TATTOO PROJECT: IDEAS

For this assignment I was curious about my personal experience with tattoos and the somewhat negative feedback or experiences I have had with tattoos in relation to my family’s reactions and opinions. I had the idea to interview initially just my mother, as she is the one who signed off and paid for my first tattoo, however after speaking with her I wanted to ask my father the same questions. Unfortunately the phone call didn’t record audio as I had first hoped to have, but I asked a number of questions about how she felt about tattoos in general, about my choice to get tattoos, if she had any regrets letting me get my first one, and if she could describe my tattoos in one word what would it be. I asked my dad relatively the same questions, other than the one regarding signing off for my first one, and the answers were surprising similar.

I asked them both if they could describe my tattoos in one word, what would that word be. My mother’s word was “expression” and my father’s was “artistic.” With these words I want to play around with different fonts and see how that impacts the meaning of the word and as a tattoo.

PARENTS PROJECT: ARTIST BOOK

Since I have done this project already in video format in Experimental II, I was tasked with creating an artist book that followed the same subject matter of ‘parents.’ I chose to focus on my dad this time around and through images of his parents, his past, and his present life, create a book that captured his place as a parent in my life. It was important to me to include images of his parents, even if their identities are not obvious to people outside my life who view these images; I believe that who our parents are shape not only the individuals we become, but as well, the parents we become, if we do. I think it was equally important to include images that were from when he was married to my mother since that was another chapter of his life that relates to him as a parent and parenthood in general. His past marriage and when he first became a parent is equally as important as where he is in life now as a parent in another marriage, because I have got to experience the ways in which he fathers all of his children along with the similarities and differences. This was a difficult project for me to complete for a few reasons, I think especially because this idea of ‘parent’ does not always hold a positive connotation for everyone. It was important for me to keep my intentions with this book true, despite it maybe not being a perfect portrait of parenthood, or altering it to make sense for other people, because as the artist, it makes sense to me and my experiences. This being said, I did try to take the feedback I got from my lovely peers and use the insightful critiques from you all when making my final editing decisions.

INTERNET VIDEO TREND: “ALL GRWM”

For my internet video trend I found myself experimenting with a lot of different subject matter or internet video tropes, however, a consistent theme I was incorporating was ‘animal videos.’ Animal videos have a long history with the internet and appear on all platforms, from YouTube compilations of “funny cat videos” to TikTok’s of “pet meal-prep.”

Being the animal lover I am, I opted to go the route of using animal videos as my subject matter. A lot of the videos I watch on the internet are light-hearted or ‘filler’ video throughout my day of just scrolling through my social media platform feeds. For this project I wanted to capture the light hearted or for lack of a better word, ‘meaningless,’ videos that I come across daily. Similar to what I originally had in mind of pit bull pampering videos, my work is a video compilation of all types of breeds being pampered or groomed in a human like nature. A lot of what is being performed on the dogs is what human’s themselves are doing in similar “get ready with me (GRWM)” videos, and so I wanted to have the two side by side to act as a visual commentary on the similarities of the two.

Whether this video is meant to be humorous, a parody, thought-provoking, commentary of the times, etc.; none of that is definitive or a decision made intentionally, I more so wanted to have fun with the videos I commonly consume and play around with the similarity of the two video trends/genres.

VIDEO TRENDS: DOG PAMPERING

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMYdKS9q5/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMYdKudC9/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMYdKDELD/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMYdKrgua/

The internet trend/video culture that I chose to discuss is ‘dog pampering’ or ‘dog beauty routines,’ specifically pitbulls. Some of the videos are parodies of ‘beauty routines’ or ‘get ready with me’ videos, however, some are just genuine dog grooming routine videos.

TEXT IN ART: BARBARA KRUGER’S “YOUR BODY IS A BATTLEGROUND”

American conceptual artist, Barbara Kruger, is known for the incorporation of text into her works. The provocative messages usually play with concepts of capitalism, the body, and the meaningless nature of advertisements. The particular piece, your body is a battleground, was created for the Women’s march on April 9, 1989 that took place in Washington, DC. The march was an activist movement that happened as a response to anti-abortion laws at the time.

This colour combo, bright red over black and white, as well as the font style, is prominent throughout a number of Kruger’s artworks. The bold highlighted statements resemble advertisements and are eye-catching, but it is the actual phrases that move the piece beyond just a reproduction of advertisement font and images. Beyond the statement, “your body is a battleground,” the image used in this piece resembles the stereotypical beauty standards women in western society are expected to uphold, yet another way the autonomy of the female body is challenged.

GARLAND BANNER

JANUARY 16