Anna Lensch - Art in Context @alpncaaic-blog - Tumblr Blog

You can play my Twine game, HUNGER, here!

Just finished playing @porpentine’s game With Those We Love Alive. Here are my sigils, and my guts hurt. Such a gorgeous and powerfully moving game. Many moments hit a bit too close to home, but that made it a very unique experience.

alpncasnd-blog

I’d say this is super fun research into how twine works, but a lot of the games I have found are incredibly personal and mentally challenging, usually because of their duration and monotony. (Not that they’re boring– on the contrary, they are incredibly interesting, but because of Twine’s text based format it can get a little grating reading similar things over and over again). So it is fun, but it is still challenging, and playing this particular game was hard on my heart. The themes common in twine games is perfectly in line with some of my ideas, though, so I still think it will be an appropriate format for my project.

You can play the game here.

#project 4 research #collapse

avalenschsinspiration

Just finished playing @porpentine’s game With Those We Love Alive. Here are my sigils, and my guts hurt. Such a gorgeous and powerfully moving game. Many moments hit a bit too close to home, but that made it a very unique experience.

alpncaaic-blog

Here is a link to the game.

#project 4 research #collapse

Looking at a Twine game by Porpentine. I’ve been exploring Twine recently, and may use it to create my project 4.

#project 4 research #collapse

After struggling with trying to further develop my idea for creating a broken down, interactive scene shot in the master scene method, I decided to work on a piece for project 3 that explored a far more personal subject. I changed my project rather last minute in favor of being able to still turn something in that I felt excited about. Besides, I have always found the master scene method of shooting pretty boring (or just overdone, really), so choosing to focus on it and deconstruct it lost it’s appeal pretty fast. While searching for art that dealt with the use of a metronome (an element I already knew I wanted to use), I came across Marina Abramovic’s piece “The House with the Ocean View”. It immediately inspired me, and helped bring myself to some clarity on using performance to express my feelings on experiencing dissociation. While I have never before made any kind of performance art (and I actually have some pretty hefty stage fright), I thought that using my grounding techniques may actually help me be able to get over my fear of performance and create an intimate and minimal experience. It ended up being extremely freeing to express myself through performance.

#project 3 research #system

THE HOUSE WITH OCEAN VIEW Performance, 12 days Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, 2002 Photos by: Attilio Maranzano, Steven P. Harris, Debra Vilen Courtesy of Marina Abramovic and Sean Kelly Gallery New York

#project 3 research #system

"I am I?" is a 5 minute performance that illustrates the time and repetitive process spent in dealing with dissociation.

In dealing with anxiety and depression throughout my life, I have only recently learned about what dissociation* is, and how much of my time I have actually spent trying to deal with it. Now that I understand the process and signs, I have learned grounding techniques to help myself overcome feeling disconnected much faster. What used to sometimes take me hours, if not days, can now be done in a few minutes to an hour.

In this performance I reenact the small techniques that I use to ground myself. This includes viewing things naturally, i.e. without my glasses, acknowledging my anxiety, controlling my breathing, completing actions slower to take in the tactile sensations, and reminding myself repeatedly through action and inner monologue that I am here. I am.

*Dissociation is the psychological phenomena when you feel disconnected from yourself, as if you are watching yourself in a movie or are not a part of reality.

#project 3 documentation #project 3 final #system

“Self Portrait in Simulacra”

After taking a picture of myself with a digital camera and using it as reference for a self portrait in watercolor, I traced that original watercolor again with paint, using a light box and a fresh sheet of paper. Then, I traced the second iteration of the portrait again in the same way, on a new piece of paper. I continued this process 22 times, ending up with a portrait that no longer resembled me and barely even hinted at a human form. These 23 images in total were compiled into this video file, with the final piece taking form as the last 8.5 x 11″ watercolor painting.

In tracing each iteration of the portrait, I eventually lost the “original” in my process, separating the forms that were created over and over again and essentially creating “nothing”. The subject matter was destroyed, and in its wake left something entirely different to be considered: the simple gesture and bleeding colors could potentially be far more representative of an individual’s essence than any detailed depiction of their visage ever could.

Music by Jahzzar.

#pnca #simulacra #anna lensch #avalensch #simulation #watercolor #video art #pncavas #project 2 documentation #project 2

Systems and networks idea: telling a story in parts through tumblr, like posting clips of video in separate posts. Can be reblogged to rearrange and change the story.

#systems and networks #project 3

Documentation of the 23 paintings for "Self Portrait in Simulacra".

#simulacra #project 2 documentation #project 2

“Self Portrait in Simulacra”

After taking a picture of myself with a digital camera and using it as reference for a self portrait in watercolor, I then traced that original watercolor again with paint, suing a lightbox on a fresh sheet of paper. Then, I traced the second iteration of the portrait again in the same way, on a new piece of paper. I continued this process 22 times, ending up with a portrait that no longer resembled me and barely even hinted at a human form. These 23 images in total were compiled into a .gif, as well as a video file, with the final piece taking form as the final 8.5 x 11″ watercolor painting.

In tracing each iteration of the portrait, I eventually lost the “original” in my process, separating the forms that were created over and over again and essentially creating “nothing”. The subject matter was destroyed, and in it’s wake left something entirely different to be considered: the simple gesture and bleeding colors could potentially be far more representative of an individual’s essence than an detailed depiction of their visage ever could.

#simulacra #project 2 final #project 2

Documentation for my multimedia sculpture, “Boho Whimsical Soft Grunge Ophelia”.

#project 1 documentation #project 1 final #appropriation

“Boho Whimsical Soft Grunge Ophelia”

This sculpture critiques the romanticization of Ophelia’s mental illness and eventual suicide (from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”). This rampant glamorization and fixation on her beauty and purity is evident in pop culture as well as antiquated sources such as John Everett Millais’ “Ophelia”, painted in 1852. This sculpture presents the overwhelming amount of photos, music, and paintings that reference Ophelia simply for her beauty and romanticized tragedy, without paying attention to her mental illness. The montage of photos are overlaid with hashtags that originally accompanied the photos sourced from the website Tumblr, with three additions that did not appear in the tags: Mental Illness, Depression, and Suicide. These three tags were added to give a bite of contrast to the sappy tags that aid in reducing Ophelia’s character and erasing her mental illness. The choice to display the images in a rapid montage was to keep the viewer from fixating on one image for too long, as all the images are all, in essence, exactly the same. The sampled song is “Sweet Ophelia”, by Zella Day.

Documentation video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01zrrl4Db3A Stand alone video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE0FlHPHWHo

#project 1 final #appropriation #John Everett Millais