, baked in a cast iron pan, paired with a dip of olive oil, black currant jam, and balsamic vinegar. Second course: white bread filled with pieces of red onion, and olive, paired with hummus, and cream cheese. Third course: cinnamon and brown sugar bread, with peanut butter and banana, or honey one top. I taught everyone how to bake them, and everyone loved the outcome so much. This would later be a monthly reoccurrence we called ‘Bread Night’, and this moment, is when I began to construct many of my most valuable relationships. I rode my bike home, and thought about how I had done exactly what Lois had done for me all those years ago.
Growing up, my dad never let us buy bread. He would always make it. Which I never understood why people just didn’t always do. It tastes so much better when it is home made and fresh. Free of preservatives, and catered to exactly what you expect out of your perfect loaf of bread. I think that many people are baking bread during the pandemic, because they have been given more time, to figure out how to enjoy life. Prior to this, many people would have believed they did not have enough time in the day to bake bread, so instead they would buy it, and make quick meals out of a pre-sliced loaf of bread. Most likely not thinking about the things that would change if they took the time to bake instead. Or maybe they believed they didn’t have time to learn, or that it would be too hard. then, everyone is stuck at home for weeks, being encouraged to not do anything, and are suddenly gifted with many more hours of the day, so they bake bread, and they realize it isn’t just a loaf of bread. It is love, and pleasure, and enjoyment, and happiness, and delicious, and put together and baked, and then consumed. And without knowing, they bring these things into their lives, and think it’s just a hobby to bake my own bread, but really, unknowingly, it is so much more than that.
In the very beginning of the podcast, they explore the roots of the word companion, and how it relates back to the breaking of bread with your companions. My entire view of the importance of bread in my life is based on this, and having no idea that this was the root of the word, it was very striking to me, and could not be more true.
ZOOM ART
A FRIENDLY CONNECTION
VIDEO NOTES
For each of the videos we were instructed to watch, they seem to have a similar levels of choreography, in the sense where the performer seems to have been given conceptual instruction, but not so much to the extent where what they are doing seems like an action that is orchestrated by someone else. Additionally, the videos containing more than one person doing the action, such as ‘Suck Teeth Compositions’, the performers preform individually, yet their actions contrast the other performers actions harmoniously, but still seem very natural to each person. This makes the video very easy to watch, and get lost in, because the flow of it grabs, and holds on the to attention of the viewers so effectively.
ZOOM ART PROPOSAL
When thinking about what I miss the most about my friends, it isn’t so much that I miss talking to them, but I miss just being in their presence and having their energy around me. My idea for the zoom art is to just coexist with someone I really miss, and haven’t seen in a very long time, because of the pandemic, the concept is to try to transfer friendly energy and friendly presence over zoom in a way that feels almost like they are here with me, and being alone physically, not so lonely. Similar to Factum Tremblay, shown in class, the idea is to have two people, connected over the internet, who also have a strong bond in real life. Unlike Factum Tremblay, the communication isn’t verbal, but instead, it is through someone’s energy, and just feeling close to that person, even though you are far away.
SOCIAL DISTANCING SELF PORTRAIT
Social Distancing Self Portrait
Nevan
—
“The pandemic has been really awful for my brain. As someone who struggles with my mental health regularly, having to stay indoors, and not see people has been a very intense struggle for me. The amount of people I have seen since this all started, I can count on one hand. As someone who uses going out as a coping mechanism, the results of having to stay inside, and in my own space, in my own head, have been less than good.”
—
For this assignment, I decided to take a Social Distance Self Portrait. I chose to be very honest with how it is going for me. Since the beginning of the pandemic, I have watched my mental health decline. More than I would like to admit, I am like this for the majority of the day. I find it very empowering to create art about my mental state and be very honest about it, because it makes something I despise and find exhausting about myself, into something I can appreciate.
NOTES WEEK 5:
Most videos go along with a blurb that seems somewhat optimistic about the pandemic
Still person, background movies – maybe have TV in back?
Neutral music or background noise
Self portrait?
BANNER
Minimalism Disturbance
Minimalism: The first banner I made reads ‘MINIMALISM’ in very small, simple letting and is displayed on a large empty wall on its own.
Disturbance: The second banner reads ‘DISTURBANCE’. It is hung in two places, and the end is strung but not hung. This implies that the banner has been disturbed, and is no longer hung in three places, as initially implied.
NOTES WEEK 3:
Possible banners:
boring art
minimalism- really small, on big empty wall
letters
passage of time- like a birthday banner
like a birthday banner
taken for granted
settler colonial violence
dematerialization – gradually becomes harder to see
not here
create a space
discrete colours
anxieties about death-rainbow coloured like happy birthday, a star at the beginning and end
dont be shy
black and white-black side white, white side black
moral obstacles
disturbance -half hanging, half falling, black
flowery
NOTES WEEK 3
Word art displayed on billboards in public is such an interesting, and effective way to make simple words have such a big meaning, and having it displayed so large really just throws all the meaning and thoughts behind it right into the faces of the public. Expanding on this, the public display of such an artwork, reaches a much more broad audience, because it includes a large amount of people who may not wander into a an art gallery, or come into contact with much art in their daily lives. One of my favourite pieces we explored was ‘The Last Billboard’. I found this to be one of the most intriguing pieces, because of its power, as well as its simplicity. I think this method of displaying art does exactly what it is supposed to, and really gets the message through to people, who may be ignorant to exploring the deeper meaning of other installations.
BOOK STACKS
Katchadorian specifically with their work on the series ‘Sorted Books’, gives new perspective and meaning to books, without any kind of description with the content inside them. Additionally, the series tells a story with multiple books, making the viewer almost no longer consider their individual contents anymore. Dymants work with his piece ‘One Billion Years’ used a similar approach, where the meaning of the work was not found in each individual book, but in the collection as a whole. Although the concept of both these works is very similar, as well as the execution being very similar, they give off completely different conclusions to each piece. Katchadorian uses the titles to write very short, poetic stories, that are worded in a somewhat choppy way, but still make sense, and flow nicely. Whereas Dymants tells a continuous, less poetic story over the past as well as the future, using book titles which are seemingly unrelated, but somehow connected and relevant, and keep track of time.
I took an approach similar to that of Katchadorian’s book stacks, making the title of the books create somewhat of a narrative between the books. To create this, I took all of the books I could find in my house and laid them out on the floor so I could see all of the titles. My library consisted of books I have used for classes over the past three years, as well as books I moved out of my childhood home with because I have an emotional connection to them, as well as books that I use for personal reference.
Stars, Planets, and Galaxies, Nightmares in the sky, Weirdos From Another Planet. It’s a Magical World.A Room with a View: The Golden Hour, Sun, Wind, and Light.The Politics of Hunger, The Neverending Story. We are all Completely Beside Ourselves.
NOTES WEEK 2
Books Stacks:
Poetic stack – have a common theme
Story telling stack
Stacked to read level – not lines up along the side
Regrettably, this super cool project came at a time when food was the last thing on my mind. For two weeks, I was in bed with fever and hardly any appetite. The next week after that, I was in the hospital, recovering, hooked up to an IV, gaining some appetite but being fed a healthy arrangement of hospital food three times a day. It was like being on an airplane for a week straight. With every meal came these funny little slips of paper. I saved a few, but not one for every meal I was there. Below are examples of breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
I found these papers quite charming and I hoped to do something with them, which is why I suppose I kept them. My initial idea was to use them as some kind of recipe/menu for my meals for a few days. But aside from it being hard to go out and obtain all these little snacks, I thought it would be a horrible waste, since now that I’m out of the hospital I’m quite enjoying eating whatever I choose.
So, I took inspiration from Aislinn Thomas’ Pancakes, and stacked them:
Good _________, Enjoy your __________
In doing this, I stumbled on a fairly good representation of what the last few weeks looked like to me: an overlay of semi-transparent days and meals all congealing into a hardly legible single piece of paper.
Aislinn Thomas’ A Stack of Pancakes to hold up the Ceiling (2015)
I think a lot of the best artworks fall into the section of art which some people complain about that “that’s not art, I could have done that”. Thomas’ pancakes definitely falls in that category. Her pancake tower is simple, and exists without reasoning. I find it funny that she did not even consider her reason for doing the work until her partner asked her if she did it because her ceiling had previously caved in, at which point she said maybe I did do it because of that… It speaks to the magic of art, and the way it seems to reach in past your conscious mind to bring you things you didn’t even know you were thinking about. Yeah, I could have made so many pancakes that I stacked them to my ceiling and let them start rotting, but I wouldn’t have and I didn’t.
Bread for me has always been a breakfast food, and meal in its own. For whatever reason, if given a slice of bread on the side of a meal, say for lunch or dinner, I never quite got into the habit of eating them together; using the bread to wipe off the leftover sauces on the plate the way I saw my mom do. When I was a younger, picky eater, bread was the only thing I would eat on vacation. We would be in the Dominican Republic, with a full buffet of delicious cooked food, and I would grab a bun and some butter.
A more meaningful relationship I and my family have to bread is to a sweet Romanian bread called Cozonac. My mom makes it twice a year: on her late father’s birthday, and for the holidays. Making cozonac takes a full day of work of mixing and flattening and rising, then my mom braids three strands of dough and puts them into a pan to bake. Normally if she’s making it, she’ll make enough dough for 3 loaves. The result is a sweet bread with cocoa, nut, and raisin swirls throughout. I grew up eating cozonac and look forward to it every year.
Bread has never been an addition to my meals, but something I would eat alone or not at all, so I wouldn’t consider it a comfort food nor the center of a meal. I think my comfort food is spaghetti, with butter and feta cheese, which I suppose is similar to bread in composition.
I think baking, like knitting, is an old hobby that appealed to people in the pandemic for several reasons. For one, it is a skill, and something you can work to improve on, which sets up a sort of psychological ‘ladder’ for one to climb. Next, it takes up a lot of time, which is important since we all have nothing but time on our hands. And lastly, when you’re done, you have something to show from it: something you can tangibly grab and consume as part of your day. In short, pandemic baking seems to have become so popular because of the way it takes up so much time, without feeling like that time was wasted.
For the video art, I was inspired in reading Castro’s article and the way they spoke on how Zoom affects our days. Making another appearance this semester, I asked my partner to stay on Zoom with me for the first few hours of our day, despite us being in the same room. We stayed muted and I told him to close the tab so he could focus on doing his work, and I did the same. Castro speaks about having this ‘immediate’ or sometimes laggy feedback of ourselves over Zoom – we can sometimes hear our voices bounce back, and we can always see ourselves in the little square at the bottom. In meetings, our attention, already so weirdly divided, is also in part taken up by our own mirror-image which looks back at us through the screen.
My original plan was to create two videos following the exact same format, but to see what happens if we kept the tabs open rather than closing them. The video posted was around 2-3 hours, sped up and condensed into a 12 minute video (arbitrarily chosen, as I played with the playback speed to find something not too slow but not too fast). I meant for the subject to be mine/my partner’s attention; which you can see through darting eyes across screens, or times when the screen gets no attention at all. Unfortunately, I got sick shortly after filming this video so the second iteration didn’t come to be.
I had hoped to see a difference between the two, noticeable only to those who have been immersed in Zoom for the past few months. I wondered if, while having an image of myself on the screen, the little changes in behaviour (i.e. looking often at myself, adjustment of hair/clothes) would read on the video as purposeful, or if it wouldn’t even change the outcome.
NOTES:
Pipilloti Rist – Be Nice To Me (Flatten 04) 2008: The insistent, almost literal “in your face” way in which the video is filmed is hard not to immediately notice. It’s gross, uncomfortable, and weirdly real. By using the glass in front of the camera, Rist affects the viewers by making us feel as though it is our own eyeballs that she’s rubbing against. We all know the feeling of pushing, pulling skin; so Rist puts us in a space where we are viewers of the act but also know exactly how it feels to be in her situation.
Suck Teeth Compositions: What strikes me is the semi-musical compositions that the artist probably spent a long time considering and editing in succession. I believe as a viewer these videos affect you in one of two ways, and it is extremely dependent on your race and upbringing. On one hand, as you watch you feel as if you’re on the receiving end of the sounds. Even though you know you’re watching a video of strangers, you can’t help but take it personally. On the other, (I imagine, if you are part of the black community) the videos are like a dictionary of sounds: you may be able to dissect each sound and place it as ‘disdain’ or ‘annoyance’ and so on, with each sound being different to the “trained ear”. The videos present a form of language that doesn’t need words to be understood.
“I’m tired I don’t want to do work”“We should probably clean”
I’ve been staying with my boyfriend for the past two months and a bit. We only leave the house to go grocery shopping, or to walk around the neighbourhood when we find time. Everyday, we wake up to the alarm ringing at 8:00 AM, then it’s head underwater until our work for the day is done. Write some notes, take a small break. Finish that assignment, cause the next one is due soon. Is it already 2:00? We should probably eat. Then back to work. Suddenly it’s 8:00 PM, 12 hours have passed, so we start to power down. Shower, climb into bed, “goodnight”, “goodnight”, and we start over again the next day.
I chose to take my two videos portraits of us in our everyday spots. The concept of Adad Hannah’s video portrait fit in quite nicely with this moment, since we’re stuck in this moment; for now. Like a lot of his distance portraits of strangers reflect, society as a whole is stuck holding its breath until the ‘video’ is over and we can move again, but we don’t know when that’ll be. My partner and I are stuck in the same way as everyone else is right now, and as students, we’re stuck in our daily schedule as well. Not much changes from day-to-day, maybe the clothes and the content of the work, but suddenly it’s nearing the end of October when we could’ve sworn we only just hit September.
For my banner, I found that a lot of the phrases/words I put together from the article related to our current situation, so I decided to go with one of those. The words I found play off at least two meaning of “here”. Firstly – not that we do it much in university anymore, but – is the use of “here” as an answer for role call in school. Second is the physical use of the word. We are present in classes, but we are not in classes.
Nadia Myre’s Indian Act (2002) used traditional Native American techniques of beading to erase all 56 pages of the Federal Government’s Indian Act. The pages were mounted onto cloth to facilitate the beading process. The page is beaded in red and any “words” appear as white beads, leaving behind a facsimile of a document, where words are just lines of colour.
Lenka Clayton’s (collab. with Jon Rubin) Fruit and Other Things (2018) project took the written records of rejected artworks from the Carnegie International (10,632 artworks) and turned each into a hand-lettered text painting. Each painting was exhibited for a day, then given away to visitors.
In both cases, Clayton and Myre are using documents as the basis of their art. In Clayton’s case, the documents seem to be a serendipitous discovery of titles with a certain history; whereas for Myre, the Indian Act holds a great amount of weight and importance to her and her community.
Clayton’s method of work takes the idea of an image, shortened into a title, and transformed so that the words themselves become the artwork. To viewers (or readers), the imagery behind the title can only be imagined; bringing to mind questions of the visual importance of art. What are we missing when we read this title without an image to accompany it? Would it have been better with its image? Does that even matter?
Myre goes the opposite direction. In her case, these words that have been written so long ago, about her people, and have caused so much destruction to their way of living, need to be erased. Using traditional beading, the Indian Act is transformed into a piece of Native American art. Myre utilizes irony as part of her message, and allows (or hopes) for a sort of healing process to begin, whether within herself or within her community.
I have a handful of books in my student house in Guelph, which I use for various reasons. There are many picture/encyclopedia-type books, art books, poetry books, and fiction books which I’ve read so many time their spines are cracked. I found it hard to look for titles to string together into coherent messages, so rather than look for “inconsistencies”, as Katchadourian did, I found a consistency. Nearly all my books start with the word “The” (which I doubt is uncommon among book collections), so I arranged them so each “the” lines up down the middle. Taking inspiration from Dyment, I decided to block out the background with black.
Julia Cserveny, Used, 2020.
The titles of my rather small collection of books did not bring me much further inspiration, so I stacked all paperback books and lined them up flush left to create this image, which ended up being a nice composition of the various horizontal topographies of my books.
Julia Cserveny, Exist, 2020.
Trying to go in another direction again with my third image, I wanted to make use of space/emptiness. Ripped straight from google, Existentialism “explores the nature of existence by emphasizing experience of the human subject.” In this image, the book is a placeholder for the human subject; metaphorically alone on the shelf, and all meaning must be created by itself.
These times always make me think about where we be without the generosity and kindness of heart for each other. Thank you for yours during this short adventure and challenge. If you want to follow me I am now on Instagram @gnbelland. Here are a few last food art “bites”, enjoy!
Jackson Pollock move over!
Ginger Bread Flowers and Flows
Stay Safe
WEEK XI-X Morning Delights:It’s not what you think it is.
Morning Delights: November 12-19th
Morning Delights: November 16-23
Morning Delights: November 24-30
Morning Delights: December 1-4
WEEK VIII FOOD ART AND MEMORY
REFLECTIONS
As I read over my notes from this week’s reading, it became apparent to me that food was more to me than just a physical thing or an object resulting from complex process of production and distribution. As I looked at the prehistoric tracings of hunting animal figures created by our ancestral family, I asked myself what was so important that it warranted leaving images of hunting for food on cave walls? Aside from food as a survival imperative, why do humans have a more than a passing fascination with food? Throughout the history of art, food as the object and/or process of food gathering transcends all the physical and socio-cultural attributes of the actual object. Food is an ontological force and as a form of art becomes an expression of humanity through its physical, socio-cultural and spiritual existence. Throughout our relatively short time on this planet, man has drawn, painted, sculpted, recorded and mediated food in innumerable ways. Food and art have become inseparable as we see in the following works: Antonin’s food as sculpture, Baldwin’s photo-documentation of breakfast, and Calle’s food as color. Food as art may have had its origins in the Palaeolithic pictographs of the hunt, but it has also evolved into an expression of memory and spiritual symbolism such as in DaVinci Last Supper or as a memento mori to what sustains us, as in Hickox food as compost. Even in popular media such as reality food shows or magazines such as the Smithsonian, food as art is recognized and given serious attention. “Food has always is played a role in art: Stone Age cave painters used vegetable juice and animal fats as binding ingredients in their paints, and the Egyptians carved pictographs of crops and bread on hieroglyphic tablets.…¨. “Contemporary artists [Sterbak, Acconci, Chang] have used food to make statements: political (especially feminist), economic, and social”. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/food-art-cultural-travel-180961648/
“As inseparable as it is from our daily existence, food and the making of it are underscored by longer reflections and shorter epiphanies about life’s commonalities such as love, sorrow, nostalgia, growing up, the good, the bad and the ugly, all of which becomes a part and parcel of your being and becoming”… “As an antidote to this panic-induced present, where the future remains shrouded in uncertainty, we ponder over the intersection of these apparently incongruous worlds of art and food, to suggest how they both are undergirded by the same ingredients of vision, revision, redressal and transformation.” https://www.artfervour.com/post/artists-cookbook-deciphering-the-secret-ingredient?utm_campaign=SMO_Artists’ Cookbook&utm_medium=
My claim is this: all forms of food art are meant to leave a mark containing meanings beyond the food as object and the process required to obtain the food itself. This mark is intended to reveal something else, a symbolic meaning, a memory of the food object and of the event surrounding the food. This memory also opens a connection to the future, a transcendent meaning of food and the context that surrounds it. The following proposed projects are based on this claim.
THREE PROPOSALS
Morning Delight. No not what you think it is.
Sunday morning treat
“Baldwin typically engages gastronomic culture with the playful aim of subverting the expectations concealed within social rituals of gustatory consumption in the company of others.”
This project is a documentation modeled on Dean Baldwin’s work Attempts At an Inventory. The project will document the daily food treats the author and his wife enjoy every morning immediately after waking. The intent to document this daily event is also a means to record the first activities of the day. While it marks the break of the night’s fast it also marks the beginning of a new day and provides an opportunity to commune together before the start of all the activities of the day.
The Family Celebration Tree This project proposes to gather family photographs in which the sharing of food has been involved. Using those photographs, a timeline collage will be prepared using photographs of significant family events such as birthdays, anniversaries, marriages, family gatherings and other events of significance. It proposes to be a record for the genealogy of events that have created and will continue to create our family.
Greg & Pat Wedding 1972
Mèmere Bellerive’s Tourtière The intention of this video is to show how the Christmas Tourtière is made. Using my maternal grandmother’s recipe, the video will show how, four generations later, the tourtière is an act of remembrance. Though she never said “do this in remembrance of me”, the Christmas Tourtière has become an annual remembrance of my grandmother – a living testament of the love she had for us and which we can all share during the Christmas season.
Memère Bellerive’s tourtière
-FIN-
WEEK VII BREAD
REFLECTIONS ON BREAD When I reflect on bread and the questions raised about bread in the podcast, it brought to mind and triggered many deep personal memories.
I grew up in a large French-Canadian, Roman Catholic family. A large family meant my mother was frequently in need of help or away in hospital having another baby, nine in all. The help came from Grand’Mere Bellerive, my mother’s mom, aunts on my father’s side, and from Mrs. Corbett. Mrs. Corbett was a big-boned, buxom, silver-haired Scottish lady, who, on the many occasions my mother was in the maternity ward, was our sitter and the maker of our daily bread. Her large muscular arms and ham sized hands would bring the yeast, sugar, salt and the flour together into a living thing. She would then knead this being to create enough bread for all the family to last two days. On alternate days from bread making, she created her masterpieces, cinnamon buns; large, thick rolls filled with cinnamon and brown sugar, stuffed with raisins and walnuts, then smothered with butter icing. She would wrap these in wax paper and send them with us for school lunch. I remember licking the wax paper to be certain that none of that heavenly goodness was wasted.
My Grand’Mere Bellerive was also a force in the baking department. She was a small gentle woman whose strength was in her heart. She taught me how to bake, and this skill came in handy especially at Christmas. She showed me how to make the French Canadian festive season meat pie- the tourtiere. I still make it today with my daughters and grandchildren using her recipe. Since I was born on Christmas day, she also showed me how to bake my own birthday cake, just in case my mom didn’t have time! She also showed me how to bake the humble Galette or bannock, a simple fur-trade era scone-like bread which could be made in forty minutes. The Belland crew was going through twenty one loaves a week by that time. The Galette recipe served us well over the years, many a time as a snack on car trips and as the staple on camping expeditions.
I knew much of the information in the podcast. I knew the history of wheat, and the history of transition from hunter gatherer tribes to a society based on agriculture. I know bread has been used and abused as an economic, political and religious force. It has been an instrument of prosperity and of war. Bread has been the double edged sword of development and evolution of western civilisations. I also understand the argument that the development of agriculture and hence bread was one of the worse mistakes of humankind, but I also think it’s a little late for those arguments. The podcast also confirmed by belief humanity needs to act in ways which are fundamentally different if we as a species want different social and economic outcomes.
What brought out the strongest emotions for me was hearing the Gregorian chant, the Hebrew prayer and the spoken words which were used as the backdrop for the story of bread. This music, especially the choral works, wove a rich tapestry of the theological, spiritual, symbolic and the ontological relations that mankind has with bread. My Catholic upbringing instilled in me the sense of a transcendence that the bread taken at communion was more than an unleavened wafer of bread. It was a communion with our faith and social community, but it was also a spiritual communion with mankind. Today when I share bread, I am often moved by a sense of spiritual communion. When I share bread or a gallette at a meal or on a hike with family, friends or other travellers I know I am not the only one in need of sustenance on the trail of life.
For me, bread is a basic physical necessity, but it can also be a spiritual connector with others. This COVID time is a time of stress, threat, uncertainty and isolation. During these times, we search for those things which will bring us comfort and relief. The act of making and sharing bread which gives us physical, emotional and spiritual sustenance bringing us closer to each other. Bread can be a source of physical strength and it is a powerful means by which we can be together, strengthening family bonds or supporting others in this difficult time.
Grand-mère Bellerive’s recipe for La Galette(Bannock)
Take 3 cups flour, 2 tbsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. salt , 1/4 cup sugar, 1/2 cup of lard, 1/2 cup raisins, 1 cup plus or minus of milk or water (enough to make the galette doughy). If it is too runny add flour, if too thick add water or milk. You can substitute other fillings such as jam, marmalade or cheese. The lard can be substituted with butter or margarine.
In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Work the lard into the flour until it is lumpy. Mix in the filling. Make a well in the centre. Add water and stir together with a fork or your hands. With floured hands, work the dough into a ball, knead a few times and press into a circular form. You can use a greased cast iron frying pan to fry the bread over a fire. Bake till no dough sticks to a toothpick or a twig poked into the thickest part of the loaf. If you don’t have a campfire frypan, cut and roll out the dough into strips. Wrap the strips around a green stick and roast over the campfire coals. For a special breakfast treat, cook the dough till golden on the outside, then finish by wrapping bacon strips around the gallette. Use toothpicks or thin green twigs to hold bacon to the twists of gallette.
Bannock Biscuits Bear Lake Camp New Year 1976Back Yard Galette COVID 2020 cook off
Bread Poetry
https://www.lukejerram.com/breadpoetry/ This was a project, by British artist, Luke Jerram, before COVID. Bread poetry is a collaboration between the artist, poets from around the UK and Hobbs House Bakery. The weekly winning poem got baked into Hobbs House bread using rice paper and could be bought in their retail outlets. The following bread poem was one sources for my reflection.
Notes
pg. 1pg. 2-3pg. 4
-FIN-
WEEK VII ZOOM
What actually went down.
This video was inspired by the articles of Vivian Castro and the Rosalind Krauss. After some experimentation and technical consultation with Nathan S. I was able to simultaneously record a Zoom meeting with myself. I used two separate email addresses and I recorded the meeting simultaneously on my iMac and I phone.
I had original intended to do a question and answer format, however the more I reflected on the works of Krauss and Castro and with further exploration of the myth of Narcissi and the psycho-pathology of narcissistic behaviour, I changed my approach to the content and format of the video. Zoom is an interpersonal personal encounter medium for meetings, but it is also an intimate and artistic medium as proposed by Krauss. Using the meeting technology of Zoom, the video records an emulation of the behaviour of Zoom meeting participants described by Castro and the narcissistic outcomes of video technology as an art medium as described by Krauss.
I think what has caused me to pursue this exploration was how the medium becomes an intrinsic part of the message. While I had developed a shot list and reminder cues for doing this piece of work, it ended up being done in a one-time shot format with minimal post-production mediation. One of the key insights of doing this project for me was, as the artist/creator or as the host/participant, I created a reflection but also a reflex towards of each the personas captured in the video. I experienced firsthand that while the media was a tool, it was the “absolute feedback” that Castro describes. The video media reflects oneself as self and yet also creates another self which is a reflex and reflection created by the media. As Castro says of Zoom meetings, we are surrounded by ourselves. In this circle we become trapped into being a part of the medium and the message simultaneously.
“THE MEDIA IS NARCISSISM”
Inspired by Rosa Lind Krauss “Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism”.1976.
Notes
pg.1pg.2-3pg.4-5pg.6-7pg.8
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WEEK VI Zoom Video Proposal:
Conversations with Moi.
In her seminal critical paper on the use of video as an art medium, Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism (1976), Rosaline Krauss raises the question. “Yet, what would it mean to say, “the medium of video is narcissism?””. She prefaced the question after viewing Vito Acconci’s work Centres (1971) claiming Acconci’s image of self-regard “is configured a narcissism so endemic to works…it is a condition of the entire genre.” Vivian Castro (2020) claims that the video art of the 1970s could help explain the “Zoom fatigue” experienced during the period of the COVID pandemic by at home workers. Zoom and other digital meeting platforms with their attendant staring at faces in thumbnail boxes, continuously pulls the viewer to the center of a fixed frame image. She argues that while there is a type of intimacy in a face centred, fixed frame meetings they are not the same as face to face, person to person meetings because body language and other non-verbal clues are masked or absent. This causes more isolation, alienation and frustration in participants of digital meetings. Castro used Krauss’s theory that the immediate and absolute feedback inherent in the video medium surrounds us with ourselves. The screen and camera create a narcissistic circle between the object and subject of the videos. Here is a simultaneous projection and reception of our own self-image, the moi of narcissism . Krauss states that this “reflection and reflexiveness are a doubling back of our consciousness “onto themselves, creating a narcissism between them. Castro concludes that being surrounded by ourselves, immobilized in a video frame computer screen leads us to social isolation creating a disconnect between our thoughts and what we are able to express. Castro describes this as an imprisonment of ourselves in our own self-image: ““ bureaucratic home workers, sadder and sadder encapsulated in our safe homes…staring at squares on the screen.” She concludes that “Video art already predicted it.””.
The purpose of this project is to explore Krauss’ question “what would it mean” if as she claims, “the medium of the video is narcissism”” and Castro’s assertion that our bodies are “trapped in the square of Zoom meetings…”. “We are on the screen, cornered and surrounded by ourselves.”
For this work I will simultaneously record two videos of a single individual, who, in the course of the video will discuss the questions raised by Krauss and Castro. The recordings will present one individual as two: myself and “moi”. Both will be recorded on Zoom. The Zoom meeting with the two selves will be recorded using a second camera from behind, whilst showing the other self on the primary Zoom camera and screen. The other self will face the primary screen of the Zoom meeting and will respond to questions from the other self by turning to the second camera and answering or commenting as an alternative “moi”. “Moi” will then turn back to the front and respond to the statements made by my alter self the other “moi”-who is in the meeting using the second camera and screen. The object and the subject will be trapped in a circular tautology which is described by Krauss and Castro.
Works Referred to
Krauss, Rosalind. “Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism.” October, vol. 1, 1976, pp. 51–64. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/778507. Accessed 1 Nov. 2020.
Hannah’s video’s follows in the tradition of the tableau vivant. Hannah makes use of modern digital video media to make tableau vivant portraits, documenting observations of the affect of the COVID 19 pandemic on individuals. The videos records the time of pandemic beginning March 2020 and documents the ongoing impact of this global event on individuals. Ultimately the videos are a time line , an intimate personal tableau of all those affected by the virus.
In contrast to other global pandemics the effects and affects of COVID can be seen virtually by anyone using Instagram. These virtual video portraits are not of a targeted segment of society but a documentary panorama, of the individuals who volunteered to be portrayed to express the affect COVID 19 was having on them at a particular time. This is broad and diverse canvas of those individuals affected psychologically and emotionally. In doing this over an ongoing time period Hannah creates tableau vivant which is a reflection all of us, individually and collectively as we live through these uncharted times.
The videos frame the individual within the confines of their daily lives. The intimacy of the video portrait lives in the daily activities of those persons and those close to them. While the subjects are posed, there is no sense of artificiality or banality of the daily events the subject live every day of the pandemic. Even in the most informal of poses we still get a sense of the tension and stresses on each of the individual person. The video are not mediated or contrived, nor is this street photography, there is no decisive moment no singular image. Each frame of the video is a moment and the video is a chain of moments. In that chain we see reflections of ourselves.
While the videos are shot from the recommended safe social distance this gap becomes filled with intimacy. The personal worries, concerns , the daily tension of uncertainty and the unknown which the pandemic created is seen in the eyes, behind the mask, in the furtive looks of each individual portrait. As the project and the pandemic progresses we witness a change in the demeanour of the individuals and the social distance bubbles of individuals created during the pandemic. In the later videos there is noticeably less formality. The poses are less rigid, a state of relaxation , perhaps habituation or acceptance of the new reality is visible.
The full frame portraits captures moments which are not historic, they are the seconds and minutes of life with COVID 19. They track and mark the changes the virus has imposed on our every day social norms. Over the time of pandemic, the collective of the videos becomes a larger tableau which is witness to the changes collective behaviours. In the beginning phase of the pandemic personal fear and anxiety is expressed in a the tension of the poses, eye movement, gestures of strength or resistance . This tension creates a relationship of common feeling between the viewer and the subjects. As the initial Covid phase crested and waned, we see a less rigid attitude in the poses, the individuals and bubbles are more congenial. In these later portraits the images appear less fearful, fewer frowning brows and tense stances, cautious smiles are visible, movement appears less restricted as life is slowly re-opened. Is this an expression of acceptance or a resignation to a new norm? Are we becoming accustomed or tamed by the virus?
Video Portraits
“When you find yourself at the bottom of the slide, maybe it’s just time to rest. After all, your world has slowed down with you.” Pat B.“With Covid it seems at times like total panic all at once we seem to know everything and we know nothing” Jana C.“You get use to wearing the mask but you can’t touch or get close when playing or sit together for lunch that’s depressing”. Nolan C.¨The idea of a keeping to bubble as part of a strategy to prevent the spread of the virus is about respect, the respect you have for others in preventing the spread of the disease to them and keeping yourself safe. We aren’t going to beat this thing unless we all work together and respect the limitations this puts on everybody. ” Pat B.
Notes
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WEEK III: A Banner Week
The banners produced this week were inspired by two phrases in the ar Canadian Arts article Dirty Words : Interesting. The first banner is adapted from Joie T. Arcand work Neon Channel and inspired by the Cree syllabics translated as “Don’t Be Shy”. What intrigued me about the words were the syllabics written using a neon sign which unless you can read Cree could mean anything. The translated phrase Don’t be Shy could also have multiple meaning depending on the context. Arcand intends the Cree words to be simple and gentle reminder to the indigenous community not be shy about their language and their identity, She also uses the words to be an invitation to non indigenous people to not be shy about building a relationship and future with the native peoples of Canada. In this banner I used a series of LED light panels which are placed in the stairwell of our “Sweet” where we live . The light panel can be programmed to change colours. I placed red coloured Cree syllabics over the pink coloured panels and then placed the phrase “Don’t Be Shy” around the free space of the light panel form. I selected a clean non-serif type style and used various colours for each letter. The palette outside text is intended to create a sense of calm through the use of tones of the primary colours of blue and yellow. The pink tone can be modulated using the application of the panels. By changing the color of the light panel I can emphasize the feeling of welcoming and sense of arrival to our home. This modulation of colour also change the hue of the surrounding letters making them disappear and re-appear, like shyness and sense of welcoming to our “Sweet” place.
The second phrase is “Ongoing Temporality”, a descriptive term describing the detached, removed or cool attitude of the abstract and conceptual art of the 1960’s and 70′. At first I thought the terms were contradictory, an oxymoron of sorts. The more I reflected on them it became apparent that the words are opposite sides of the same coin. This idea of contradiction brought to mind the nature of the COVID virus and the pandemic time we are now living in and through. Both the virus and the pandemic are ongoing and temporary. I used the mask to represent both sides of the contradiction. One side in outward, the pandemic, the blue mask, the white side is inward , the virus . Thus one mask is the ongoing, the other the inside is temporary. We are caught in the temporality of both. I chose white paper and a cool palette of colors to suggest the subtle nature of the virus being invisible but also very visible in its effect. It masks a potential severity but does not mask its contagion. We can contain it with our masks, just as we contain so many other vulnerabilities with different kinds of masks. COVID has changed our ongoing temporality. As every moment is temporal and and ongoing the meaning and the effects change within the internal and external context of those changes.
Don’t Be Shy
This attempt is confusing because the text gets lost in all the other elements in the picture.
Ongoing Temporality
This second attempt is less busy than the Don’t Be Shy piece. The focus is unclear and a bit confusing. Is it the boy in the window or the banner that is the point of interest? In addition the banner itself is confusing with all the colors and masks. These detract from the text.
After thinking about the feed back I received, I changed my approach simplifying and eliminating everything that could be could be considered extraneous. All but one of the texts are from various painted rocks that have been placed throughout the neighbourhood since the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic. Though these are part of a larger photographic documentary project, I thought many of the text could stand alone as maxims about the pandemic. These simple maxims get to the heart of what COVID is all about. The panels could be read separately or together.
COVID 19 Maxims
Notes
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WEEK II : Text as Art.
Text as art can be traced back to medieval times. Think of The Book of Kells a manuscript where illumination creates gold embossed text surrounded by images of vines, angels and demons. Fast forward to the post-modern period where a growing number of artists incorporate text into their artistic practice. From the collage work of Picasso to the surreal work of Magritte’s This is not a pipe and the Brillo box pop art of Andy Warhol, text is recontextualized and restructured into art. It was not just in art but also in literature that text and language were restructured. In poetry, e.e. cummings changed the physical structure of his poems and Gerald Manley Hopkins reframed the sound structure his poems.
When text is the art beyond the words.
The change of text to art questioned preconceived notions of what art is and opened the windows on new concepts on the use of the written word, creating a visual language not meant to be read but to be viewed new visual language went beyond the letters and the literal text. What was once perceived as letters, or words with a singular meaning became signifiers of multiple meaning. The signifiers, text, letters and numbers were recontextualized and restructured to evoke uncomfortable truths, and to create tension, ambivalence, satire and irony. Often these texts were meant to reveal and protest against social and cultural inequities and injustices. This art form was expressed using a wide range of media from performance to posters, to billboards, T-shirts, buttons and bumper stickers. It appropriated many techniques from advertising, the graphic arts and, more recently, digital media. Meant to provoke and often to shock, this art had the capacity for a much wider distribution. Ultimately it has become an interrogation of and reflection of our society and culture.
Joi T. Arcand and Nadia Myre use text to refocus the viewer perceptions and cultural biases about Canada’s indigenous people. The prejudices and racial injustices created in Canada’s colonial past are still deeply rooted in our present day culture and behaviours. These works call that past and the present into question. Alisha Wormsley, an Afro-American artist, uses a public advertising billboard as her medium to proclaim an uncomfortable future for the passersby. Each artist uses a particular medium. Specific colours, fonts, type scale and design space are used in subtle and not so subtle expressions of lost identity, social injustice and racial inequities. But as Arcand, Myre and Wormsley show, their pieces can also be proclamations of hope. Each artist creates a visual callout to the viewer to shift their beliefs from the past and to imagine a different future for indigenous and black people.
Joi T. Arcand
Main Street Sign
Joi T. Arcand is a First Nations artist from Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. In her Here on Earth Future Series she creates and photographs streetscapes with Cree signage. Cree is a syllabic language using a system of phonemic spelling invented by James Evan, a white missionary in 1830. Arcand interjects syllabics Cree onto street and business signage to create a new optic of and for Indigenous people. It creates, as she says, “an alternative present”[1] and in doing so she presents a radical hope that we can all move beyond the colonial injustices of the past. The thick rounded borders of the form, shape and glyphs of the syllabic texts are in a pink hue. The pink represents kindness and tranquillity. The syllabics even though angular evoke a sense of flow and a unifying geometry binds the text together. The texts are signage on ordinary buildings found in the sparse streetscapes of prairie reserves and towns. The scale of the signage fits over existing signs and is not overstated. Yet these new signs change the landscape, creating an indigenous presence in that space. They evoke a prairie landscape that is filled with a different meaning; a meaning that is not bound to the logic of terra nullius (that place that exists without history or politics prior to European Settlement) and to the myth of Indian savagery and degeneracy.1 The signs are signifiers that these places are of the Cree. They are indicators that exist in a place beyond colonialism. The simplicity of the shapes and the muted hues create a visual field which interrupts us yet welcomes us to the threshold of “a radical hope,… a new kinship and a new world making praxis”1.
Nadia Myre
Indian Act 1876 -2006
Nadia Myreis also a First Nation artist, an Algonquin of the Itigan Zibi band in Miniwaki, Quebec. She reclaimed her Native status in 1997. Her status, hence, her otherness, as it is for all people of First Nations and Metis ancestry, is governed by the Indian Act of 1876. This singular piece of British colonial legislation still governs every aspect of native life and identity. Her work Indian Act is a piece of beadwork created over the first fifty-six pages of the legislative text. By overwriting that text, she reclaims in a small part the identity of Canada’s indigenous people. The bead work replaces the words of the Indian Act with white beads and the red beads replace the white space surrounding the text . The beads are symbolic as they speak to the value of the bead which was used as a trading currency during the fur trade. Myre interchanges this currency for the values of colonialism imbedded within the words of the Act. The words then become white currency and the space surrounding the text is the red currency. Myre reframes and recontextualizes the meaning of the words in the Act. She deconstructs the Act, flipping the colors and using the beads to show the red space as First Nations territory that was lost due to the broken promises since the passing of the Act. This deconstruction illustrates how the colonizer misappropriated the indigenous understanding of the words and used the words to colonize and suppress Canada’s First Nations. While the beadwork piece is a modern artifact, it redacts the white words and reappropriates their symbolic power. The red beads recreate space that was lost by the First Nations people. The piece strikes me with its simplicity of color, red and white, and the beads, once an article of value and power, which are used here to act in opposition to the value of the legal words and white spaces of the Act. It is a modern palimpsest covering the original text, demonstrating the power of erasing the past using a traditional material. As a form of Braille, the text can be felt and the energy in the text is sensed through the space occupied by each color. In this way Myre has created a symbol of radical hope. The past must be written over in order for there to be hope for the future.
Alisha Wormsley
The Last Billboard
Alisha Wormsley, in her work The Last Billboard, expresses the theme of radical hope again. A 36 ft. long black billboard adorns the roof of a building in Philadelphia. The text in large white block type letters reads, “ There are black people in the future”. The scale of the piece, the placement atop a building, the white text against the stark black background are different from the thousands of advertising roof top billboards across the city of brotherly love. It also proclaims a future. This simple and eloquent text brings forth an uncomfortable prophecy. The voices of the Black people are rising, claiming a radical hope for their people in America.
Arcand, Myre and Wormsley, through their individual text art, engage the viewer in the present while offering them an “alternative present” which at the same time points to a future narrative.
My book shelf is an archive, a memory of moments lived, past and present. The books are bound through time, they are links to experiences, thoughts, people and places. It is a reflection of my history and the history of those closest to me.
My family history links me to voices past and present. Individual and collective memories. Conflict of cultures and world views form the past and a present reality.
Icelandic ties.
Iceland is my wife’s ancestral place. Living in the shadow of fire and ice created tensions and fear. In the 1880’s Icelanders moved away from winter, darkness, starvation. Their struggles gave voice to a culture and its people, here in Canada. Could the COVID-19 do the same?
We are not ourselves.
A life intertwined, a long conversation flowing through the years, something gets lost but memories persist. We are different and time has made it more so. Each thread of our relationship runs through the warp of time and our lives, knotted in memory. In this stack the ideas expressed above seem to get lost because of the vertical stacking of each book
Words
Words are not all they are made out to be. Is devotion made more powerful through words prayed on our knees? The stacking of the books was an experiment on stacking books vertically in a horizontal plane. The relationship between the three words, power, knees and devotions gets lost in all the text of the first title.
My photographic eye first try.
In this first attempt I realize that the four books express too many ideas. It misses the my main point of what I was trying to express about the photographer eye which sees the light as form and metaphor beyond the physical reality.
Photographer’s eye 2
In this stack I simplified the message by removing any extraneous information including the photo and I think this gets the message across more effectively.
Harmsworth’s Universal Encyclopedia 1921
Harmsworth claimed to contain all the knowledge of the universe in 21 volumes. The problem today is too much information. It has become noise, the challenge is how to decipher the knowledge from noise. I think this stack conveys the idea. It could be improved upon with a black foreground and background to make it appear that both are floating in an ether.
For this piece, I decided to document a slice of tomato every day for five days to see how it changed. The tomato stayed unbothered on a styrofoam plate in my kitchen. It was interesting to watch the changes each day, and I wonder what would have happened if I didn’t have to get rid of it.
Food That Reminds Me of My Family (One with illustrations, and one without).
Food That Reminds Me of My Family, 2020. Victoria Abballe
Here is a conceptual food portrait of the members of my immediate family. These were the first food items that came to mind when I thought of each family member.
A dozen of butter tarts for my mom because she bakes these every other week – I swear
A single shot of espresso for my dad because he has at least one a day.
A gluten-free loaf of bread for my sister Laura because she has a gluten intolerance.
A steamed head of broccoli for my sister Abbey because she loves broccoli and I had a vivid memory of her once cooking me some in her apartment.
And lastly, a cup of coffee for my oldest sister Emilee, but it has to have a bunch of cream and sugar in it.
Tuesday, October 27th, 2020. Notes/Ideas for Video Art
IDEA 1) Around 5-10 people eating an apple with a blank wall behind them. The only thing they’re focusing on is eating that apple. The video will continue until everyone is finished eating their apple.
Did you know there’s a right way, and a wrong way to eat an apple? Neither did I, until I saw these videos.
IDEA 2) 5-10 people Miming each other. One person will start to make a movement, then the next person will copy the movement, then it will be passed on to the next person, etcetera. This will go on until the leader stops their gestures. OR it can be like broken telephone and the leader will make gestures to reference a sentence/ short story.
IDEA 3) Using the tiny zoom screen to put on makeup instead of looking in a mirror.
IDEA 4) Throwing an object (like a ball) to one person back and fourth. To make this work, there should be one person with each artist in real life throwing the ball to the artist so it looks like the ball is passing between two screens.
IDEA 5) 5 people playing different songs on different instruments.
IDEA 6) 5 people taking their computer for a walk around their house. (This may become too chaotic)
IDEA 7) Reading a section of a book with someone. (Aloud or silently)
Adad Hannah & Social Distancing Portraits
Here are my three social distancing portraits I have created in the style of Adad Hannah. I shot my subjects for one minute straight as if they were posing for a photograph. Similar to Hannah’s, my videos were all shot outside on a DSLR camera, about 5-10 meters away. (I have updated my videos and taken out the distracting music)
Social Distancing Video Portrait 01. Eileen (gardening edition).
“Quarantine has given me the opprotunity to spend time in the garden and take care of my plants.”
Social Distancing Video Portrait 02. Max (photography edition).
“I picked up a new hobby that I have grown to love over quarantine. Photography. It got me outside in the fresh air instead of staying cooped up inside.”
Social Distancing Video Portrait 03. Victoria (an extra edition).
“Here’s me posing for a photograph for one minute straight. Nothing too special about it except my eyes wouldn’t stop watering.”
Notes from Huddle 1Notes from Huddle 1Victoria Abballe, Tea From Madagascar, 2020.Victoria Abballe, Wonderful Stars, 2020.
These books (some of which were generously lent to me by my roommate) come together to create a sense of an imaginative starry sky at night.
Victoria Abballe, Staying Alive by Chaotic Sketching, 2020.
These book titles together pretty much sum up my existence. I can’t live if there’s no sketching involved.
Victoria Abballe, Cool-Toned Covers, 2020.
These books looked very aesthetically pleasing together so I thought I’d add them here. Inspired by Ryan Park.
Identifying Patterns, 2020. By Victoria Abballe
Here is my banner with words taken from the “Interesting” article. I took the words “Identifying Patterns” and placed two different patterns in my banner for the viewer to recognize and identify.
Media: Colourful letters printed on printer paper, string, and shot on a DSLR camera.
Simplicity, 2020. By Victoria Abballe
Here is another banner I made from a word from the “Interesting” article. I made it as simple as possible.
Media: Marker on printer paper, string, and shot on a DSLR camera.
