BookStacks: Project 1 (Weather)

For this project, I started with the concepts of illustrated child books that built into the theme of weather. Slowly, I then went away from that idea and just thought of various ways to stack piles of books just so it would be pleasant to see, although forgetting the theme of weather in doing so. Afterward, I decided to incorporate the body with books themselves as we forget a structured material, such as a book, holds a humanized materialistic sensation even though a book is so mechanically made. I also thought about how a person’s body can depict the illustrations of the book through the weather itself, showing different seasons or adventures that reveal a consistent theme of weather. My whole process was a bit rethought after our library trip.

My ideas changed drastically and I leaned towards more minimalistic ideas, while still keeping a consistent theme that versus material and weather, which results in decay. Weather corrodes man-made material over time, such as a book, so the idea of corrosion “popped” in my head with the help of the artist Alexis Arnold who took basically “ruined” them by crystalizing their beauty with Borax. I decided to, overall, photoshoot playful pictures of books that are struggling to hold together to represent what weather can do to man-made material.

Alexis Arnold – Inspiration

Library PhotoShoot: Concept on Weather and Corrosion

The idea of Books and corrosion can be seen through old books struggling to hold together, with ripped edges, yellow pages, taped covers, weird stains, and lastly sinful holes. Here we can see the idea of books decaying through the natural cycle of man-made materials going back to it’s origin, the ground. Below, I also incorporated books that are held together by tape, showing the idea of plastic and decay.

Below is another playful concept on the notion of decay seen through such simple things as dust and dirt!

For the next below images, I tried to play with the idea of the blue sky with clouds during a more mucky evening, but I ended up changing the concept to a flock of birds using blue books rather than creating the sky. My idea at the time for these books was trying to make little clouds from the small white books and the bigger (blue-ish) books were the sky itself, but I scrapped the idea for something a bit more playful and interesting under “Update – Edited books”.

Update – Edited books

From a Blue sky with clouds to an idea of a flock of birds, above are 2 images: one with a lightened sky and another with a darkened sky of books in the form of a flock, but stacked together! (note: I need help with my images being blurry)

For the books above, I just played around for fun with colours and tried to experiment more with dust.

Nature Walk: Circles, The Sky & Weeds

Tim Knowles – Tree Drawings

Tim Knowles is an artist based from UK, London. He started a project series that he called “tree drawings” from 2007 – 2008 where he presented tree drawings on paper with ink. He said to have utilized “apparatuses, mechanisms, or systems beyond [his] control to introduce chance into the production of [his] art”. Below, are a few pictures, from the website:

https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/28/knowles.php,

which shows a series produced by trees, located in the Borrowdale and Buttermere areas of England’s Lake District. How Knowles created the project was by attaching sketching pens to the tree’s branches and then placing sheets of paper in the trees’ natural positions to capture the motions, in addition to the motion of stillness. I think wind had a huge aspect to his pieces and Tim probably selected a day of which the weather wasn’t as windy, but more steady, because of how clean and crisp the strokes were, that being always centered on his paper and not exceeding the boundaries, almost as if he still had intention into letting nature take its course where he was “the guiding hand”.

His drawings depicted, somewhat, signatures with each drawing having different qualities and characteristics through various sways in the breeze, that including: “the relaxed, fluid line of an oak; the delicate, tentative touch of a larch; a hawthorn’s stiff, slightly neurotic scratches”. Knowles also explains how “process” is important in his work, like how I’ve said before, where his canvases almost look purposely placed to get a centered penmanship. In the end, each of Knowles’ “Tree Drawings” are photographed or videoed, documenting the location as well as the manner of its creation.

Tim Knowles – The dynamics of drifting

Tim Knowles’ independent solo exhibit on “The dynamics of drifting” is ongoing. Knowles described this project as a journey or motion of drifting that includes inspirations through concepts of gravity and external forces that could also be influenced by people. The purpose of Knowles’ sailor boat project is to truly have no destination, where the wind takes the passenger on a journey of fate, through nature’s course. Below is just a prototype of his industrialized invention having “WTWB4” being an abbreviation for “where the wind blows”.

Knowles’ sailor boat reminds me of people who give in to fate and let mother nature or even destiny take her course, realizing we never had a choice for free will just the illusion that society gives us. The bare elements are what choose our fate, such as gravity, people, and other external forces. Although, Knowles somehow manages to create soothing works that seem to be very mellow and relaxing as his journey seems to be depicted as a slow steady stream, just like in his “Tree Drawings” series, having very manageable and “hand-guided” plans.

“‘Dynamics of Drifting’ presents a series of works that forge and record passages through land and water. Light, ink, water, and wind all travel and pivot on the meeting of human will and forces beyond our control: the direction and force of the wind, the flow of the water, and the pull of gravity.”

https://www.hestercombe.com/whats-on/dynamics-drifting-tim-knowles

Environmental Video

Above we have the interpretation of a kitty-cat’s paws in the wild, with the act of aggression and playfulness through the movements and characteristics of a cat. The playfulness of nature and the feat of the complementary glove against the vibrant green grass adds to a questionable nature scene. In the end, the audience overall sees a human’s nicely gloved hands acting as a cat in public! Throughout the video, the acts of curiosity, touch, and aggressive shaking of a tree branch show the nature of a cat and the blissful notion of a cat’s day.

Above are hands showing the contrasting movements of the soft touch of flowers and the roughness of concrete, rock, and wood. Here, there are two contrasting scenes showing the difference between the delicacy of nature and the harshness of stone and wood. A variety of movements are also shown throughout the video: punching, slapping, caressing/petting, and back-handing! Below are some snap-shoots of other playful videos that revolve around a ‘hand-shake’ and the game ‘rock, paper, scissors’.

As a group, we collectively produced our works together and decided to go with ASMR, but then slowly moved into the motive of playful hands! Below are examples of our past ASMR videos, but individually shown without editing:

Magazine – Birds

Experimenting with layouts and texts while specifically targeting the seagull bird species for this bird-based task!

Below are some of the final tests for the magazine, also having a bird influence. The final image can be seen fully and well cropped on a nice off-white background on the final product of the magazine.

Final Project: multiples – magazine

For this project, I decided to dedicate a magazine to rats. A magazine dedicated to glorifying and manifesting the notion of wanting a rat. The story behind the rat-influenced magazine is my past childhood memories and a slight rivalry against my mother for wanting/collecting rat statues. The magazine is also still in the process of arriving through the mail!

Artist Multiples

For my multiples project, I appropriated the format of a Ladies’ Guide to Etiquette from the late 1800s. I wanted to update it by removing out-of-date terms, rules, and expectations for how to perform femininity, while adding in queer undertones and conflicting directions. I’ve changed the original by editing each page – cutting out words, reworking phrases, moving sentences around and writing new sections in order to skew the original meaning. I’m still waiting for a printed copy to be delivered, but the modern update for the etiquette book will have 20 pages in all, which I have included above, and will be portable (a 5.5 x 8.5 inch pocket book printed on heavyweight ivory paper for an antique effect). I was only able to complete the first chapter, since the book is too long to fully makeover by the end of this semester, but it’s a project I would like to continue going forward. Here are some previews of the final product, which should arrive early-mid December:

Scans and Spreads

MY SPREADS:

EXTRAS:

Arboretum Pictures

Environmental Videos

Swamp Stuck:

We originally filmed this video to test how difficult it would be to walk in the swamp, but I think the struggle to balance and navigate a space in nature that I should not reasonably be a part of is powerful enough as it’s own piece. The mud sucks you in and you sink quickly and deeply with little time for preparation. Although I had my own expectations of what would happen, I was surprised by how unsteady and helpless stepping into this part of nature would make me feel. I think of this as a reflection to the turbulence of life and the power of nature, which are both things we take for granted and feel we can prepare to face, but it always exceeds our expectations and we end up having to be malleable and adaptable in our solutions. When walking in a swamp, I had to reorient myself at every second, and the struggle to stand still while sinking and tipping was difficult enough, so in my next video that we filmed where I am walking, I felt even more powerless to the environment around me.

Swamp Walk:

In these clips, I’ve pushed myself further to walk across the swamp, which ended up more as a crawl and a horizontal climb than anything graceful. There were moments that I tripped and disrupted the water around me more than I had intended to, but I appreciate the calm at the end of the video even more because of it (after I have left the frame and you can only see the ripples coming from the direction I had disappeared). I like the symmetry of this piece and the singular movement of going across the frame until I have left the same spot I disrupted, but that the “ripples” of my movement and my presence are still there. It’s inevitable that our presence in this world will affect it, though it may not be as apparent as literal ripples in the water, but we leave our mark on every environment we enter, and it is important to be considerate of that.

Testing the Grass:

FutureFarmers

Futurefarmers is an art collective based in San-Francisco founded in 1995 by Amy Franceschini. They work on collaborative and diverse pieces that range from zines to public performances, which cultivate an “ethos of play”, as Franceschini describes. The Futurefarmers design studio both supports artists in residence and community based art projects, which in some cases span internationally. The members of this collective describe themselves as “artists, designers, architects, anthropologists, writers, computer programmers and farmers with a common interest in creating frameworks for exchange that catalyze moments of “not knowing“”. With their projects, they aim to deconstruct infrastructure systems as well as the concept of “certainty” by challenging their effectiveness in a playful, but almost scientific way. In doing this, much of the work that the Futurefarmers and Franceschini create bring attention to the conflict between humans and nature.

FutureFarmers website

FLATBREAD SOCIETY:

Founded in 2012 in Oslo, Norway, the Flatbread Society is a long-term project created by the Futurefarmers collective which grew internationally with a specific focus on the human relationship to the “grain”.

“Soil Procession” was a Flatbread Society project in 2015 where members worked together to bring soil from over 50 Norwegian farms to the Oslo fiord for a “ground building” ceremony. The procession included a walking parade of soil transportation, taking over an hour to complete, in order to create a foundation for the society to build and grow off of. This transported land later became home to the Bakehouse as well as the Grain Field, where they grew their own crops using farming techniques passed through generations. One procession member described the journey as: “It is not a demonstration against anything, but rather for! We are bringing forth soil from Norwegian farms to Bjørvika.”

WIND THEATRE:

After multiple meetings, interventions, and workshops, members of the Futurefarmers created and installed a permanent, wind-powered printing press. The piece includes the installation, the creation of a unique font, a film about the work, a publication, and an exhibition. The work alone spans multiple practices and encourages the collaboration between disciplines, as well as the exploration of more sustainable printing techniques.

Book Stacks

2.4 meters deep, 1996:

BOOK STACKING

Weather Inspiration for Book Stacking:

When this project was first announced, my immediate thought of what to base my stacks off of was a foggy night. I wanted to base my first stack after the dark gradation of what a dreary and foggy day looks like. The second idea I had was to create a stack off of a purple and orange sunset. I really just wanted to create a stack like this sunset is just so beautiful to look at.

The Process of Book Stacking and the Images

Here are a few of the images I took with the camera. I am no photographer, so getting used to using the camera was a learning curve for me! As you can see in the photos I was playing around with the lighting, the first few use the normal lighting in the library, and the second lighting was used under the “natural” lighting setting. The natural light setting gave the image a more yellow tone to it. It was a lot of fun to play around with the lighting, but I still have lots to learn about using a camera and all of its settings.

Also when stacking the books I decided to make poetry out of them and I really enjoyed doing that! Having such a broad topic allowed me to create interesting poems, but still sticking within the theme.

These images were taken with my phone. I personally think that these ones turned out better than the ones with the camera, but I think that is just because I am more comfortable and familiar with using my phones. I know what settings look good and how to properly use it. On my phone I was playing around with the regular camera mode, and also portrait mode which gave the blurry background.

This was an extremely fun assignment and has really allowed me to look at books differently. From now on when I am going to a place with books, whether it be a library or book store, I am going to start stacking them. It was a nice way to not only create art, but practice my photography skills!

NATURE WALK

Images from the Nature Walk.

Round Things, A Piece of Sky and Weed Noticing.

Also included a few that I just thought turned out well!

ARTIST PRESENTATION:

Ron Benner is a Canadian artist who was born, and still resides, in London, Ontario. He studied at the University of Guelph in Agricultural Engineering, but then switched to Art. After switching his path in life, he went to develop a practice that combines photography, installation and gardening. Benner is a strong environmental activist whose work investigates the history and political economics of food.

This piece by Benner has Three components to it, (only two are shown). The first is a wall of red pepper boxes which leads to a wall. it is described as, “Entering the installation, viewers move past a 17th-century map representing Florida and Mexico (aspect that is not shown), and stacks of brightly coloured produce boxes, through a vertically spliced photographic curtain into the simulated shell of a transport truck,” Through that wall leads to a room which is described as, “Inside, viewers find tire shards, galvanized sheet metal, and more than 200 photographs that contrast contemporary transportation systems with the ancient trade routes of the Americas.” This piece is showing the trek of bell peppers sold at London Ontario’s Covent Garden Market and tracing the root of peppers to its origin.

https://lfpress.com/2015/09/21/installation-tracks-food-back-to-source/

I think this is a very interesting piece because most of the time when buying food we don’t think about where it came from, we just accept that it is now in a store. This piece is very important as it is showing where specific peppers history originated from. It allows viewers to think about where their food comes from, and how it gets to the shelves of the grocery store, or stall at a market.

This piece by Benner is a very important site specific piece. It resides in the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington (VAC) which was once known as The Cream of Barley Mill. This piece is a mixed media piece where the main subject matter includes black beans, sunflower seeds, wild rice, potatoes, maize, amaranth, chili peppers, quinoa, pinto beans, lentils, chickpeas, fava beans, wheat, barleycorn, soya beans, sorghum, flax, and rice. The meaning of the piece, VAC curator, Sandy Saad writes is, “An exploration of the entangled relationships between place and history vis-à-vis food. It employs food to map history, bringing many new places into the site and offering a more complex and intertwined narrative… At the
centre of the room lies a collection of various seeds, grains, and cultural deposits: objects from Iraq, Mexico, and Curve Lake First Nation, and London, Ontario. They are a combination of unlikely objects in juxtaposition, reflecting the vast displacement of food crops and culture through various imperial, colonial, and industrial efforts. Benner’s installation creates a room that is both united and divided. Benner suggests the dual nature of the power of food: to bring people together through social and communal gathering, and to separate communities through imperial and commercial enterprises”.

Click to access Ron+Benner+-+Trans%3Amission%3B+Barley-Corn-Maize.pdf

I really enjoy this piece because it is so well thought out and planned, and there is such a depth to it. To understand the full meaning of the piece you truly have to know the history behind it to understand what Benner really made. The grains, the location, everything is just so articulately weaved together that gives this piece many added layers to it.

This piece by Benner is an installation piece. This piece includes a small garden with a variety of flowers. The front of the box the garden sits in reads, All That Has Value. Sticking out from the garden is another plank of wood which reads, Was Then Counted As Nothing. I could not find much information on this piece (only its predecessor titled, All That Has Value, which looks very different). I think that this piece means that plants are one of the most important things we have on this planet, but we do not treat them as important as they are. Without plants we would not be able to survive, but we do not take care of them, or the planet to allow them to flourish.

ENVIRONMENTAL VIDEO

Caitlyn, Melyssa and Sam

This video we decided to be a bit more playful and have a leaf and grass fight and put the two views side by side. I think that this video turned out very successful and it is a very comedic piece. The red of the gloves I especially enjoy as it contrasts the natural colours a lot and creates an interesting composition.

This video we decided to see the contrasting sounds from the gloves, and rings against a metal bench. I think this one holds an interesting composition due to the fact as one hand comes forward, the other goes back and it holds that sequence. I also really enjoy the sounds that both of them make, and I feel that they work very well together.

This one was more so a test for us to get the idea of what a 9 video grid would look like. There was some trouble in editing, but it was a good practice video to see what needed to be improved on and what worked well. This video was a good baseline for future videos and how they would look.

This video we took what we learned from the previous video, and cleaned it up and made it more seamless. This one is my favourite video and I would love to see it displayed on a large gallery wall, with good surround-sound.

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For this assignment my partners and I decided to touch different things in the environment to see the sounds they would make. We not only used our bare hands, but we adorned them with different items such as rings and various gloves. This was such an interesting experiment to conduct and I personally am very happy with the outcome of the videos. Each of the items we touched made such different sounds and all had such interesting textures to them!

Some screenshots from the videos (more to come)

PHOTOS

I did a trip to Elora and walked the Elora Gorge! Here are some photos from it.

BOOK/MAGAZINE

I really enjoyed having the opportunity to create an Artist Book with the class! I learned a lot and I know I definitely will make more books on my own time. This assignment allowed me to learn lots of new techniques (Courtesy of Nathan) which I will use to apply in my own art practice, and even in general when using design applications. I really appreciated the opportunity to be an editor for the magazine. It taught me many technical skills, and having that responsibility too! I am very excited to see the final piece, all of us worked very hard and it most definitely paid off!

ARTIST MULTIPLE

For this assignment I had a few ideas how to go about it:

• Create a Zine – Of my time here living in Guelph
• Create a brand of my iconic face of me as a child – would put on shirts, or make a zine of this
• Make a CD based on the weird dreams I had

After chatting with the class I decided to go forward with the CD but instead of just focusing on dreams, I also incorporated some weird experiences I have had. I would talk about both experiences in first person as if they all happened to me. I decided I would speak in a monotone voice so the tone told through all of the stories would give nothing away if it actually happened or not.

Below are the scripts for my stories:

Story One:

I was at my Uncle’s house and a man I have never seen before was there. He came over to me and told me he had a great business idea. I waited in anticipation and he looked me dead in the eyes and said, “let’s breed sea lions”. 

We got the sea lions and the female sea lion sat in the middle of my uncle’s living room. She was grey, with large holes gouged deep throughout her body, and black ooze spilling from them. Littered around her on the floor were grey, gelatinous blobs that sporadically moved. The man and I took the blobs and shoved them in the holes. The blobs would spit back out of the holes as baby sea lions. 

The sea lions were angry. We were overbreeding them and they wanted revenge. They started to close in on the man and I, before we ran to my uncle’s room. My uncle was putting clothes away when I said to him, “Uncle Darren the sea lions are after us! They’re mad at us breeding them!” 

My uncle places the shirt on his hanger and looks at me, I’ve never seen him this serious. “I’ve dealt with this before,” he said, “what you’re going to need is a fly swatter and some good stomping boots.” My uncle, the man and I took the supplies we needed and went back out to the living room to face the horde of angry sea lions. 

Story Two:

Tessa and I still hadn’t eaten even though it was close to 9 PM. We decided to head out to the grocery store to get some food. We lived close so we decided to walk. As we were walking, what looked to be a police car slowed down next to us and parked. The man could tell we were startled and flashed us his badge. “Good evening ladies,” he said, even though it was nighttime, “There is a suspicious individual running around with no shoes on, have you seen him?”. Tessa and I looked at each other then back to the officer. 

“No, sorry we haven’t seen anyone”, I replied. The officer sent us a smile, “Well, be careful ok, have a good night.” and he drove away. Against our better judgement, Tessa and I still headed for the grocery store. The fear started setting in that there was a suspicious person running around, wearing no shoes. We quickly grabbed the rest of our groceries and headed back home. We decided to cut through our backyard to be safe. We usually went up through the side of the house but it was pitch black. What if we were to go up there and the shoeless man was standing there? Instead we knocked on the basement door for our roommate, Alan to let us in. We didn’t have the best relationship with him, but thankfully he opened the door. We stepped inside and I looked at him. “Thank you Alan, we heard there was a suspicious person running around and wanted to get in as fast as possible.”

 “That’s wild” he said, and that’s when I noticed it. 

Alan wasn’t wearing any shoes.

Story Three:

had a dream. In this dream a woman who had pale, wrinkly skin, creepy eyes, and a huge smile spoke to me. She resembled the person in the Russian Sleep Experiment. She looked at me and said, “You need to make the brownies.” Then I woke up. 

I started freaking out. Brownies,I thought, I need to make brownies. So I spent my morning making brownies. I made a good batch of brownies and decided I would bring them to Dungeons and Dragons with my friends, but make sure they don’t eat them all. I got to my friend’s house and put down the plate and then we played our session. When the session was over I realised all of the brownies had been eaten! 

“Oh no!” I cried, “These brownies were meant for the Smiling Woman!”. I headed home still worried about what would happen if I didn’t have the brownies. Though it was a dream I was still nervous. 

I headed up to my room to get ready to go to sleep when I heard, “Don’t look under the bed.” I froze. I cautiously did what the voice told me not to do and looked under my bed. I was frightened. What if it was the Smiling Woman? I put my head to the ground and looked under my bed and saw…a guy? He was pressed between the floor and the mattress and looked at me and said “I told you not to look” I was silent then said, “Boy you fiiiiiiine”

Story Four:

It was late. Tessa and I had a bad day. It was our first year at university and we both had received a 65 on our first art assignment. We were both so upset.  It was 2 AM and we opened the fridge to grab cheese. We started eating it then she slapped my arm with cheese. I slapped her back. We continued slapping each other. We laughed hysterically.

Story Five:

Alan came over to Tessa and I holding a jar of fettuccine Alfredo sauce.

“Does this smell expired to you?” he asked while smelling it. The jar did not expire until next year. The Jar had never been opened. And cheese does smell.

We repeated this to him and then he walked away. A few minutes later he came back to us and asked us for a wrench.

“Why do you need a wrench? I asked

“I cant open the sauce jar” He replied holding a marinara jar now

“You can’t open a sauce jar with a wrench,” I  said. I asked him if I could try opening it. He didn’t think I could, but then after a few seconds the lid managed to pop off and I walked away.

He looked enraged. I heard him murmur, “I’m feeling very emasculated right now.”

I tried to lighten the situation to spare him of his fragile ego and said, “its because Im such a girl boss”

He looked madder after that.

More time passed and Tessa and I heard “Ow” come from the kitchen. The Ow kept repeating.

Ow

Ow

Ow

Ow

We looked over and saw Alan sticking his finger in the burning hot pasta water over and over. He then left the water and picked up a three month old banana, which had fruit flies swarming it off of his shelf. We thought he would throw it out, but instead he ate it. 

I felt ill.

Story Six:

I was at summer camp and I was eating chicken.

After having the critique, it gave me a lot to think about in terms of packaging design for my piece. I really enjoyed the suggestion someone gave of the cover being a sea lion in a living room to add to the dream aspect! I’d like to think of more ideas for packaging to play between truth and dreams.

I decided to take photos of my CD up against a background of other CD’s to add to the physicality of the object. I did have a difficult time getting images as the plastic case of the CD was very reflective.

This assignment allowed me to create something I have never done before. I don’t usually make audio pieces, but it is something I would like to explore further in my practice!

Multiples project

For the final artist multiples project I chose to do an artist book. It is being printed (to be delivered December 8-I will post when I receive) but I have attached the pdf of the book. The format is a 7in x 7in soft cover book and it exhibits a collection of hand painted ceramics from a local ceramic painting and firing shop in Guelph, Play with Clay (note that using Blurb, the inside cover must be blank white on the 7×7 and 12×12 square format). The ceramics are painted by a mix of young and old and have a variety of colours and styles. I focused on collecting and photographing ones that had a fantastical feel about them. In the store, I chose figurines from the “completed” shelf that were awaiting pick-up. Some are picked up in the next week or two while others are left for a very long time, forgotten or unwanted by their makers. The shelf looks like a little village to me. In the artist book, I wanted to give a selection of pieces to exhibit the personality of the pieces and also, vicariously, the personality of the budding artists that painted them. I used coloured background cardboard to complement colours and different types of figurines and positioning to juxtapose them against each other. I picked each one with care and wanted to showcase each one. By their nature, these items only have value to the creator and perhaps the parent of the child creators. Once the creator/owner no longer wants them, they really don’t have a reuse market. By photographing and documenting them in this book, in a way I am capturing their value and extending it beyond the initial situation.

Scan art

I worked with Lily on creating scan art. We foraged for natural materials and she contributed some bones to the project. Here are some of our creations. I love the levels of depth achieved with some of the 3-D objects such as the Swedish Berries and the bones. The black background also adds a goth element with the colour scheme we chose.

Magazine creation

Lots of fun mixing and matching photos from our videos, book stacking projects and miscellaneous photos taken throughout the semester. The editing process with photos on the wall was helpful in pulling together my final artist multiple as well.

Here are the photos I contributed to the final artist magazine.

Week 4, 5 & 6 revisited-reshoot of Nature Feat and Intervention

Wow, I struggled with this project. I know you were looking for something whimsical, but one thing I learned in doing this project is that you can’t force whimsy when you are not feeling whimsical. I went back to basics for my second attempt at this project.

For the feat, I buried myself under a pile of leaves. As the days get shorter, I just want to hibernate. I like how the beginning and end shot look the same with the middle showing me burying myself. The arm coming up to grab the leaves and cover me has an eerie quality to it. A bit of a zombie/Halloween echo (and not a jazz tune in sight).

For the intervention, I went with a simple version of cutting the branch. I chose running water in the background as the “ideal” landscape so that there is some interest/movement in the first part of the clip. The cutters remove part of the tree that would obstruct a viewer from seeing all of the stream, “interrupting” the tree from just being, for the benefit of the viewer.

One more video. I have done several iterations of conversing with a tree and this one is the closest to what I picture in my mind. Rather than communicating with the tree, it is more of an acknowledgement. (Still a bit on the cheesy side, in my opinion, but approaching what I was picturing.)

Week 4, 5 & 6-Nature Feat and Intervention

My initial thought around an intervention was something I still want to do when the conditions are right. Water colour painting in the rain. The weather did not work for me. There was one torrential downpour with wind, which would have been perfect, but it was at 2am and would have been in the dark. I then was going to talk to a tree, but it just didn’t feel authentic, and really, I don’t think the tree was interested in talking back to me. I did some research on latest thoughts around tree communication and there was a study in Israel that has garnered a lot of attention around how trees, and plants in general, scream, tick and squeal when they are under stress, such as drought and injury to their limbs and roots. They were able to measure these vibrations but humans cannot hear them because they are at an ultrasonic level. There are several species of animals that also can communicate and hear at this level, namely beetles and other insects, bats, moths (and the related caterpillars) and worms. (Surprisingly, not birds.) The latest thinking is that the plants, when they are screaming, are communicating with other plants and animals that can hear at this ultrasonic level to either aid the plant or to feed on the plant so that the plants death can at least give back efficiently to the ecosystem.

My first video is probably a bit more edited than what was asked for, but the tree branch being cut and the final shot at the end of the video are the parts I took in one shot. I then added ultrasonic bat sounds that have been lowered to be heard by human ears and I edited in videos of animals that could understand the tree sounds, ending with what can be heard by human ears.

https://youtu.be/zXsWA_Th6jY

For the second video, I “walked across the earth”. I found a big mound of earth at the arboretum and it was loose so it recorded all my footprints as I went across in. I used different shoes and different ways to get across and examined the prints I left behind. The approach looks pseudo-scientific, but it is obviously casual as well. I first tried having the different approaches on different screens but found the effect too confusing. Also, the approach being somewhat linear and “scientific” came across better as one timeline. I added part of the jazz tune Footprints as the background. It made the viewing more interesting and also alluded to the topic of the video. I think it could work as no sound as well depending on how it was exhibited.

https://youtu.be/gT2JdIQmrU0

Week 3-Artist discussion: Terrance Houle and Trevor Freeman

Terrance Houle is an Indigenous interdisciplinary media (film/video/photography/performance/music) artist and a member of the Kainai Nation and Blood Tribe. He studied art at the Alberta College of Art. He lives and works in Calgary and has exhibited globally, winning awards for his films and as an emerging artist. His work often focuses on colonialism and Indigenous history. A powwow dancer, he also works as a youth mentor teaching video production and art at Métis Calgary Family Services in Calgary, Alberta. More recently, Terrance presented an individual exhibition called Ghost Days. This work presents an experimental art adventure, bringing together film, video, performance, photography, and music. Initiated in 2015 this project conjures the spirits and ghosts of colonial and non-colonial history that exist in the light of night, as well as in the darkness of the day. In one piece of work called “Remains” He photographs a chair over a series of time and watches it be reclaimed by the earth as it disintegrates. He is also well known for a series called “Urban Indian” depicting himself in traditional clothing performing everyday urban tasks. His work often involves visuals of things or people in places that are not expected.

Trevor Freeman is an environmental sculptor from Calgary and is a member of the Métis Nation. He studied art at the University of Lethbridge. He is friends with Terrance Houle and was brought back into the art scene with the performance of Portage ‘007.

Together, Terrance Houle and Trevor Freeman are known for a performance piece they did called Portage ‘007. Originally performed in Vancouver, they have reperformed the piece in different cities across Canada. The objective around the performance was to stage and subvert the typical illustration of portaging one finds in a vintage grade school classroom textbook. In interviews, Houle explains “it’s usually a staged photograph with the stern-faced native hoisting the canoe with his friend the Métis voyageur.” In the performance, the two dress up in stereotypical “traditional” Aboriginal and Métis garb and traverse the populated urban terrain of Vancouver’s metropolitan centre. Terrance is dressed up in a loincloth and moccasins and Trevor wears early fur-trapping attire and a Metis sash tied around his waist. They pose with a canoe in front of the Hudson’s Bay Company store on Granville. They pick up the canoe and place it on their heads, one man in the front and one man in the back. They begin their ‘Portage’ through the downtown core of Vancouver. Along the way, they interact with people and occasionally stop to talk, or eat, or rest. The ‘Portage’ endurance performance takes approximately 2-3 hours and they need to deal with weather elements.

As they carried a canoe through urban settings, we are reminded of pre-contact trade routes and also the early settlement of Canada during which time non-Native and Native porters would map new routes or take old routes to get to where they were going. These were modern day reenactments of old portage routes to celebrate social relations amongst different cultural groups and to acknowledge this unique history in Canadian fareways. The re-imagined Indian and Métis portaging our urban streets offers a sense of the past, and the fiberglass canoe suggests the present, while we ponder the future of trade, commerce and potential for further cultural understanding via historical narratives and practices.

Houle’s favorite comment: “Hey dude, this is like my grade 10 social class.” A shore patrol officer also asked if they had a permit to put the canoe in the water and asked if they had the required lifejackets, paddles, and bailing bucket. They assured him they were dry landers here to portage across the beautiful city of Vancouver. He said that after a while the city just becomes another landscape and the people are like trees. Most people, when they saw the canoe coming, keep their eyes averted and pretended they didn’t see that particular part of the urban landscape. There was a difference between the way people reacted based on where they were from. Tourists were puzzled. Canadians laughed because they “got” it. Once they changed back to contemporary clothing, people on the streets gave them little notice as they were just two guys transporting a canoe somewhere.

Week 2-Arboretum and outside (Circles, weeds and sky)

Circles:

Weeds: A weed is a plant growing anywhere you don’t want it to.

Sky:

Week 1 revisited: book stacks take 2

I re-shot some of the book stacks with significantly less books and like the simplicity of the images and messages. I also added one new concept stack. During my business career, the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, was an incredibly successful book and was forced upon us as must-read material. I decided to have a bit of an intervention and create my own stack of habits, including some referring to weather.

Week 1: Kathryn’s book stacks.

I took a hybrid approach to creating my book stacks. I walked around the University Library and pulled a few books that caught my eye either for the originality of the title, colour or reference to a “weather” event. I also did targeted word searches at both the University Library and the Guelph Public Library to fill in some concept gaps. I found the Children’s section of the Guelph Public library especially good for a few concepts. I first started taking photos on bookshelves or with a black background, similar to Nina Katchadourian, but started playing with accessories or shooting outside to add information or ambience to the story the photo told. I liked these better and found the colours and lighting of the books more engaging. The originals I have are higher resolution and the focus sharper. For some reason, once uploaded to WordPress they become a bit fuzzy.

For the first photo, I followed, somewhat, the style of Nina Katchadourian and approached the word choice as a poem or statement. The resulting stack is quite focused on environment and climate change. I photographed this one with blurred fire in the background, one indoors in daylight and one outdoors at night. My preference is the second one as it has a more violent and catastrophic feel.

Titles that caught my eye were often ones with questions in the title. When seen all together they created some anxiety and tension: Was I supposed to know all the answers to these questions? This led me to thoughts about the popularity of self-help books and how their messages were most often obvious and pithy but explained in a long-drawn-out way how to solve a problem. I had some fun and created a self-help stack with a nature background (a tree stump in my backyard) as an anxiety-calming trope. The questions that start the stack descend (in my opinion) into more and more ridiculous questions. For the weather-related book, I was a bit disappointed that the book I wanted “I wonder why the Sahara is cold at night” was unavailable. The alternative “I wonder why leaves change color” is very thin and a little hard to read (the original is higher resolution and has more clarity).

For the final photograph, I wanted to use the children’s book “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” as it had the weather reference and a whimsical title. I thought about how fun it would be to create a series of posters that had book stacks that could logically lead to a whimsical or unusual saying (almost like a mathematical equation or a riddle) and I came up with this. Aesthetically I thought it would be effective to have some traditional Italian colours and ingredients in the photo to add to the theme.

Environmental Intervention Performance

This prompt was deeply inspiring. I held myself to work simply and essentially during this process. Originally, I assumed I would enact something motivated by props or by creating a scene to act in by manipulating my environment. The more I considered my goals for this performance, the further I understood that it wasn’t fully about me. It was about the nature that supports me in these videos. I moved towards videos that worked in a wholesome and gentle way. These themes reflect the way I feel the natural environment affects my person. Working with Ana and Julianna allowed me to explore the reasons I had for intervening in nature the way I was planning to, we found the process of exploration and brainstorming to push us further into simplistic performances that avoided over-production.

First we made some testing videos, we filmed using ideas that were prompted from exploring to warm up our brains!

These moments were motivation to return to the arboretum with fully formed concepts and a vision for the final drafts we were imagining.

I considered the process of collection and observation in my natural environment making this first video. gently interrupted to shore of a pond to collect my “favourite” sticks as if I was a small creature preparing a nest. The echo of the snapping branches creates a mildly destructive feeling as I take each step. The snapping suggests an invasion of space and disturbance I created by walking over a naturally occurring collection.

The next piece is what I am considering as my final submission. The concept had been my initial want to demonstrate something relating to rest and sleep. I originally planned to use props and include others, but the most effective clip seemed to be one of myself doing to most simple of actions. I put on a nightgown and lay down in the grass that had been pressed down by and animal (or person). I chose to not move and to simply lie in place, in the sun, and meditate on my surroundings. I payed attention to the ambient noise around me, noticing how much noise was being created by visitors is the arboretum.

I wanted to represent sleep and rest because I largely reflects how I feel about my time spent outdoors. Submitting myself to participate in my surroundings in a quiet and gentle sense brings forth the life and sound that occurs naturally when I am not there. It was a reminder to me that I am small and mildly irrelevant, but simultaneously a natural creature who will always hold a place in nature

On our way out, the three of us chose a particularly lush patch of green grass to act out a group piece. One where we enter together and choose a space for our bodies, we pat the grass under us down and curl into the ground for a few moments, listening to the surrounding sounds. The grass groaning under me, the wind shaking the trees above us, then sun casting spotty shadows over us through the canopy. It was a lovely way to conclude our trip and meditate together.

Environmental Artist Presentation – Andrea Zittel

A-Z Administrative Services/Enterprises

One of Zittel’s major works is a collection of sculpture ranging from shelter, clothing, and furniture that all exist in the same artistic experiment. She created a number of pieces all with the intention of examining the necessities of human living and what we feel is essential to our living. Many of the piece strip away excess, and work to fulfill our most simple and essential needs. This re-evaluation also reflects back to us the needs we have place upon us by social structures. A-Z East became the name for a show room in which she would test these designs through her own lived experience.

This re-examination of needs is said to make all necessities accessible to all as she establishes an environment for creativity to thrive without the stress of excessive living. This theoretical planning proposes a more socially-responsible lifestyle regarding waste and conscious consumption.

A-Z East

In 2000 Andrea chose to relocate from New York to Joshua Tree, California where she purchased five acres of the desert to live and work on. She began to create pieces in connection to the A-Z collection, with the same themes and requirements of reduced living. But they interacted much more with their direct environment. Those five acres are now around forty. She continues this experiment of sculptural exploration always evolving her testing with the questions “how to live?” and “what gives life meaning?” as the thesis for the sculptures. The interest in answering these question continuously reveals the complicated relationships between materiality, environment, and consumption.

Both Zittel’s personal home and guest cabin are actually available for renting and can be stayed in. The camping stations/wagon pods (pictured above on the right) are available for stay as well. Visitors are able to take refuge in the desert and immerse themselves in Zittel’s self-sufficient pods and share communal resources. There is a total of 10 pods, included are composting toliets, a communal outdoor kitchen, and outdoor showers. They are described as being a cross between and alien landscape, and regular campsite, a retreat and an old time “do it from scratch” Western horse-drawn wagons.

The pods are collapsible, movable and feature a transparent ceiling.

Book Stacks

Here are some if my Book Stacks, prompted by “Weather”

Note; I haven’t had the chance to retouch them at all so the images are still a bit raw 🙂

#1

The Sun Placed In The Abys – Melting Point (continued) ->>fast forward 2 – What’s Left -The Saddest Place On Earth

This stack ended up feeling very apocalyptic, I imagine a sort of exchange where the Sun is sacrificed and the Earth cannot stand its absence. Perhaps that is too poetic, but I don’t think it is far off from our reality with climate change in action. We already sacrifice the health of our planet in exchange for convenience in our lives today.

#2

The Earthly Paradise – Cities Full of Symbols – The Sex Of Architecture – The City As An Image of A Man – I Am Architecture – What People Want – Queer Space

This combination felt more natural to me. Finding books that were prompting was good way to flow into the next title (What People What). It was really interesting to find myself categorizing books automatically into what felt like different types of titles and how they could be used. Encouraging myself to not be controlling over the narrative created or to practice consciously putting titles together with my artist’s brain.

This string of titles also felt personal to me. Reflecting on societal structure and how it isn’t build with queer people/space in mind is relevant to my personal life. It also led me to think of the inaccessible nature of a lot of city spaces, I found myself imaging what a real “Earthly Paradise” would be like for me.

#3

Make Space – Queer Space – A Sense of Place – Across Space And Time

This last stack felt like a great conclusion. It works as a sort of final statement or thought, something to consider and take forwards. Queer Spaces are infinitely valuable for those who seek refuge or community. I also enjoy how the repetition of the word space and the rhyming with the word place. It repeats with purpose, but is also just satisfying to read. I think my sense of colours with the spines was most successful here as well, there’s a bit of a gradient happening which is pleasing to the eye!

Overall, this assignment felt very valuable. Slightly out of comfort zone, but still calling on skills we all have as artist’s to compose something from pre-existing image/items. Loved it!

Week One :

First working on this assignment i felt overwhelmed with all of the options in the library at Guelph for potential combinations of words and phrases. So instead at the beginning of my process I decided to gather books simply based on interesting titles, combined with visually pleasing spines in order to create myself a micro selection of books. From the titles I liked and gathered, I then worked in my “mini library.”

STACK ONE | ART THROUGH THE AGES

My first collection of books were found all together in the Art History section of the library. I firstly noticed they provided all the colours of the rainbow before noting that they actually also were written by the same author, Gardener. This piece felt more like a natural start to the rest of the assignment, and encouraged me to not just rely on the title of the books, but what books physically stood out to me. What I would naturally lean towards visually felt as if the selection of books did not just speak about the library’s collection, but also my own preferences as an artist.

STACK TWO | EDEN

My second collection, is quite possibly my favourite. I leaned towards more word play, but still wanted to keep visual aesthetics in mind. This was the resulted in the more blunt appearance with shorter titles, and a more muted colour palette. I loved how these titles reminded me of the creation story in the bible of Adam and Eve, and relates to themes I want to explore in my practice as an artist this semester.

STACK THREE | WAR

My final stack felt the most natural to the original assignment. I had originally gathered this series of books based on the worn look of their covers thinking it provided a lot of visual interest. Nearing the end of my time at the library I was stacking books to put away when I finally noticed the titles of each book. I decided to rearrange them to read the most like poetry, to tell the story of the transitions of peace and war and then hopeful rediscovery.

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ARTIST PRESENTATION | JAE RHIM LEE

Jae Rhim Lee’s TEDtalk | https://youtu.be/_7rS_d1fiUc

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Video Art Submission

This video was condensed from a previous art assignment, and is my submission for the Images Festival

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Book Research

For our class’ artist book, I really wanted to play around with editing and morphing images together. During one of our first days, I started with the idea of “men with mushrooms” and started gathering images. I noticed how everyone else’s images looked very similar with rectangles or squares on top of a solid colour background, so I wanted to see what else could be done in terms of making a spread. I did not want to only arrange images, but instead wanted to see how I could manufacture my own.

The first two pages I made for the book were produced by automatically selecting the image and allowing for gaps and holes to occur. Then I would layer images and textures playing with the opacity, and finally making all the images black and white for a sense of unity. I was inspired by zines and the idea of mass production, and wanted my images to almost resemble being layered and layered through a printer. Unfortunately, I got sick shortly after these pages were produced, and that maddest extremely difficult to come in and work. I was disappointed when I returned to class and one of my morphed images had been removed without notice because the last update I had received, “Men with Mushrooms” was still alongside another image I had created to compliment each other.

If we were to redo this assignment, I wish that maybe we assigned a set amount of pages for each student, in order to keep the amount of contributions even. Even though we were sourcing images from each other, I find that there was representation of certain student’s work much more than others and that really restricted the feeling of it being a “class book.” This was especially apparent for me when my final image I had created for the book was also nearly removed last minute due to it “not fitting the rest of the book.” Instead of a solution of maybe adding elements to an additional page to make a spread, I personally feel that maybe we were too quick to just remove pages. When it is supposed to be a class work and none of your own work is possibly represented, meanwhile certain classmates have their images present in nearly half of the book the assignment was really discouraging.

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Artist Multiple

For my artist multiple, I was inspired by a 1913 love letter a cartoonist had sent his wife in order to tell her about a museum they were going to visit. I love the attributes of pop-up the original design carried and I wanted to make a multiple that was a 3D object in space rather than just a pamphlet or piece of paper.

For my new artistic interpretation of this piece, I wanted to speak on the inaccessibility of art institutions and how it can be difficult for young artists to even get their foot in the door of these institutions. I included images of famous works I personally like in order to show a bias in the art community. I wanted to capture this feeling of being unable to enter such a closed off space, so decided to remove the original doorway from the inspiring design. I also included a run-on-sentance monologue to cover all four sides of the pop-up. I wanted to the receiver to feel as if they were reading and receiving the same advice over and over again, but not knowing what the advice is wishing to do.

From discussions in class, I think moving forward with this project I would like to have them as a monthly mail-out where people can receive new monthly art history information about different artists, or contemporary artists of all disciplines. I think rather than individually glues pieces, I can easily size the piece to be a single sheet of paper with fold lines for assembly, and then only glue the one edge. The reason I chose to present this work’s packaging as a letter as well, is not just to pay homage to just the original letter, but also to signify the future plans of this project being a mailed form of art. Not everyone is able to go to art institutions, so I really admire the idea of bringing the art to them.

1. Tattoos lecture and video – discuss ideas

1. Workshop in class, worktime, discussions

Status, 2012

Performance by Jordan Bennett 2012
Materials: Tattooing, Technical equipment, film screening of Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance and Is the Crown at War with us? by Alanis Obomsawin 
Performed/Presented at: Eastern Edge Art Gallery, St. John’s NL
Photo: Eastern Edge Art Gallery

Artur Zmijewski:

 80064. Its title is the camp number of a 92 years old Auschwitz survivor, Jozef Tarnawa. The tattoo has faded with the years and Zmijewski meets the old man in a tattoo parlor and tries to persuade him to have it ‘refreshed’.

The old man is not to be convinced easily. He wants to be left in peace. He is worried that the renewed tattoo will not be ‘original.’ In the end, Zmijweski gets his way and the poor man submits his arm unwillingly to the tattoo artist. In Zmijweski’s own words: ‘When I undertook this film experiment with memory, I expected that under the effect of the tattooing the ‘doors of memory’ would open, that there would be an eruption of remembrance of that time, a stream of images or words describing the painful past. Yet that didn’t happen. But another interesting thing happened. Asked whether, while in the camp, he had felt an impulse to revolt, to protest against the way he was treated, Tarnawa replied: ‘Protest? What do you mean, protest? Adapt – try and survive.’ In the film, suffering, power relationships, and subordination are repeated.

About the controversial work the artist says:

“It’s a renovation of the number, a kind of the respect toward the guy, he is treated as a living monument of the past which needs to be preserved and kept in good condition. And the second meaning of it is re-creation or repetition of the act of violence toward this guy. In both movies, I wanted to open access to the past, really open it, not to commemorate it only, but only open access to it, really jump into the past. The very moment when the tattoo was done or the very moment when people were in the gas chamber […] Deifnitely artists should maintain their position and support curators and institutions which presents this exhibition and fight censorship.”

from: https://news.err.ee/115144/polish-artist-behind-controversial-holocaust-video-art-defends-work-on-etv

Michelle Lacombe

90FeminismsAnne-Marie St-Jean Aubre

• Michelle Lacombe, Of All the Watery Bodies, I only know my own, documentation, 2013-2014.

Reading a Body

Michelle Lacombe turns her body into a palimpsest for us to decode, mingling constructed and natural signs and generating a complex image of the tensions traversing it. Each of her works comes about in two moments. The first is the work’s production and presentation, focusing on an issue conveyed by the media and art history, which generate an exterior view of the woman. The second is everyday lived experience, in which bodily signs endure, accumulate, recontextualize one another. Lacombe embodies both perspectives simultaneously; her body, a field of struggle, testifies to this.

Revisiting the historical modes of representation of women through the deconstruction of Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus (1510), Lacombe stands in for the main subject of the scene in The Venus Landscape(2010). The work consists of lines tattooed on her body that serve as guides to the prescribed pose of a reclining, wanton Venus offered up to desiring eyes. The artist denies the prescription by fragmenting her posture in everyday actions, the drawn lines never joining up to render a coherent image of their reference. Nor does she shy away from the tropes associated with women or fear falling into stereotypes: in dealing with maternity, the menstrual cycle, and women’s kinship with nature, her project Of all the watery bodies, I only know my own (2013–16) is an occasion to reflect on the body’s erosion through the monthly loss of its reproductive potential. No longer situated in the landscape, her body becomes the landscape, a terrain that wears down over time, with every cycle.

The voice of women, often devalued, lies at the heart of Italics; Underlining for emphasis (2010 and 2015), which indeed underlines Lacombe’s voice with an invisible line etched inside her lower lip, symbolically marking her agency. She strives for the same goal in all her work: to reveal and explode the barriers that restrain her field of action as she confronts the complexities and nuances inherent to her research.

Translated from the French by Ron Ross

Catherine Opie:

JANA STERBAK

Generic Man, 1987-1989, printed of 2002

Santiago Sierra

160 cm Line Tattooed on 4 People … is a video documenting an action that took place at El Gallo Arte Contemporáneo in Salamanca, Spain in December 2000. The artist’s text explains: ‘Four prosititutes addicted to heroin were hired for the price of a shot of heroin to give their consent to be tattooed. Normally they charge 2,000 or 3,000 pesetas, between 15 and 17 dollars, for fellatio, while the price of a shot of heroin is around 12,000 pesetas, about 67 dollars.’ (Quoted from the artist’s text accompanying the video.) The single-channel black and white video constitutes an informal record of the event in which the four participating women allow their backs to be used for the tattoo. It shows the women – two fair haired and two dark haired – arrive in the space and take up positions, naked from the waist up and with their backs towards the camera, straddling black bentwood chairs. During the action they move constantly, chatting, laughing, smoking, turning to look behind them, curiously watching the female tattoo artist and commenting on her processes until, finally, she cleans their wounds and covers them with bandages. During the film, two men in dark clothes pass in and out of the frame, holding a tape measure over the bared backs for the initial measurement and taking photographs of the process as it develops.

Wim Delvoye

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38601603?fbclid=IwAR0aPCkP9LqWGba4uRtAnNoQbN1m3w0bHs9AW4PqhqzvJLhDVxjdlQoPrqs

JOHN MURCHIE

 I’m thinking about your relationship to lines, in particular. Can you talk about your tattoos?

JM: They’re still there!

KH: [Laughs] Yes, well, in some ways they are only slightly less ephemeral than your paper cups and napkins, in the sense that you yourself are rather ephemeral in reference to geological or cosmic time…

JM: True. I honestly don’t remember how I began working with lines exactly, except that it began soon after I started working at NSCAD. My use of straight lines is probably another reflection of the fact that I was interested in making works in visual art but had no particular skills or training, and I also had no interest in gaining those skills. That compounded with my background literature and my interest in science and mathematics. As for the tattoos, they are artworks that I’ve had for twenty-two years now. Most of my life I’ve worked in some sort of job where I’m dressed with sleeves covering the majority of the work, so the question most people will wonder is how far up my body they go. There is an implication that they continue.

KH: I’m looking at them now – they are on the center of your forearms, beginning at the wrist and ending at the elbow. I remember you saying once that one was black and the other blue, though of course now the black one is blueing, and the blue one is blueing further, which is also interesting in terms of tracking time. Lines are of course related to a human sense of time as a linear concept, and certainly your continued use of the line connects much of your work through time.

John Murchie, “Black and Blue”, 1996. Photos courtesy of Gemey Kelly.

JM: When I got them done in the mid-‘90s, there weren’t that many people around with tattoos. Those from my father’s generation who had been to war certainly had some, but aside from that they weren’t that prevalent, but were starting to be. I’ve always been interested in how a sculpture can be a painting and vice versa. I still see them as my drawings, basically. On the other hand, I’m obviously a three-dimensional thing, so its sculptural, and also I see it as an ongoing performance, until my last breath. It’s the only way I can give my body real value. I have offered this artwork to the National Gallery of Canada. I told them they couldn’t have it until I passed away. And then, they would have to make a decision as to whether they preferred to see it as a drawing, and skin me, or see it as a sculpture.

KH: And embalm you?

JM: [Laughs] Yes. It’s their choice. I see both possibilities as perfectly adequate and true, but obviously you have to make a choice. Curatorially speaking, I think they would make the better choice than I would. From my perspective, it’s one of my most successful works.

KH: I’m led to think of Santiago Sierra’s 160 cm Line Tattooed on 4 People from 2000, which of course was done much later and garnered a lot of negative attention for the obvious problematics – paying prostitutes the price of their choice substance to be tattooed across their backs as some sort of unit. Obviously your work is exceedingly different, but I can’t help but bring Sierra to mind. Both works, regardless of their extreme difference, involve an attempt at geometry against the fleshiness of the human body, and demand that the living body be seen as an art object.

JM: Yes well even in my case not everyone has been empathetic with the work either, like my mother, for example. [Laughs] She thought it was the most stupid thing she’d heard in her life. Conversations around their utility come up most often in hospitals when my sleeves are rolled up to do blood work and the like. I guess they look suspiciously like the surgical marks doctors draw when they’re getting ready to cut you open.

Douglas Gordon

Tattoo (for Reflection)

The work of Douglas Gordon revolves around a constellation of dualities and dialectics. Mistaken identities, doubles, split personalities, and such opposites as good and evil, and self and other are thematized as inseparable. Gordon’s films, video installations, photographs, and texts transform differences into uncanny, nuanced pairs.

Gordon approaches film as ready-made or found object, mining the potential collective memory that exists in cinematic fragments, and in the process, disclosing unseen or overlooked details and associations. His installation through a looking glass (1999) features the well-known scene from Martin Scorsese’s 1976 film Taxi Driver in which Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro, asks, “You talkin’ to me?” while gazing into a mirror. In Gordon’s piece, the scene is projected onto dual screens placed on opposite walls of a gallery space. The original episode from the movie, filmed as a reflection in the mirror, is shown on one wall. The other screen displays the same episode with the image reversed, flipped left to right. The two facing images, which begin in sync, progressively fall out of step, echoing the character’s loss of control and his mental breakdown. These discordant projected images seem to respond to one another, thus trapping the viewer in the crossfire. In its almost dizzying play of dualities, through a looking glassperfectly articulates the dialectical inversions, doublings, and repetitions that are the central concerns of Gordon’s work.

Gordon also uses still photography to capture performative acts, as in Tattoo (for Reflection) (1997). In accordance with Gordon’s instructions, the writer Oscar van den Boogaard had the word “guilty” tattooed in reverse on the back of his left shoulder; the tattoo can only be read via its reflection in a mirror. Gordon revels in the mixed messages found in the tattoo’s various cultural associations, from its use as an identifying mark on prisoners to its current incarnation as a subculture status symbol. In true Gordonian, reflexive fashion—with the word legible on van den Boogaard’s back only when reversed—the photograph becomes an index of an index.

Title:

Three inches, black no. 2

1997

Douglas Gordon Douglas Gordon, Never, Never (white), 2000. C-type digital print. 62 x 76 cm (unframed). © Studio lost but found / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017.

Fastwurms: See AGYU book

Donkey Ninja Witch, 2010

David Shrigley:

Shannon Gerard: Willy

Tattoos

More References:
Russian Prison Tattoos:

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/9bzvbp/russian-criminal-tattoo-fuel-damon-murray-interview-876?fbclid=IwAR2m4rDisHtm_CV-Abo2c0zXeCwIw_M8UntcicoV_rZwlnEXS5mqpgyQOug

Art Hurts: CBC Series

https://www.cbc.ca/arts/art-hurts-meet-8-extraordinary-tattoo-artists-whose-ink-is-worth-a-little-bit-of-pain-1.5000490?cmp=FB_Post_Arts&fbclid=IwAR1qoLn5jxsXSaRrJ_HlrFUfPr5MJjoSIF_5l5GytcK6UH-LzJeCutu5lsA

Watch Tattoos,

 Leo Zhuoran 2019

As a child, my friends and I used to draw watches on each other’s wrist for fun. Back in the days, a ball point pen is not easy to find for us since everyone uses pencil and only adult and older children can use a pen. To share a ball point pen that was hard to find and draw different watches on each others wrist was a simple mark of friendship. To recreate this childhood memory, I asked my classmates to draw each other a wrist watch with their own design and photographed it then translated it into a printable design. I then printed these “watches” on temporary tattoo paper and shared it with the class.

Matching Freckles, Sydney Coles, 2019

Sarah Hernandes, Embrace, 2019.

Make an Artist Tattoo

RECOMMENDED MEDIA: Tattoo transfer, drawing for the body, performance, video

Due: See schedule for details

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Human beings have been tattooing themselves for thousands of years. For religious and spiritual reasons, for beautification, remembrance, for rites of passage, for sex, as expressions of identity and belonging; of protest, of love and sometimes – of possession and hate.

Artists have explored many of these ideas in artist-tattoo projects, utilizing self-conscious, and conceptual strategies in designing and applying tattoos. The resulting works are sometimes surprising, provocative or difficult, funny, or emotionally moving.

Students will create a tattoo piece. You can use the transfer paper or other print and drawing techniques to make one, or multiple tattoos. You can also consider ways to present your work – on a body, in a performance, or in a video. Finish your tattoo somehow – to present to the class and on the blog as a finished artwork.

**** While your work may be a proposal and sample of a permanent tattoo, I would recommend you do NOT apply a real permanent tattoo/mark on yourself or others to complete this assignment. After critiques you are free to do what you like with your own body – but for class, you will not make a permanent body alteration, please.

Consider artist tattoos by:

Jana Sterbak

Douglas Gordon

Catherine Opie

John Murchie

Shannon Gerard

Artur Zmijewski

Michelle Lacombe

David Shrigley

Jordan Bennett

Santiago Sierra

Alethea Arnaquq-Baril

Students will document finished works for addition to the blog. Include a title, a short description and one to two images or video of your work.

Works must be posted on the blog with a title and description to receive a final grade.

1. Video Crits

1. Video Crits
2. SHENKMAN LECTURE WEDNESDAY

1. Show and discuss CBC Spark, The Power and Provocation of Art
2. Discussion of work in progress, tech adc

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark/the-power-and-provocation-of-art-1.6258742

1. Editing time, discussions of work in progress.

The power and provocation of art – from CBC Spark

A special Spark retrospective

CBC Radio · Posted: Dec 24, 2021 1:17 PM ET | Last Updated: December 24, 2021

Spark53:59The power and provocation of art

Over the past 15 seasons of Spark, we’ve done a lot of stories about art that could be seen as impractical, complicated, and just plain, well, weird.

And that was intentional, created to be a provocation, something to make us think about the technologically-mediated world around us.

Art plays an important role in helping us navigate our digital lives, where we’re often bound by the unquestioned assumptions of the technology we inherited. 

Freed from the constraints of being ‘sensible’, artists can ask big questions that can help us see problems — and solutions — in a new way. 

What happens when you let an AI deer run loose in a video game?

That was the premise of the San Andreas Streaming Deer Cam, an AI deer programmed to wander through the video game Grand Theft Auto V by visual artist Brent Watanabe. 

“To see this hapless deer wander in this gigantic environment, none of which is designed for it, I think is kind of sobering,” Watanabe told Spark host Nora Young in 2016.

https://www.cbc.ca/i/caffeine/syndicate/?mediaId=2686541291

Running with the Grand Theft Auto deer

6 years agoDuration1:28Artist Brent Watanabe creates an artificially intelligent deer that roams the virtual landscape of the video game, Grand Theft Auto V. 1:28

It’s mesmerizing to watch, but why?

“The piece touches on very universal themes,” explained Watanabe, “like longing and suffering and on our human relationships with wildlife and farmed animals. And what technology and human progress is doing to other creatures on Earth.” 

See more projects by Brent Watanabe:

What does a computer look like?

To artist and professor Irena Posch, it’s a two-metre-long, golden embroidered fabric. That’s right, Posch designed an 8-bit computer using historic patterns of gold embroidery and beads. 

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1454651459915/

How to make an embroidered computer

3 years agoArtist Irene Posch explains how she created the ’embroidered computer,’ an 8-bit computer made of cloth, beads and gold thread. 0:39

The computer opens up space to question the design of computers in particular, but also our technologies in general. 

“I understand The Embroidered Computer as an alternative, as an example, but also a critique of what we assume a computer to be today, and how it technically could be different,” Posch told Spark host Nora Young in 2019. 

“If this is actually what we want is a whole different question, but I think it’s interesting to propose an alternative.”

See more of Irene Posch:

What do computers, knitting, NASA and 18th century China have in common? 

For mathematician and technology historian, Kristen Haring, the answer is in the story of binary systems. If you thought an embroidered computer was fascinating, if not a little out there, what about knitting Morse code into sweaters?

Haring did just that, associating the ‘on’ pulse of electricity in Morse code, with a purl stitch, and the ‘off’ with a knit stitch. https://www.youtube.com/embed/hdYEMs6nkA8

This whimsical exercise in translation between Morse code and knitting, was a way of playfully thinking about binary systems themselves, but also about the culture of binary, through our common history. 

“I think we have the sense that binary is very much 21st century, and I think it’s a very good lesson in not being arrogant about our present technology, to become aware of the fact that people for thousands of years have been analyzing things in this binary method,” Haring told Spark host Nora Young in 2012.

“You can make really great computers and mobile telephones out of binary systems, but you can also decide what time of day to pray or how to make beautiful poetry in Sanskrit.”

See more Kristen Haring:

What if you could convert pollution into something useful?

Engineer Anirudh Sharma was walking around Mumbai when he noticed that air pollution was forming a dark pattern on his white shirt. And that gave him a really big idea.

What if he could somehow collect the soot — mostly carbon — and convert it into a usable ink? And AIR-INK was born. https://www.youtube.com/embed/MqOplj2HSdE

His company, Graviky Labs, built special scrubbers to extract the soot from car exhausts and chimneys, and, through a special refinement process, turn it into ink which is then donated to artists to make murals or silkscreens.

Even a single marker can contain many tons of pollution that would otherwise be going into the air. “Or into your lungs,” Sharma told Spark host Nora Young in 2017.

In addition to art supplies, AIR-INK is used today in the garment industry and in packaging. 

Unlike top-down regulation, Sharma believes grassroots, ground-up solutions, like his, may go a long way to cleaning the air in some of the most polluted cities in the world.

“What we’re talking about is retrofitting so we can capture whatever pollution is being emitted right now,” Sharma explained. “And it can be recycled into a form that will incentivize the polluter to capture the air pollution.”

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Written by Michelle Parise. Produced by Michelle Parise, Nora Young and Adam Killick.

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