Reading Response 1
I do not have any experience with performance art, nor have I seen any of it in person before. Thanks to the internet however, I have seen many works that I liked, and that I did not. I think one of my favorite performance art pieces is Cut Piece by Yoko Ono. I had never really seen a performance work of art before this, and it was quite intriguing. I felt uncomfortable, but also seen I think as a woman, which is relative to the meaning and controversy behind the piece. I would not have been able to sit on a stage in a vulnerable and dangerous way like that, so it was nerve wracking to watch it unfold and worry about how it might play out. I think it is very important to have performance art work, especially for means of making people feel things and as said in the reading, create communities. The direct engagement with an audience of a diverse amount of people is very important to performance art, because those people will go on to speak about the work or change their lives somehow if they felt moved by the work. I do not think much about performance art, or the reasons we have it. Knowing now some history of the importance of performance art in the black community, I feel I have a different view of it. Knowing that to some, especially the black community in this case, performance is a place for reclamation, resistance, and voices to be heard makes it more powerful. It was interesting to read the author’s point of view as a young person, thinking that if you are participating in a piece of art, it has to move people or make some big deal, otherwise what is the point? I definitely see how performance art was a big way to test social boundaries, as it can be a large spectrum of things from speaking, to smearing mayonnaise, to crawling in the street.
Kilometer
Walking Piece
OCD Things I Do and Think While Walking a Kilometer
11:22am
I notice my blinking tic
I wonder if someone is coming to kill me
Someone is hiding in the trees to get me
There is someone behind me
For a while during this walk I do a couple frantic turns to make sure there is no man
This makes me trip on my own foot (I do this often because my feet turn inwards)
I trip myself on the other foot on purpose to even out my feet
Now that I know there is no man I stop being able to step on the sidewalk cracks
And now any branches
And now any random sidewalk squares my brain does not like
I wink my left eye hard, because my right eye feels heavier which is uneven
I did it too much, have to do the other eye now
I accidentally tap my finger to my leg and must replicate this on the other side
Stepping on the ground in various hardness so that both my feet feel the same pressure
Looking behind me again every few seconds to make sure nobody is there
Making sure I look over either shoulder the same amount of times
Have to make sure each foot gets an equal amount of times going first over a line
I think they put poison in my water bottle
I begin to wonder when was the last time I saw this water bottle, has the lid been off?
Even if there is no drugs in the water the water is contaminated no doubt
I need to go home to wash this bottle
Accidentally started counting and could not stop
Ever
I become scared when I discovered I had stopped counting to have another thought
My throat feels tight
Oh shit. Now that i am aware of it, I am willing it to close
Something feels wrong here
I can feel my heart beating.
Stop beating
Oh no, i am going to think my heart into stopping itself
(I am not this powerful but apparently i don’t know that)
Please don’t stop beating
And on my way home I alternate closing my eyes and staring in attempt to stop my tic
11:35
Artist Statement
For this piece, I am inspired by Yoko Ono grapefruit, and other written experimental work. I love interactive work, and work that takes you on a journey even if only through your mind (not physically walking). So this work is my walking piece, which I could consider a work of art because of its complexity.
I have OCD, branching into a few subtypes that really affect me. These include “just right” OCD, somatic and health related, and losing control. Over my years, tracking has been a major point for therapy and managing the disorder. For Kilometer, I picked a walk I did that lasted about a kilometer in length, and used the notes I tracked throughout the walk. This is definitely not the type of work I relate to creating, but there is something fun about it. I find OCD sometimes feels or can look from the outside like a performance. You can imagine what this would look like, or feel like while walking your own kilometer. Or, you can read it and find some enjoyment in the silliness of this walk. I find reading this back to myself a lot of it felt silly to me and I can laugh at some of the things that my brain decided. Whatever else you take of this work, including your own interpretations, I hope this also brings some awareness to a disorder that I think is not talked about as much as some others.
Kira and Ainsley 1 Feat 3 Ways
Joyce Weiland- Reflection
Joyce Weiland was a Canadian painter and filmmaker. She moved in and out of Canada, spending quite a few years in New York, before ultimately deciding that she wanted to remain in Toronto. She lived and worked along with other artists in Toronto and New York, integrating herself into the “bohemian” and artistic lifestyle that is so prevalent in larger cities. She was trained in filmmaking as well as painting, so coming into the film industry was done with a lot of confidence, and a lot of her memorable work was made in that medium. In the 1950’s, she began to experience success as an artist.
Weiland described herself as a cultural activist. A big idea for her was feminism, and that is very visible in her work. She played with the idea of women as artists in a male-dominated space, even using more “feminine” mediums such as textiles. She was very interested in activism and Canadian nationalism. A lot of her ideas also play with that Canadian identity.
Experimental film is how I was introduced to Weiland, so I will speak a little bit to this. I like her work “Sailboat” in particular to speak about what her artwork evokes. In her artist statement, the descriptions mention a childlike simplicity in the work. I think this simplicity is very effective for communicating the film. It gives the film a melancholic feel, something of nostalgia, which creates a lot of feeling. As said by Robert Cowan, a lost innocence is felt. The play with subtitles, the slight color shifts, and the sound of crashing waves all add to the sensation in this film. It brings you to a lake on a dark windy day, you feel as though you have lost something. I also bring a connection to something I saw online recently. A mother gave her child a camera, and told her to take a video or a photo of anything important to her. A lot of the footage resembles this video by Weiland. Very focused and still, but exciting and loving. The different tools she employed in this film are reminiscent of a child making discoveries in art.
Weiland seems to display this same childlike effortlessness in her other works as well, such as the painting Paint Phantom. The way that she blends the colors into each other, how the shapes dissect each other are very intriguing. There is a skillfulness to this painting, the composition is beautiful and the scene in general is advanced. But a playfulness is evident, an exploration.
I really enjoy the fact that Weiland uses so many different mediums in her work. Quilting, painting, film, drawing and more. Although she is so diverse, she keeps a very consistent style through her work. It is all very experimental, and draws off of themes at the time like pop culture and modernism. She did a very good job of expressing the struggles of being a woman, but also making her art playful and interesting to all people.
Sleep Sounds
For my audio art assignment, I decided to keep things simple and run with the first idea that came to mind. I am very sensitive to sound, so the types of audio I listen to are very particular. My primary use of sound is to calm my mind, or ground me in the present moment. I usually listen to a variety of sounds that are calm and relaxing, somewhat melancholic.
I tried to think of where I am impacted by sound the most, and this was very clearly found in my sleep routine. I have the silliest fear I can imagine and that is falling asleep. Perhaps I am afraid of the lack of control, or the unknown. When I go to bed, I listen to a few different things to help me stay out of my mind, allowing me to actually fall asleep in a peaceful way. The sounds I listen to change over time with my energy and anxiety levels.
For this work, I have combined the most common sounds I listen to while I fall asleep. White noise, yoga nidra, and my own breathing. White noise is something I keep on to drown out the loud silence. Yoga nidra is something I have found recently, a still, meditative yoga for the mind also known as non-sleep deep rest. I chose to focus on the 1 minute moment right as I am falling asleep, and how this sounds inside of my body. I wanted this experience to be very internal. The yoga will walk the viewer through a body scan, one that I never finish as I fall asleep too soon. falling asleep, the outside noises begin to fade as the internal sounds of breathing and the heart beat take over, until sleep lulls everything into complete silence. In between, there are breaks where consciousness comes back and a focus is brought back to the outside world. I hope that this audio can describe the feeling of falling asleep while listening to something. It is common to fall asleep during a class to the sound of talking or to a movie, and I always find it interesting how the sounds we hear fade in and out as we do. This is a personal piece, something to show something of myself that is a mundane act, but still very vulnerable. I hope listening to this will cause the viewer to pay more attention to the details of moments like falling asleep.
Conceptual Portrait
For my conceptual portrait, I decided to do a self exploration. I find it easiest to base work around myself, that can also be felt and understand by other people. I decided that I wanted to do a portrait of myself, and the ways it changed over the 3 romantic relationships I’ve experienced. For so much of my life, in an unhealthy way, I based my worth on the romantic relationships I had. Now, I would say I am just a romantic who enjoys being around a loved one, but that is a recent addition to how I view myself in relationships, which is relative to my piece.
My “rule” for this project helped me keep out of a narrative place. For each relationship, I wrote down 10 different descriptive words for who I felt I was in the relationship. I then took each word, and paired it with a somewhat mundane object that I felted described what I wanted it to. I put 10 objects into 1 of 3 boxes, which was the end of my rule making. I chose to display these objects in regular cardboard boxes because I wanted to keep everything non narrative. The value was not in telling a story of how I evolved, but in having 3 distinct experiences. I wanted to emulate how one feels after a chapter of their life closes, and they must pack everything away and start fresh. I have been in 3 relationships, 1 of which I am in now, and one of which was abusive. The way that my descriptions changed from box to box was a very insightful process for me. To look back on my different “selves” is something I find difficult to do, as many people do after experiencing abuse. The goal of this project for me, was to explore how a self portrait changes over time and experience. This work is meant to be interactive; I did include photos below.
AIDS (1987) Reading Response
Reading this article about the work “AIDS” was very interesting. I found it particularly interesting when a connection was made between the spreading of the disease itself in relation to how the art spread. Just like how the disease came suddenly out of nowhere and appeared everywhere, the artwork followed. It was something inescapable, which is clear that viewers found anxiety inducing as it made them even more aware of the epidemic around them. To answer the question of what would the word aids or the art mean today as compared to then is difficult. I do think that now, however, the work is very drawn in with activism and has a less negative reaction. It has been circulated everywhere, not only as a work of art made by a wonderful artist, but also as a very powerful political piece that allowed for a lot of honesty and awareness. I think today the word aids is still scary to a lot of people, and the work may still bring up some more negative perspectives. However most people would probably say that the work is now saying something very brave, while it breaks the stigma around the disease. As the world becomes more open and honest about what it really means to be gay, the disease is more accepted and I would hope is surrounded by less hatred and fear.
Buttons
For this final experimental assignment, I chose to do something that was in line with my “thesis” per say. The thing that is most influential to my work is intimacy. I love to explore this idea, in all of the different ways it can be seen. I have always been a hopeless romantic, so romantic intimacy has a big part of my inspiration. As I went in and out of romantic intimacy, my artwork would change, yet still keep a similar theme. Love conquers all.
After being in an abusive relationship, my view of intimacy changed. I never much considered intimacy in other ways, with myself, or my friends. I found that I was not able to be intimate with myself. I held a negative view of myself, so I became out of touch. It became more present to me however, that intimacy could be just as important out of a romantic context. My friends and family picked me back up again. As I spent more time with them, I noticed the different forms of intimacy. I eventually began to learn myself again. And the most important part of that was to take care of myself, in the same way I would love my romantic partner.
This work is centered around this concept. The way that coming out of a relationship, particularly the one I was in, changes views of intimacy. Grief. It also speaks on how that changed my romantic views with my new partner. Being intimate is difficult, and the ways I wish to do it are different now. This piece also touches on the intimacy I find within myself.
I like to view my current relationship as a lazy Sunday morning. The moments I feel most intimate with my partner are those mundane moments we spend in the house, cleaning and cooking and peeling each other oranges. I want to create intimacy all around myself in every form that feels this way. Noticing the mundane acts and treating them as acts of love is so beautiful. It can be very healing to create routine. And to notice the different ways that the mundane parts of life hold a humble beauty.
