Making Stuff

[charlievaux2017]

'Unlock'

I’ve been exploring the idea of old and new and where each one fails the other. The redundant attempt of unlocking an electronic door with old fashioned keys I find aggravating to watch. This performance piece followed on the art movement of the 1960′s pointless, audience participatory works. I was also influence by Yvonne Rainer’s “Hand Movie”, using black and white to add a dramatic element to the performance piece. Using the digital format however, takes out the audience participation that boomed in the 60′s. I find it frustrating to watch, repetitive and pointless. 

I wanted to show an incongruent relationship between old and new. An unnatural attempt in combining the two despite the objects themselves being impressive in their own right.

[charlievaux2017]

Funny examples of failure I found walking around Kensington. I like the concept that there is an aesthetic appeal despite their attribution to failure. The backboard intrigues me especially. There is a sense of post-modernism in taking away the functionality of the ring but still draws in the viewer with the calming hue of a cool blue garage wall. I feel like a tension is created between the traditional looking backboard amongst a post-modern art style. Can they coincide? Does their lack of functionality make them redundant and unappealing? Can the idea of ‘traditional’ survive and still impress in the current age of art?

[charlievaux2017]

My experiment, ‘Door Stop’, sought to explore the concept of failure. What is the point in performing these tasks knowing some of them would fail and then genuinely curious as to whether others would succeed? Why question the functionality of each object? Or break down it’s definition by giving it a new one?

I felt in some instances the video creates tension, a frustration in failing to shape some of the objects by bending, moulding, breaking, etc. The ongoing, painful repetitiveness of each pointless act frustrates me when I watch it. I see the fork bend or jump out of place and then just sit there, defeated, but inanimate, and having no emotional attachment to its task. So I feel compelled to introspect and question why I’m even watching the video, let alone why I made it. It feels like an audition taping, and each cut scene is a new take, a new start in creating.

There is then an expectancy of relief or catharsis when the objects are turned into an effective ‘door stop’. However, the act of stopping the door feels as banal and underwhelming as failing to stop the door. We reached our expectancy and it is in perhaps seeking the feeling of gratification from such an underwhelming task that is the failure.

[charlievaux2017]

Concept Statement 300 Words

In my experimentations I sought to understand failure’s fundamentality.

Google says ‘the neglect or omission of expected or required action’. I broke down this sentence so I had some more things to think about. Firstly, turning the sentence into each versions of itself without the alternative.

i.e.

‘The neglect… of expected… action’

The failure of foresight to the probability of what might occur

‘The neglect… of… required action’

Failure of initiative to predict prerequisite action

‘The… omission of expected… action’

Exclusion of possible outcome from foresight

‘The… omission of… required action’

Exclusion of prerequisite action

I came to my own definition of failure as ‘An act of assumption or expectation.’ Looking at the examples of failure what was there to learn and what insight was there to gain. Firstly, failure isn’t bad, it’s necessary. Failure in some circumstance however, can be negative and harmful (in instances of fascism, racism, bigotry, etc.)

I initially struggled in seeing the failure of Yvonne Rainer’s 1966 ‘Hand Movie’. The hand movements are concise, fluid, and in a way a beautiful minimalist dance, reflective of the ‘Judson Dance Theatre’ movement. The failure I then found was in the context of the artwork. Rainer performed ‘Hand Movie’ whilst recovering from major surgery. The already bare essentialness of the dance was even further confined to the hand. A poignant reflection of the subtlety in the minimal, in taking a step back from the entirety of the body.

This is where the necessity of failure comes in I feel. In taking action out of assumption, failing, stepping back and starting again. Smaller steps, taking notice of every action, then pursuing the action again.

My final work ‘Unlock’, ultimately fails from the beginning. But why? At it’s basis there is an attempt to unlock a door with keys. Of course, it was never going to work. So how does it fail if there is no assumption or expectation? I wanted to create an uneasy frustration in my video. When I watch it I feel strange. Not traditionally frustrated where I can see a solution that just hasn’t been tried yet. Instead, it’s an uneasy feeling of banality and hopelessness. Maybe that is my failure. Having an emotional response to a pointless performance, knowing that it is pointless and still feeling something despite that.

[charlievaux2017]

The objects I used for Experiment 1. ‘Door Stop’

[evelyn-wei]

[evelyn-wei]

Group drawing

[charlievaux2017]

Drawing!!

[evelyn-wei]

Chelsea’s Ancestry

Group haiku translated into Vietnamese

[evelyn-wei]

Evelyn’s Ancestry

Group haiku translated into Chinese

[evelyn-wei]

Jennifer’s Ancestry

Group haiku translated into Spanish

[evelyn-wei]

Charlie’s Ancestry

Group haiku translated into French.

[evelyn-wei]

[jennifer-andradeadad1001]

We decided to write Haiku poems with the words given by participants however, we made sure to only use each word once. 

Later we translated them to our cultural/ ancestral language. 

[charlievaux2017]

Using the words other people had given us we came up with haiku poems. We came up with one line each randomly picking words to fit the 5/7/5 syllable pattern.

[evelyn-wei]

[jennifer-andradeadad1001]

These are the words that people came up with. 

[jennifer-andradeadad1001]

Visit Original Link

Using our drawing, we went up to random people and asked for the first three words that came to their minds once seeing it. Each time a person had to think of three words, they were limited to words that had not been mentioned previously by other people. As we asked more people, we noticed that it gradually became difficult for them to think of words other than the obvious such as “face” or “people”. This forced them to come up with creative words such as “violent” and “chaos”. 

[charlievaux2017]

Our next step of experimentation was asking people to respond to the picture we created. We now changed our major influence from Gehry to Gertrude Stein who was more interested in the experimentation of words. As we asked more people their answers became more conceptual and gave us a diverse vocabulary to work with later.

[jennifer-andradeadad1001]

Our drawing!!

[jennifer-andradeadad1001]

Experiment 1:

Our group began by drawing vague representations of each other and our environment. With this, we were inspired by Frank Gehry’s scribbles with which he bases his architectural designs on. Afterwards, we did word association exercises in which we wrote the first word that came to our minds in response to a previous said word. We wrote our responses on the same sheet of paper as our drawings and ended up with the above picture. 

[charlievaux2017]

Our group was influenced by the Frank Gehry sketches used in the week 3 slides for Vagueness. Starting off with drawing each other, we created vague representations of our faces. We then played a word association on the same piece of paper so as to be in line with the messy nature of Gehry’s blueprints but building on that with words as a new medium to play with.

[charlievaux2017]

Transformations: 200 word statement

My transformation of the box focused on using the box as a medium for perception, for myself and others. I didn’t know what I was going to do at each step and progressed into wanting to interact with my surroundings. I first cut a hole in my box with the intention of filling it with something. I thought about it but wasn’t happy and then decided to play around with putting myself in it. I attached a phone inside, Facetimed myself from my laptop and limited my sense of sight from the position of the laptop, having to watch myself move around my room. I then wanted to see how people would react to me wearing a box. I discarded the technological aspect as wanted to be passive in my experiment and leave the reaction totally up to the audience. Only as an experiment, as an performance project it needed an extra element.

The first two experiments were fun and interactive. Using the box as a barricade against my surroundings and the phone as the medium of sight was a strange effect. I felt outside of myself whilst totally contained. I could see my movements, see where I was, what I was doing, felt seperate from my body as I watched from a distance, like anyone else would, but it was still me controlling my movements.

The third experiment evoked emotional responses from people. A mix and interesting