Week One: Adrian Piper

Adrian Piper is a conceptual artist and analytic philosopher. Piper earned a PHD in Philosophy, and later in her career, taught Philosophy at Georgetown, Harvard, Michigan, Stanford and UCSD. Piper works primarily with the concepts of Metaphysics and Politics in a philosophical standpoint, which translates very clearly into her art practice. Piper uses a multitude of mediums, including photo-text collage, performance, site specific sculpture, sound works, and video installations. Pipers work explore the limits and understanding of self, as well as individual identity. Piper also utilized her formal identity as an ‘African American’ woman into the politics of her works, exploring the concepts of racism and xenophobia being present in different aspects of life. Piper then ‘retired from being black’ in 2012, and states on her website “you may wish to refer to her as the artist formerly known as African America”.

This is not a Documentation of a Performance – 1976, Silkscreen news paper article with altered photo and text.

Piper’s work “This is not a Documentation of a Performance” explores her recurring theme of racism and xenophobia, by utilizing a photo of a protest happening in Manhattan regarding numerous Hispanic families being evicted from their homes. Piper has replaced the words on the sign with “This is not a performance”. Piper directly draws a line between gentrification, and the idea that it is fundamentally, directly linked to racism in urban areas. Although this piece is not technically a multiple, I do believe it is an important text-based work of Piper’s because of how clearly it communicates her frustrations and the concepts of her practice.

Context #7 – 1970, 7 black notebooks with pages, ink, graphite, crayon, postage stamps, photographs, sugar packages on paper.

Piper’s work Context #7, was created by asking visitors in the MoMA how to respond to ‘this situation’. The situation in question was finding a notebook in the MoMA which asked you how to respond to it. The notebooks were a collection of the responses, which turned into a series of 7 complete black notebooks.

Mokshamurda Progression – 2021, series of nine photo-text collage lithographs.

Piper’s work Mokshamurda Progression, refers to the Hindu terms, moksha and murda, describes to mean something similar to ‘ties to freedom or release’. It displays a symbolic hand gesture, to move through to unity and then into dissolution. It explores the concepts of racial ambiguity and sense of self. When displaying the piece, Piper requested that the art be displayed directly at eye level, and spaced exactly 6 inches apart from each other.

Each of Piper’s works displayed above share similar characteristics in regards to theme, concept, and delivery. Piper’s use of text in her art communicates powerful statements which can be difficult to derive and determine by one self. In terms of forcing the viewer to establish a deeper understanding with their sense of self, while simultaneously deconstructing her sense of self and identity and putting it on display. The viewer is forced to not only see Piper’s dissolution of self, but is also forced to reflect inwardly on their own sense of self, creating a distinct space between the viewer and the artwork. Each of these text based multiples communicate complex subject matter through simplistic visuals, and each does so effectively in a different manner, which is arguably the purpose of text based multiples.

Week Two: Text Based Multiples Notes and Brainstorming

My initial thoughts for the Text Based Multiples was to work with the theme of body and sexualization of women. My general idea was to work with pasties as the base for the multiple.

My first idea was to make a varied edition of multiples with pasties, stating various phrases alluding to the unfair sexualization of women’s nipples. When I began to design these, I thought that the amount of words that could fit comfortably on a pastie looks too graphic. They began to look tacky, and not communicate exactly what statement I wanted to get across to the viewer.

My next idea was to print pasties with nipples that belong to a women on them, and pasties with nipples that belong to a man. The execution of the piece would be to have a man wear the woman’s nipple, and a woman wear the man’s nipples. Creating a mockery of the idea that women’s nipples are sexual, because one would not be able to tell which nipple are which without previously knowing. By having pasties that are ambiguous to whether or not they look like they belong to a man or a woman would create a dialogue on whether or not the nipples actually belong to a man and a woman, or if they could be both a man’s or woman’s. This would create an argument to the opposition that if you cannot tell them apart, there cannot be a reason to be offended by one or the other.

Although I really like the idea and direction that this is going, I have hit a road block on how to incorporate text the way I want to, without it them becoming tacky, rather than a political statement. My initial aversion to the original text based design was that they began to look like something that would become performative or outdated in the execution of wearing them. I have also considered writing instructions on where, or how to wear them. Or possibly have an additional piece included with text on it.

I like the idea of ambiguity between the two sets of nipples because the viewer, if they are offended by the sight of female nipples, would then not be able to decide whether to be offended or not, without then rendering their argument as invalid.

Text Multiples: NOT MY NIPPLES.

The portrayal of the ‘female’ body is something that is constantly sexualized in our patriarchal society. The sexualization of the female body, is often paired with a sense of shame. The idea that woman need to hide their bodies to be safe, and respected, and humanized. However, this concept is not limited to just women. While cisgender women are victims to this phenomenon, it extends to trans men, trans women, non-binary people, and so on. The idea that bodies that represent what is labelled as ‘feminine attributes’ are shamed, and forced to hide, and unfairly sexualized.

The ‘NOT MY NIPPLES.’ multiple was designed to challenge these concepts. Something as simple as a nipple, is deemed as offensive, inappropriate, and vulgar, but only when it is seen on a body that portrays characteristics which can be perceived as feminine. The idea that a body part which belongs to all sexes is only scrutinized for some, is absurd.

When collecting the images, I made a call for participation, to anyone who was comfortable. The exact call was ‘anyone comfortable displaying very mild nudity’. I got many responses from people wanting to know more. What exactly ‘mild nudity’ entailed. What shocked me, was how many cis-gender men responded, wanting to know more. When I revealed the concept and that I needed ‘up close photos of their nipples’, many of them said they were not comfortable with that. Which raised my question, what mild nudity were they thinking I wanted? What ‘mild nudity’ were they comfortable displaying to me? When I inquired deeper, I realized that the feeling of discomfort was not with the issue of showing me their nipples, but with the idea of ambiguity between their nipples, and nipples they would unintentionally sexualize.

By creating a design for nipple pasties, also referred too as nipple covers, that displayed a photo of a nipple on it, eliminates the concept of censoring the nipples they were covering. The idea of using photos of all different kinds of nipples from all genders, created a shield of ambiguity. The viewer does not know to be offended by the site, being unsure of the origin, unsure if the image is inappropriate or not.

The phrase ‘NOT MY NIPPLES.’ was chosen to be used as almost a protective shield. Being uncensored, but comfortably covered at the same time. ‘NOT MY NIPPLES.’ are intended to be worn or be used in whichever way the wearer feels most comfortable. Whether it is directly over someone’s nipples, or on their shirt or sweater, used as a sticker on a water bottle or a computer, or even on other body parts to create the illusion of a chest.

During the installation of ‘NOT MY NIPPLES.’, I asked my friends, who were modelling them for me, to wear them however they feel comfortable. I asked them how it felt to be wearing someone else’s nipples, if they felt exposed, if they felt vulnerable, if they felt ‘too naked’. They all said no. Instead, the overwhelming response was how freeing it felt, how their bodies were protected by the image of someone else’s nipples placed over their own. How they felt naked, but not uncomfortable. They said the feeling was empowering, even though the image of their bodies so closely resembled how they look without the pasties on, yet felt so different to be in. The overwhelming response was that these people, with unfairly scrutinized bodies, did not realize how good it felt to not have to wear a shirt, until they were given the opportunity to safely do so.

Video Art: In the Embrace of my Mother

In the Embrace of my Mother, is a video about intergenerational trauma and narcissistic abuse. It is meant to resemble the cliche of your life flashing before your eyes in a reflection as you die. I would like to preface the viewing of the video with the statement that I do love my mom, and I believe that everything I have gone through in my life in regards to our relationship is directly rooted in the treatment she has received from her own mother as a child. While I do not want this video to seem as though I am putting any blame on her, I cannot deny myself to reflect on my own experiences and emotions. And mom, if you ever come across this, try to heal with me, we both deserve it.

Mukbang/ASMR

Temporary Tattoo Assignment

For this assignment I chose to recreate every tattoo I already have into temporary tattoo form, and place them in the same place on someone else’s body. My expensive, professionaly done ones, the ones my friends have tried to do, and the ones I gave myself when I was 16 years old, all placed on the skin of someone else.

Insead of recreating the images on my skin, I photographed them, and erased my body from the image. Leaving a weathered, aged, worn-in tattoo in my skin, placed on someone else’s. This created an indescribable form of intimacy between myself, and the other person, visible through me, as well as other viewers. When looking at someone with all of my tattoos on their body, it was strange to have some sort of peak into how people might see me, and my skin, from their perspective.

After this, I began asking other people if they wanted a copy of my tattoos, but instead of placing them in the same spot as mine, I asked them where they thought they belonged. There were many phrases such as ‘this one belongs on my arm’ and ‘this one needs to be on the back of my neck’, and none were chosen to be in the same place as mine were. They eached claimed a different part of others bodies as they did with mine originally, picking and choosing where they belonged as if to bring someone the experience of their presence in a curarated way idividually.

Mendi + Keith Obadike

Keeping Up Appearances 2001, Mendi Obadike

http://www.blacknetart.com/keepingupappearances.html

Interaction of Coloreds 2002

http://blacknetart.com/IOCccs.html

Blackness for Sale, 2001

https://obadike.tripod.com/ebay.html

Text Multiple: Street Portrait

I enjoy the idea of doing a similar piece for another short street which is in Waterloo. And have these multiples accessible on both streets but for the wrong city. With a note on the back saying “for corrections contact emailIwouldmake@gmail.com” if I received corrections I could remake the work from others writing whether that be the home owners themselves or people who just happen to walk down the street.

Project 2 Ideas : Parent Video

• Having them read poem written about them before they had children and before they divorced, shot closeup or possibly layered audio tracks with just text visible
• Alter the poem somehow, change the meaning? Have different text between what is being read and what is shown.
• Play with the role of the narrator, inhabit that role?
• Write a companion piece?

While grappling with how to best connect this poem to a video work involving my parents and their relationship to it I began to lose steam and interest in the melodrama I felt rising out of this work’s potential reading of their relationship. How things change and people’s feelings in relation to each other change, this is what I felt was at the core of my concept, and it didn’t feel particularly interesting to me or fair as a half-assed portrayal of how love functions over time.

So I changed course. After receiving this email from my grandfather, I wanted to react to it as a prompt, make something that could stand as a visual representation of how I feel about it.

My grandfather is my family’s historian, and his desire to understand and record our lineage is something I admire deeply. But in my present moment and day to day, when I looked at this list of names I suppose I expected to feel connected to at least the idea of these names, who they represent, how their lived experience might have been, and how it relates with mine. But I didn’t. I felt the same amount of analytical detachment I feel reading a textbook. I felt that no matter how I could manifest these names into people, how much substance I could excavate out of any written or oral record of them that any of it would still feel like any other history personal or otherwise. That being biased, inconclusive, and narrow in its portrayal of life. I guess I feel the need to question the drive to understand, or “humanize” one’s personal history. Perhaps flat and declarative means of representing one’s history, like my grampas email, are more to the point than those that indulge narrative and romanticism. Point being the reminder of ones place in the continuity of life over time. If anything besides that resulted from me thinking about this list of names it was that I may be the last in this line of men because I do not want children.

With that being said I struggled with how to convey this feeling visually. I ended up deciding that my most beneficial plan of attack was to keep this line of names and dates as flat and neutral as it was presented to me. Because it is through flat and neutral means that these listed people will continue to exist to me. So I began investigating how this text could be pushed even further away from personhood, lineage and narrative and settled on colour. Specifically digitally rendered colour through hexadecimal codes. I knew that any digitally represented colour had a specific 6 digit line of code that could be copied and replicated to create the same colour on any platform (Photoshop, Website Design, Adobe Illustrator etc.) and so I decided this as my means of transcribing the written information of the original document. Originally I started inputting the birthdates of these people as the code (001999) and then repeating the number of years between the names as a system of creating colours representing people as far back as year 0 CE, so it went 40 years, 26, 25, 26, 31, 26, 27, 24, 31. But It wasn’t following how hex code language works and I only got a repeating pattern of colour that Illustrator was creating for me. (I should have posted this but I deleted it after I realized what was happening)

I then tried converting each year into a hexadecimal digit (there’s an equation I found online) and then grouping them by 6 so that I could have a complete code to make a colour for that group of names, but it still wasn’t working.

Finally, and as simple as it usually is, I found a text to hexadecimal code converter online. I then converted each name and date into code, took the first six digits and used those to create the colours. I played with the format, like whether or not to keep the original composition of the document sent to me, but it felt too clear still like it was a document that had been redacted or censored. So I chose the grid separated by names and dates and this is what resulted.

Tattoo Project

Week 1: Jonathan Monk

Jonothan Monk, a British multidisciplinary artist currently working out of Berlin, is known for his appropriative practice that references seminal works of Minimalist and Conceptual art. Some of his work directly appropriates and reinterprets influential practices and works, for example in his series Deflated Balloon which references Jeff Koons iconic steel balloon sculptures. Other works hint towards these influences in a more subtle and often jovial way. He perceives this approach as a demystification of the artistic process, as well as an attempt at evoking new perspective and life from these widely known pieces.

This text based series, which is not an appropriation but rather a playful request of display, uses the names of well known artists to evoke an immediate sense of reputability in his own work. These points of reference shape the way that the paintings are interpreted by the viewer, and there is a sense of entitlement and assertion in their measure of value and the value of the works they are pointing to.

What is it about this painting that makes it worthy to be displayed in this way? If the painting were to be hung in proximity to these other artists, would it demystify their significance or add to it? Would it change the way the other works are read? There is also a kind of absurdity that arises from the object itself, as if it is self aware and able to have a preference of where it exists in the world. Clearly, it begs to exist within a carefully curated art space, one that is revered enough to have artists of this kind in its collection. That in itself has implications and meaning when thinking about ascribed value to art. It also begs to have a relationship with the art that it is referencing, to coexist, support, or highlight something other than itself, while simultaneously being the main subject of inquiry. This resulting effect relates directly to Monk’s practice of appropriation. Along with the questions that arise in its connection to status within institutional art spaces, there is a cogency that the paintings themselves embody. Straightforwardness and clarity are key within its message, as well as in its choice of a simple, easily readable sans serif font against a flat blank background. A clear request desiring to be responded to with clear action. Whether or not the requests were filled by whoever installed the work, I’m not sure, which adds a fun layer of mystery to the work for whoever is viewing it in its digitally documented form.

This next series begs a mode of display that contrasts the first series. These poster-like works that read as elusive and obscure advertisements are reminiscent of street advertising that you may find in public bulletins or poles. Despite being towering 60 x 40″ paintings on canvas, the text is illusory in the sense that it appears to have been rapidly or carelessly applied to the surface, almost as though the creator is desperate to sell these strange vacation packages as soon as possible. These works blur the line between fine art and advertising, and bring into question the idea of the the art object as a commodity. Monk subverts this idea, and rather than trying to sell these works of art, the works of art are attempting to sell you something. Something that isn’t tangible; an idea of something real that cannot be acted upon. Again, there is a playful sense to this series, one that toys with the viewers preconceptions of what art is considered valuable and worthy of display within an institutional setting. It hints towards the idea that perhaps all art is simply trying to sell you on an idea, and it is the idea that is of value rather than the actual work itself.

Week 2: Text Multiples Brainstorming

My idea for the text multiples assignment is to propose a “new alphabet”. This alphabet will be consisting of a visual language of symbols and shapes that I’ve been developing in my practice over the past couple years. This approach to the creation of new text is inspired by concepts relating to surrealist automatism and asemic writing. Asemic writing essentially refers to a wordless open semantic form of writing that has no specific semantic content or meaning, opening up the opportunity for infinite interpretations by the viewer and infinite manifestations of visual form. Automatism is technique first used by surrealist painters and poets, referring to creating art without conscious thought, accessing material from the unconscious mind as a part of the creative process. In this way, gesture overpowers the desire for precision or manifestation of a specific visual form, allowing for chance imagery and a more cathartic approach to drawing/painting. This is the process through which I am operating when creating the imagery that I will be using for this assignment.

I plan to create a series of posters declaring the new alphabet that I will then post around town. The imagery will first be handwritten, then translated into a digitally rendered version. I’m thinking the posters will be 8.5 x 11″. I will create about 30, or enough so that they can be posted in as many public spaces as possible.

There are a few questions that I still have yet to address before I move forward in the creation of the poster. I’m wondering if each symbol should relate to/replace each of the preexisting 26 letters in the English alphabet, or if the new alphabet I’m proposing operates through its own system of more or even possibly less letters. Additionally, if I do choose the route of replacing the English lettering matrix, should I provide a key or small indication of which letter each symbol is replacing? Is this necessary? My other question relates to whether or not I should include the date/year on the poster as a time stamp of when this new alphabet came into fruition. Again, its the question of whether or not this is necessary in the success of the message.

First draft:

Refining the visual language:

References & points of inspiration:

In Progress Development

I’m still experimenting with layout and font ( & of course the border is white so it’s not visible here) Any suggestions relating to the formal quality of the work would be greatly appreciated as I’m not used to approaching text digitally<3

Week 3: Text Multiples

Idea 1

For this assignment, my starting point was grounded in my interests in automatic writing, a practice that involves gestural engagement with rhythm and movement which mimics and mirrors the visual quality of existent writing systems. The practice of automatism extends beyond automatic writing, and I enjoy the meditative quality of this approach to artmaking as a way to surpass the analytic mind and and engage in more immediate, visceral, process-based practices. I wanted this to be the basis from which I would develop and propose a “new alphabet” of intuitively formed symbols and letters whose functionality in the real world I had not even discovered for myself. I like how the inability to decode or read forms and symbols that present as a language but have no prescribed meaning provokes the idea of universal communication, boundless meaning and the building of new worlds.

However, after discussing my ideas with the class I realized that there did need to be some sort of system or basis upon which to build this new visual language. There needed to be a way to relate it to already existing language systems in some way without exotifying cultures and languages that exist outside of my own, and most of my interest was centered in engaging with the more formal visual qualities of these letters and languages.

So, I began to research a diverse array of written languages from around the world, and started to notice similarities and differences in the quality of the characters, how they exist together and apart, the way that they interact with each other to create meaning. I put them next to each other, on top of one another, and tried to splice together letters and words from various language systems. But there was something missing and the process felt empty; I felt like I was slowly losing sight of my intentions. I ended up finding an article that lists and details ancient writing systems that have not yet been translated or decoded. The idea of lost languages and systems of communication from our ancient past that once had an inherent meaning that has since dissolved peaked my interest. There is both a mysterious beauty and a certain sadness to these discoveries, provoking relationships between language and time, evolution and colonialism. I spent a lot of time with these 8 different language systems, isolating the characters and rearranging them. I began by making these visual arrangements to see how they would read, as perhaps an ambiguous poster that holds a coded message from our ancient past. Wondering, if we did know what they meant, if meaning would arise, or just simply a conglomerate of nonsense.

But then the question of presentation arose. I wasn’t sure how these compositions would read in the world, and the only place I could really imagine them existing was within a gallery setting. I wanted something more personal, more intimate, a system that would allow these letters to be arranged and rearranged into an infinite number of compositions. That’s when the idea of creating stamps came into the fore, to create text multiples not only in the varied edition of prints, but also within the material quality of its process based creation as well.

And so, I decided to approach it in a more traditional printmaking process, printing little coded letters to everyone in the class. I did end up prescribing meaning to each of the letters, some representing a letter in the English alphabet some representing a word. I do know what each of them say now that I have projected meaning onto them, but I don’t see that as being inherently important to those who receive interact with the work. To me, it reads more as a message from the past, a telegram from another world, a love letter from our ancestors, a secret between you and time.

I’m not sure if I was successful in communicating these ideas through the work. I still feel as though there is a lot to be worked through and that there’s more here that I’m not seeing. All I know is that I have grown attached to these symbols in a way I can’t explain, and I’m going to continue pondering this subject matter.

Idea 2

Following some uncertainty related to my initial text idea, I started to brainstorm other ways I wanted to approach text that still resonated with this idea of building new worlds, vacuums of meaning, and universally understood forms. The imagery of the void, or of a portal is something that consistently arises in my art practice. Circles and ellipses as repeated visual forms hold so much within them for me. These are some things and ideas that were arising when I was sitting with this idea of the void/portal:

-grief/loss -vulnerability -in and through -change -loneliness/isolation -hyper individualism

-the universe/comos -polarities/fullness/emptiness -depth/surface -anxiety/doubt -worry -love -anchoring -suspension

-feeling through the body -pressure points -pleasure/pain

Though I didn’t have time to explore this idea further, I created a prototype lino block portal and did some test prints, one on my studio wall, the other directly on my skin. If I were to reapproach this idea, I would create a stencil for rather than a lino block and explore its potential to function as public/street art, as well as the potential of varied scales.

Week 4: Parents Proposal

For the parents piece I plan to make a video piece of me remaking my mums pregnancy photos. In the video, there will be a split screen side by side, one of the image and one of me getting into position and holding the same pose. Throughout the video I will be narrating a journal entry from a journal my mum wrote throughout my first year of life.

Week 5: Parents Video

To begin gathering thoughts and ideas surrounding this project, I turned to photographs to see what connections I could find in the archive of my childhood. This endeavor led me to a series of pregnancy photos my Mother had taken when she was pregnant with me-her first born. Though I hadn’t yet entered the world, they are portraits of not only her, but of me as well, enmeshed with her being, still corporeally tied to each other through flesh and blood. To see the boundaries between myself and my mom begin to blur, not only in the space of the womb, but in the physicality of my adult body reflecting her own, I was overcome with an uncanny feeling of the individuated self unravelling. I decided I wanted to recreate these photos using my body, in a photo studio, being directed into the pose by the photographer just as she had been. In this way, I’m collapsing time and distance between her experience of life and connection to me in that moment, and my existence and connection to her in the present.

The spoken audio is taken from a journal entry within a series of larger entries that were written by my Mom for me throughout my first year of life. I was aware of the existence of this journal, however, had yet to sit down with it and really digest its impact and relation to my life. My Mom had been holding onto it until she knew I was at a point in my life to appreciate it, and this project situated me into that place. It is another layer of my attempt to mesh with her 29 year old self, a new mother, at the precipice of an entirely new reality. By speaking her words through my voice, I caught a glimpse of her world at that point in time, a world into which I had just entered.

Week 6: Internet Culture Vid Research

mukbang/ˈməkˌbäNG,ˈməkˌbaNG/

1. (especially in South Korea) a video, especially one that is live-streamed, that features a person eating a large quantity of food and addressing the audience. ex.”she is eating two pounds of lobster in this mukbang”.
2. Mukbang comes from the Korean word 먹방, (meokbang), which combines the Korean words for “eating” (먹는 meongneun) and “broadcast” (방송 bangsong). In simple English terms, you could define mukbang as an “eatcast”.

In the art of mukbang there are a few ways “mukbangers” typically go about structuring their videos. Some show the preparation of the food beforehand, bringing the viewer into the space of preparing the meal, occasionally offering recipes and insights into the process. Others choose to order large amounts of takeout which they subsequently consume for the audiences pleasure.

While most mukbang incorporates asmr through sensory evoking sounds such as chewing, slurping, and crunching, some focus directly on the audio/visual sensorial experience, using highly sensitive mics to get crisp audio recordings. Other mukbangers involve commentary on the food they’re consuming, tell stories, or share food with friends in a more unstructured way. In any case, the videos are usually well lit, and are framed so that you can see the spread of food that is being consumed. Typically the videos are a continuous shot throughout the whole meal, however, some may incorporate slight video editing to zoom in on certain foods or edit down the footage to the juicy moments.

While different people watch mukbang for different reasons, one of course being sensory pleasure, many tune in for the simulation of the social aspect of dining; so they don’t have to eat alone, they can tune in and share a meal with someone across time and space. Another reason for viewing is to satiate certain food cravings or desires that one might not be able to fulfill themselves. This is largely due to the quantity of food people eat *trigger warning ED’s

(as someone who struggled with a binge eating disorder, this is the primary reason I would tune in). In this way, there are certain lines that get blurred in terms of the problematic nature of videos like this. Some argue against the waste of food, gluttony, promotion of unhealthy eating habits, and animal cruelty. Others find a satisfying comfort, calm, or pleasurable visceral experience in the mukbang niche.

WEEK 10: Internet Video Final

WEEK 11: Tattoo Brainstorming

When I was reflecting on my own relationship to tattoos and my journey with collecting them from age 18 through to now, the feelings and attitudes towards tattoos that my family holds kept coming up, and I was remembering the many conversations I’ve had with them about my choice to permanently alter my body in this way. I resonated heavily with Alethea’s experience in the documentary in the adverse reactions she received from her family following her decision to get tattooed, even after she had spent years researching, planning, and considering all dimensions of this choice, both personally and in a broader cultural and historical context. When I was around 11 years old, my Nana made me sign a contract agreeing to never get a tattoo, which I willfully signed, obviously not having that desire at the time. My skin was viewed by my family members as sacred and pure, and I remember multiple occasions throughout my childhood where it was compared to porcelain, fair, fragile, and untainted. As I grew older I heavily rejected this notion, which was paired with other more layered dimensions of resentment towards my body. By the time I was probably 14 or 15 I knew I wanted tattoos. I saw it as an act of asserting myself in the world and building my identity, using art as a way to love myself and my skin in my own way that wasn’t a result of projected idealization and perfection. I saw tattoos as connectors between time, self, and the body. On my 18th birthday I immediately travelled to Toronto to receive my first tat. And I received this email in response.

I am grateful now to be a stage in my life where I am accepted for my choices and my bodily autonomy is respected. Though they still may not agree, and may perceive my beauty as less than, they see the conviction in my choices and no longer argue (despite still having a few years to go until my brain is fully developed). I also have a deeper understanding of where my family was coming from, just trying to help me avoid the potential experience of regret that can come with the choice to get permanently marked. But to me, there’s power in saying, this is what I’m doing, this is where I’m at right now, and I’m going to keep learning to accept myself and the choices I make over and over again. Intention is ever-present.

For this assignment, I want to create a large scale text-based back piece of this email that I received. The only change I’m going to make is taking out my name and the signature of my Nana, so that the piece is seen more as an ambiguous exchange between two individuals, though it is apparent that one is younger and the other older, emphasizing a generational and ideological disconnect.

1. The Internet is Video Art Lecture
2. Assign internet video presentations for next class-
3. Look at any final Parents videos-

1. Give short internet video presentations
2. Read and discuss article
3. Assign proposals for Internet video art

THE INTERNET IS VIDEO ART:

“Faced with the awe-inspiring popularity of web-monoliths like YouTube, contemporary art risks becoming nothing more than a quaint relic of the 20th century.

It’s probably not fair to compare contemporary art practice with YouTube; yet there is evidence to suggest that somewhere in the ulterior of its collective brain, the art world does just this, and finds itself lacking. How else to understand the ongoing assurances given in art exhibition press releases and catalogue essays about the important role the viewer plays in the construction of meaning – and the intention to facilitate it with this very exhibition?

If artists once played a leading – avant garde – role in providing a complex and forward-looking framework for reflection on the contemporary world, it now seems most comfortable bringing up the rear, providing explanations for developments already intuitively understood and widely enjoyed by the culture at large. “

Rosemary Heather, From Army of You Tube

Artists who shape and respond to popular video culture

Pipillotti Rist

Pipilotti Rist (Swiss) talks about her first work of video art “I’m Not the Girl Who Misses Much” from 1986 – barely art – that they submitted to a festival just to get a free ticket to see the shows. Before MTV, before YouTube the artist – like Joan Jonas or Bruce Nauman or Nam June Paik and others – was performing simple gestures, improvised performances, and performing herself in footage that was rough, poor quality, chaotic and spontaneous.

Did artists invent music videos? You Tube?

Kelly Mark

Or cat videos? See Kelly Mark, Toronto based artist in 2002.

See the video here: http://kellymark.com/V_MusicVideoSeries1.html

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Ryan Trencartin

“Ryan Trecartin’s videos depict a vertiginous world I’m barely stable enough to describe. Watching them, I face the identity-flux of Internet existence: surfing-as-dwelling. Images evaporate, bleed, spill, metamorphose, and explode. Through frenetic pacing, rapid cuts, and destabilizing overlaps between representational planes (3-D turns into 2-D and then into 5-D), Trecartin violently repositions our chakras. Digitally virtuoso, his work excites me but also causes stomach cramps. I’m somatizing. But I’m also trying to concentrate.” From Situation Hacker: The Art of Ryan Trencartin, Wayne Kaustenbaum

Maya Ben David

Biography

Maya Ben David (MBD) is a Toronto-based Jewish-Iranian Anthropomorphic Airplane. Working in video, installation and performance, she creates worlds and characters that aid her ongoing exploration of anthropomorphism, cosplay and performative personas. Ben David presents the origin stories of her characters in the form of video and performance, and expands on them via her online presence. They often inhabit alternate universes accompanied by nostalgia, such as the worlds of Pokémon and Spiderman. In addition, Ben David also plays a character called MBD who is known for having multiple feuds with her many alter egos as well as the art world. Most infamously, MBD has ignited online feuds with artists such as Jon Rafman and Ajay Kurian.   Bio from her site Maya Ben David

Arthur Jaffa:

Warning about video art below: Contains explicit/violent material, actual footage

“Well my thing was like, first of all, there’s something to be said for just making explicit what is oftentimes implicit—which is black people being killed as if we’re not human beings. How do we introduce something in the space that can cut through the noise? There’s a real problematic around the appropriateness of having an image of a man getting murdered. But this footage is all over the place. It’s everywhere. It’s not like we’re talking about digging stuff out of some archive that’s never been seen before.

It’s literally everywhere so the question becomes: How do you situate it so that people actually see it, this phenomena, as opposed to just having it pass in front of them? How do you have people actually see it? And simultaneously, how do you induce people to apprehend both the beauty and the horror these circumstances? There’s something profound (and magical) to be said about the ability, the capacity to see beauty anywhere and everywhere. I think it’s a capacity black people have developed because not only are we are not authorized, we’re demonized—we are radically not affirmed, so we’ve actually learned not just how to imbue moments with joy but to see beauty in places where beauty, in any normative sense, doesn’t necessarily exist.”

From Love is the Message, The Plan is Death, Arthur Jafa and Tina M. Campt in coversation on e-flux

OPTIONAL READ: From Love is the Message, The Plan is Death, Arthur Jafa and Tina M. Campt in coversation on e-flux

Orian Barki and Meriem Bennani, 2 Lizards: Episode 1, 2020

2 Lizards: Episode 1, 2020

Artforum is pleased to host this Instagram video by Orian Barki and Meriem Bennani, made while self-isolating because of COVID-19.

Beautiful moment of communion through sound waves in Brooklyn despite social distancing—the virus’s protective membrane is very sensitive to soap and heat but also bass. These two lizards are lucky they work from home and can afford to stay inside. This is the first collaboration between Yani and me; we made it over the weekend to take a break from editing and animating for work. —Meriem Bennani

This is what it feels like to live
presently in a historical moment.

“2 Lizards is an artistic time capsule that fuses genre—part documentary, part fiction—using cartoon animals to represent the artists’ community. The resulting absurdity and realness channel humor and sincere emotion to explore the societal fissures that formed around the pandemic, and its intersection with systemic racism. Each episode explores a specific quarantine mood: dreamlike detachment, anxiety, impassioned protest. Melodrama is notably absent. Instead we see cool emotions and “affect management.” Daydreaming, scrolling, and distraction abound. In addition to physical confinement, there is an emotional confinement that manifests as out-of-sync-ness: the lizards move with a particular cadence, slightly slower than everything else. This, the videos seem to say, is what it feels like to live presently in a historical moment.” From MOMA

2 Lizards joins a rich history of diaristic video art, including Gregg Bordowitz’s episodic Portraits of People Living with HIV or George Kuchar’s performative video diaries. Like Bordowitz’s and Kuchar’s footage of the mundane, 2 Lizards focuses not on the crisis as an event but on its daily effects. (It isn’t until episode four, when the lizards visit a friend, a healthcare worker, that we hear stories about the coronavirus tragedies.) As an event, contagion is invisible, but the ripple effects are evident. This is reminiscent of cultural theorist Lauren Berlant’s term “crisis ordinariness,” whereby “crisis is not exceptional…but a process embedded in the ordinary that unfolds in stories about navigating what’s overwhelming.”[1]

2 Lizards

This series speaks to the changing methods of image consumption that aim increasingly toward smaller, more portable screens and user-generated content that seeks to comfort through humor. Like memes, the lizards are an opiate for our precise moment of extreme social disruption. Much of the value in these videos is their format (the Instagram video), as they inextricably tie the work to the platform and its users. 2 Lizards is a feedback loop: it reflects the Internet by incorporating new modes of image technologies related to the constant stream of pictures, which are then distributed back into the world through those very feeds. During lockdown, in the context of isolation, social media became a place where many of us channeled our pent-up communal and emotional need to connect. It is where we received information about the world and began to watch a new one unfold.

Yuula Benivolski

aspacegallery.org

“Scrap Pieces is a collaborative meditation on the physical components of the surface of images. This 4 channel video project borrows materials from the studios of four Canadian photographers: Laurie Kang, Jeff Bierk, Nadia Belerique, and Celia Perrin Sidarous. Filmed in the intimate style of Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR), Benivolski soothes the viewer using debris and scrap materials such as small pieces of metal, silicone, plaster casts, test strips, seashells, glass, wires and transparencies.” Yuula Benivolski from her site

https://www.archivalaffections.com/yuula-benivolski.html

Traces
2021 / 4k video / colour / sound / single screen / 62’46

“Traces is an ASMR video tutorial that demonstrates the process of forensic fingerprint development on old currency that has been out of circulation for thirty years. With Bridget Moser.

I left Moscow at 10 years old when it was still part of the Communist USSR and made my first trip back home to the “Russian Federation” 28 years later. Curious about the disappeared ideology and citizens of the place I was born in, I purchased 300 Soviet banknotes which went out of circulation in 1993, with plans to lift fingerprints off them.

The fingerprints, once revealed through a chemical process taught to me by a forensic specialist, are photographed using an orange filter on a macro lens, and enlarged 80 times their size, in order to show the last natural traces of a place that has been made to vanish.” Yuula Benivolski

Assignment for next class:

Forage through the internet for the tropes of popular video culture you would like to explore more deeply. We’ll discuss possible options in class, so a pair of students can each present a video genre. The presentation should take up to 10 minutes MAX. including video screening time.

Prepare a presentation on your blog page – of one internet video. Include a detailed description of the video.

Consider these questions and others relevant to your selction:

• How is it shot, and framed? Where does the material come from? What is the quality of the footage?
• How is it edited, and does it flow from clip to clip?
• What does it sound like? How are sound or image manipulated and transformed from original footage?
• What are some of the key features that define this genre?What are some weird variations on it?
• What are some of the reasons these kinds of videos are compelling or useful in this historical moment? Use quotes from published sources to back up your arguments and analysis.
• How do you relate to it?

Post your presentation materials on your blog (on both partners’ pages).

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Prepare a PROPOSAL for next class:

POST INTERNET VIDEO ART

Together with a partner – prepare a proposal for a new Post-Internet video work of Video Art to discuss. Include references to video tropes on the internet.

Consider some of these questions in your proposal:

• How does your video document a historical moment – in internet culture, and in the wider world?
• Do you want to use found footage, or create footage, or perform for the camera?

• How does it amplify, deconstruct, or subvert what is already happening on the internet?

• What is the kind of experience you want to create for viewers/users?

• What is the ideal site for presenting the video – is it on the internet? As a meme? On social media? In a fan site? In a gallery installation? A projection in public outdoors? How would it ideally be circulated?

• What are some of the technologies, software, or technical experiments and gimmicks you may need to achieve? Do you want to use avatars? Live stream? Rip music and video from YouTube? Prepare your ambitious technical goals for Nathan, and we can design demos to support your ideas.