Michelle

17. Sydney. Art Student.

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Page 3

so in class i introduced anna to a tablet and she loved it and tried to get the hang of it using the black lines, and in the moment it was spontaneous enough to count it in so i chose colours i associated with her and edited it into the background so it would create the kind of vibes she gives off.

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Pages

so it was late at night and i was listening to a spotify playlist and i remembered that i should probably make another page for the assignment and the wikipedia game popped into my head randomly? and so i was like, okay im going to make this completely random and a)use the wikipedia game in my assignment and b) also choose a random song artist to start the game.

so explanation, the wikipedia game is where someone says two words, a starting word and an end word, and only through the links in the page are you able to navigate through related words to get yourself to the page of the end word. so i did something similar but clicked the first link that popped up in the article.

So when i pressed shuffle play on my spotify playlist a song called ‘Powerful’ by Major Lazer came up. i searched it in google and clicked the first wikipedia page link that i found:

its read down the page

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Assignment pages

so for my first one since our theme was spontaneity, i did a drawing in photoshop with my tablet, but used my foot to draw the piece.

so it turned out like this:

i tried to write ‘my name is michelle’, ‘vote yes’, and ‘spontaneous’ in pink, but it was really hard to even get some letters to form, i also wrote another word in the black wash in the back, but i can’t remember what it was.

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Class activities

so we did a plaster thing of an object in class here it is

so this is our dude and its a container inside of a maccas plastic cup that has been cut into strips but the base is still attached and then with the lid on top of the container with a scrunched up wrapper on top and a strange beak kinda thing on the side.

he kinda looks like a chicken.

then we covered it in plaster and the weight of the plaster actually made the maccas cup strips droop.

so we got some strange lookin spider thing

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iMPULSE DECISIONS

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using the human body in a ‘broken’ way

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Interrupting the Signal- through human interaction by interrupting activites unexpectedly, leaving individuals confused and shocked - throwing them off guard

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Final Statement

Aesthetics over Functionality. In art we often take those values into importance, considering Aesthetics in preferability over Function, to make something purely aesthetic, yet for it to hold no function, but satisfaction, or to evoke emotion.

Prior to completing my work, I suffered from a sudden case of the flu which left me minimal time to complete a previous idea I had, and therefore left me angry that I had no time to finish the project. Whilst stewing in my emotions while I was sick, I decided to use this as an opportunity to turn into my artwork, as a flu does go along with the theme of Glitch. Instead of making an artwork which shows my interpretation of a glitch, I decided to let the audience understand how a glitch actually felt.

In my work I’ve focused on creating an experience, rather than creating an artwork. My piece is to mimic a flu, to mimic what its like to suffer from a glitch in the system, quite literally, as Influenza is an attack on a human’s immune system, to put someone out of order, to alter how they are able to perform for a period of time. I wanted to create a certain unsteadiness that you feel when sick, the difficulty to focus on where you’re going and the control over how you do so, and instead of evoking emotion I wanted to provide that experience for others.

Whilst creating the artwork I decided to focus more on how it felt rather than how it looked. I didn’t put much priority into the exterior of the piece as I was mainly focusing on how I would be able to achieve the most accurate recreation of what a flu felt like. With the vision aspect, I was also thinking of putting one of the water filled zip lock bags over the glasses to skew the vision as well, but I felt it would stray too much from what I was trying to create, even though it was a nice concept. I did trial it briefly, but didn’t pursue it any further.

Two works that I had in mind was a collection from Bill Henson shown in the NGV and a series of installations by Yayoi Kusama called Dots. The works from Bill Henson, weren’t actually the works in particular which I was thinking of, but more the way in how they were shown. They took up their own room in the NGV, which was dimly lit and gave a dark aura to it, it was a different feel entirely to the rest of the gallery itself, it was like stepping into a completely different place, and the works were almost illuminated by themselves, but they all fit and added to the feel of the room. The works by Yayoi Kusama relate to my work a little more as Kusama’s works focus more on how she is able to express the way in which she sees the world from her view. She has expressed that she has seen dots in her daily life as hallucinations and has made numerous

Another thing I was thinking of whilst making my work wasn’t an artwork, I can’t find any sources on it since it was in a power point slide from a year ago but I remember what it was. It was a product designed for designers to help them understand the mobility and limitations for people with arthritis, to help them gain a perspective of how their audience is able to perform, which is what I tried to for my audience in a way. Instead of making something based of my experience for them to interpret, they are able to experience how I felt almost directly without the real-life repercussions of a Flu.

I also chose to present the artwork as a video after it was performed in class to fully encapsulate how it is best performed and how disorientating it is to be sick, especially with something as strong as the flu.

Bibliography:

Author unknown, [website], 2017, https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/bill-henson/ (accessed 19 September 2017)

Author Unknown, [website], 2011, https://www.creativityfuse.com/2011/03/bold-polka-dot-creations-of-yayoi-kusama/ (accessed 18 September)

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Final Work

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Research-Bill Henson

So One of Bill Henson’s exhibitions in the NGV this year was a collection of his works and i really loved how it was presented. It wasn’t just the individual works which i thought was interesting but more the presentation of the works which i thought gave it its own feel and aura, like you walked in a huge room which was dimly lit with huge, dark mysterious works on the walls, none of them were too brightly coloured or eye catching they were all mid and dark toned and i think stuck mostly to black and white and unsaturated colours, heres a few examples:

i think some of the photographs had a bit of a back glow which made it seem illuminated which i thought added to the mysterious nature of the entire room.

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Research-Yayoi Kusama

Another artist that works with immersing their audience in an experience is Yayoi Kusama who has done a series of Installations called ‘dots’ where she shows the world her experience of seeing dots in her life. She has often said that she suffers from hallucinations of seeing dots everywhere in her daily life, but has incorporated them into her work largely as they are a huge symbol in her work.

Mostly all her works revolve around featuring dots, and in this case where she creates an environment for her audience to fully immerse themselves in, shes able to make them understand her perspective and show how she experiences the world.

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Experiments

okay so how i decided to make someone else ‘experience’ the flu was by analysing some of my symptoms while i was sick. I noticed that the things that most affected my ability to walk was my vision as i couldn’t focus on anything, my centre of gravity was off, and my spatial awareness was gone to shit. so i tried to figure out ways to incorporate into that into somewhat of a wearable art for others to put on and experience.

I started with the vision, i found a pair of old 3D imax glasses and found some semi opaque tape to tape over the lens. i thought of doing it in strips so the wearer would still be able to see where they were going, but then i decided that you would still be able to see enough through the strips so i left some parts blank:

i also rubbed my nail along the tape to make it a bit more transparent as i was going for the blurry effect.

For the spatial awareness, i was thinking of just covering the wearers ears with some headphones to muffle the outside sound. i found a pair of old headphones which did the job.

Then for the balance. i wanted to be as subtle as i could without adding something excessive, and i remember using water-filled ziplock bags last semester just as an experiment for something, so i used that as a weight mechanism, getting a bucket hat i found and then attaching differently weighted water bags on either side.

Heres how it turned out:

its very fashionable i know,, but im trying to go for the experience that it provides rather than the look that it gives off, plus i plan to maybe use construction earmuffs in the final piece.

so after testing it i found the most effective method. there was different approaches and i thought that walking in a completely straight line would be most difficult, especially if it was one foot in front of the other. i tried it on its own and didnt think it was enough of a challenge so i spun myself around 5 times and tried to walk in a straight line marked on the ground. it was closer to what i was hoping to achieve but i felt that i still had too much spatial awareness.

To compensate for that i inception- recorded myself humming, so i would record one hum, play it on a speaker and then record that hum with me humming again so there would be two and then i would repeat that. 

And then i played that on a speaker, spun myself around 5 times and then tried to walk a straight line and thats when i felt it was effective enough to pass as the flu.

So in class, the setup is to have a subject:

Put on the glasses

Put on the headphones

put on the hat with the water bags

spin in a circle 5 times

have the class hum in unison whilst the subject tries to walk a straight line within 3-5 seconds.

I felt that the time limit would be necessary as it adds a sense of urgency to the challenge. If they took their time to walk the line it would be achievable but i am hoping for the stumbling kind of response from my work.

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Experiments-concept

yo okay so i got Hella Sick on the weekend like i got a sudden flu on Saturday morning, was suffering a 40 degree fever all day that day and then was still at a temperture of like 38.5 the next day, and it was easing out on monday but i was still Dying.

anyway so as i was Suffering, i was like theres no way im going to be able to pull of this floral assignment with what i want to do or what i have planned in a Day. so while i was lying in bed, i was thinking about glitches and i was thinking about how in a way sicknesses were glitches, like, a fu is an attack on the system quite literally and it alters how im able to perform. 

So instead of making an object, or something about my interpretation of a glitch i decided to let the audience become the glitch. kinda.

i tried my best to create something that would imitate a flu. Like the difficulty to walk, the loss of your centre of gravity, the blurriness of your eyes, the kinda numbness or ringing in your ears, instead of projecting that into an artwork I wanted to let someone else experience that.

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Experiments!!

okay so my first experiments last week were in class outside in the quad where all the flowers were, i got an idea from a class activity where we had to make an object and then sell it. i made a paper flower and had to make up why it related to my assignment on the spot, so i talked about how it would be able to be put in a field of flowers and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between synthetic and real, anyway i conducted a little experiment about it with paper daises and the daisy shrub:

i made 4 of these little dudes and worked on curving the petals and trying to mimic the colouring of the other flowers in the centre, then i placed them in the bush:

with a bit more refinement and more work i could have made them look heaps more realistic and i was planning to develop those on the weekend.... ill get to that in my next post.

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Powerhouse Museum Visit

we went to the powerhouse museum to have a look at an exhibition called “This is a Voice’ and here are the highlights:

the walls were squishy

this one was definitely a cryptid, it was like entering a room in a game and then all entrances and exits are sealed off and then the boss battle music starts playing and your opponent would come out of nowhere, it felt like that.

this new language one was interesting as well, i liked the booth kind of thing it was in as well it gave its own vibes.

and there was another one i took a video of which i really liked

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Group activity in which we had to make an intervention + a wearable art so we focused the theme around alcoholism and how other people see them, we made a mask with beer bottle caps and staged an intervention where one of our group memebers came in and we all sat there, like at an AA meeting, but where he doesn’t know until he walks in and starts realising, his improv skills were A+. 

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Anna this is what you're marking