A Fraction of the Journey @rainebeforedawn - Tumblr Blog

Words on the Street

Linda L. Davis

Project #5, 2019

This project was about “taking inspiration from Holzer and Montgomery and a series of individual pieces that also function as a stylistic whole”. I took the assignment and came up with the literal “words on the street” and decided to print my sayings on magnet paper and post on my truck. It is the best way to move the words around and get seen in public. I came up with the three sayings, however, the saying “Look beyond What You See” has been used before. It is funny how so many people can think of the same sayings. The other two sayings are original I believe.

Look Beyond What You See

Seeing Within Is To Not Go Without

Visions Become Clear When You Choose To See

I also decided to post each on Facebook on May 10th (3 days ago) to my business page and as of now I got the following likes: Visions - 54 people, Seeing - 10 people, Look - 26 people.

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Final Project:

For this project I decided to write the word “Hate” on 4 notebook sized pages. Behind each letter is facts about climate change, lack of education, hate crime and sexual assault. The reason I wanted to make this piece was because I feel like everybody hears about these things on a daily basis, but don’t really know all the facts about them. Or how to change and help do something about the horrible things happening everyday. I wanted this piece to be an advocate for change.

I also wanted to make it note book style and personal. Kind of like I was just writing in my journal. I decided to place them around where I live and let them blow around. Make it seem like an accident or a treasure if they find them.

The H has climate change facts, the A has sexual assault facts, the T has lack of education and the E has Hate crime.

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Project #5

This project really had me torn because the outlines given were so open that it was difficult to choose which direction to take it. In the end, I decided to go as simple as possible and make some sort of fortune teller. I used to make these all the time as a kid and my friends and I would treat the answers like a Bible. They were almost our creative version of a magic 8 ball where we would ask questions and took the response to be our fate.

These past few weeks have been full of endings as the end of the semester came a close, finals loomed, I walked in my CCD graduation officially closing that chapter of my life, and my boyfriend finally reaching the end of his education career as he graduated from college. I know that endings such as graduations can be extremely stressful times as students enter a new beginning that may not be certain. As such, I decided to dedicate my project to those going into new and scary times by writing “everything is going to be alright” on every single optional answer because I think that sometimes, no matter what, people just need to be told that. I actually left these in nooks and crannies around my graduation and plan on leaving more in other places this summer so that hopefully whoever finds them gets a little boost they might need.

As a self-critique, I do feel that after seeing others projects I may have gone way too simple and I should have put more time into thinking of creative ways to decorate these with words more like I did as a kid, rather than focusing on the theme or meaning of it all but I think the intrigue of seeing a random fortune teller in a random place will make up for the lack of it.

Artist Statement Project 5

Words are suggestive. Upon seeing one simple word a memory can be evoked that starts an internal dialogue that can then weave itself into a personal biography.

For this project I’d wanted to try to find a more universally relatable idea, so I’d asked a friend for his 3 favorite words. The words that he’d sent back were: doubt, potential, and chance.

These words are a shared part of our individual experiences as we move through our lives, and I’d wanted to only convey a few ideas about them, without defining that personal experience. Ultimately, I’d wanted the viewer to create their own narrative.

I’d chosen a park that has a walking path and lake as the place to display the project, to give people a place to sit and think. None of the pieces were hung close to one another. The final word “chance” was taped to the seat of a bench over looking the lake.

Reading Response #5

My favorite part of Montgomery’s interview is how he embraces melancholy as a birth place for something positive and beautiful. We live in a world that focuses on happiness and motivational speeches, which I love too and believe that they have a place and function; however, it feels as though because of those desires to express positivity and ever present states of happiness we close down parts of human experience as though there is something broken about those more “negative” emotional states, breaking down our ability to show compassion to ourselves or empathize with others. I particularly love the comment Montgomery made in response to billboard art, “They [Jenny Holzer and Felix Gonzalez-Torres] unapologetically took the personal into the public space.” This, the ability to be vulnerable and confrontational, to share and relate, to feel collectively, tends to make some of the most powerful creations in any genre.

Both Montgomery and Holzer share an interest in making sure that their art is accessible and understandable to any person who views it, but Holzer concentrates more on social and political subject matter. The redacted series is really quite interesting, and I like that Holzer used it as paintings and projected art. It was also a striking commentary when Smith asked Holzer about the seeming lack of presence of artists using current war as subject matter as compared to those during the Vietnam War, with Holzer noting that it seemed comedians were filling the role artists of the 60s had previously occupied.

This project is going to be fun, if a little daunting. Words can confine, limit, label, or offer freedom, they can evoke a variation of definitions, maybe small—but still evident—otherwise miscommunication wouldn’t be a thing.

4D Assignment: The Artist is Present-- Artist Statement

There are moments when an event can cause a person to feel stress, anxiety, and/or depression, and a lot of the time those feelings can resolve themselves. However, when a person hits his or her breaking point, he or she may need help from a mental health professional. Occasionally, the individual may not realize that he or she is experiencing an extreme level of emotional stress that needs professional intervention. By downplaying the extent of the symptoms of anxiety, stress, and/or depression the individual, or his or her loved ones, aren’t able to find the help needed.

In this video I’d attempted to show a more compulsive side of attempting to maintain focus and function.

Also, it seems appropriate to put this here:

https://adaa.org/living-with-anxiety/college-students/resources

Self-Critique part: I’m still having problems with some of the editing, and am in awe of video editors for getting seamless transitions. I had wanted to leave some of it choppy, as a jarring reference to the passing of time, but think it would have worked better if I’d shot it throughout the day as the light changed with different card set ups and more even and rhythmic timing to them.

This project revealed the level of planning and execution needed for performance art, and gave me the opportunity to explore topics that were important to my children; from LGBTQ+ activism, politics, and social awareness of mental health disorders.

The Artist is Present Exercise #4

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Performance: A Hidden History

Reading this article made me think that perhaps performance art is the most post-modernist art medium of all. The integration and emergence of performance art came up several times when learning about art history of the 20th and 21st centuries in other classes. With that background knowledge, I was able to realize through this article that performance art truly has always been employed as the tool to challenge the artistic conventions of that time period. As the article mentions, Dadaists, Futurists, Minimalists, Conceptual artists, and even Cubists all developed their own forms of performance art in attempts to expand the horizon of art making by challenging the accepted parameters of their time.

The part where Goldberg compares the limitless possibilities of performance art to the variety of frames film directors get to choose from made me reevaluate the limits of performance art. I used to think that performance art was the most constraining and limiting of art forms due to it’s limits of time and place. But when rethinking this notion, I realized how the possibilities are limitless when it comes to the performance itself. I, the artist, can literally do anything. For this seemingly limitless amount of subjects of performance art, I tend to find performance art too abstract, not relatable, and at times absurd. Through the completion of this module, I hope to yield a better understanding of performance art, and thus build new appreciation for it.

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Response to Performance Art Reading

My biggest impression from the reading was that I would have liked the author to spend more time talking about examples of performance art and less time narrating a history of the form. The name dropping and historical narrative were not especially helpful, to be really honest. It did give me some ideas though as I was reading it.

In particular, I kept coming back to theater and thinking about the value of theater as a form of political expression. I know for many of us the theater may primarily invoke images of old plays and Shakespeare and the like, but even some recent examples show the value of theater as a form of political expression: Hamilton and Book of Mormon come to mind in particular. But more to the point I think about some of the plays that I have had the opportunity to seen over the years that are overtly political. In some cases these could just as easily have been expressed as street theater in a protest-like manner. In fact, I wonder if actual street protests could be considered a kind of performance art? I think so… I remember seeing images of die-ins and Yasim Bey (formerly Mos Def) having a force feeding tube inserted into his nose to make a point about the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo.. (I was going to link the video but it is VERY disturbing so I changed my mind, I’l let anyone interested Google it.)

Instead I’ll link Banksy’s “Girl with Balloon” auction stunt. I hadn’t thought of this as performance art until now, but that’s exactly what it was and what a performance!!

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I love the how there are parallels drawn to protests and Bansky’s “Girl with Balloon” (renamed to “Love is in the Bin”) piece that was shredded at Soethby’s, and agree with the response made here. Protests are fascinating, not just for the passion and conviction of the group of people, but also in all the types of performances you can see and find there, from planned to spontaneous.

Reading Response #4 The Artist is Present

It’s true that in the art history classes I’ve taken (both I and II) there was little to no mention of performance art, matter of fact, Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: A Global History, had one reference to performance art in context of what and how art historians studied art on page 2 saying, “… this distinction between ‘fine art’ and ‘performance art’ has become blurred”. In the Art History Volume 2 the index indicates that there was an entire section or chapter dedicated to performance art, however, it seems the book was shortened and doesn’t include those pages. This only went to reinforce Roselee Goldberg’s statements about the difficulty that art historians face when trying to write about performance art through history because it encompasses so many different performance and literary genres.

(I’m going to make a side note here and say that it is extraordinarily irritating to get only part of a story for the price these textbooks are, even if it is because they want to put it in with modern art studies.)

Goldberg’s historical account of performance art was fascinating because I didn’t know performance art, in nontheatrical settings, went so far back in history, or how hard it could be to classify if what you’re watching is performance art, poetry reading, interpretive dance, etc. Honestly, I like the idea of inclusiveness for creatives and bringing art to a wider and more diverse audience—and also, the overall rebellious spirit of it that has us, as viewers, asking questions.

Goldberg had also mentioned the static nature of other art mediums as they’re not ephemeral, living art and this is where Marina Abramovic’s agent seems to have bridged the two markets with the limited edition still prints from video performances. I find her bravery to open up, be vulnerable and to trust her audience amazing (taking into account Rhythm 0 would have been terrifying to witness let alone be the performer in). I like her process of preparation, the meditation, silence, and solitude – as an artist she shows us the endurance of the human spirit in quiet determination to see her performance through. The most moving part of The Artist is Present is the authentic connections and emotions Abramovic was able to reach with the participants sitting across from her, in some cases it almost felt like that person felt seen, appreciated, and/or understood for the very first time in their lives.

Project 3 Artist Statement: Vanishing and Becoming

Through these projects in class I’ve been more process driven and introspective than I’d imagine having been, so as I sit and look at the objects and videos created for these classes I realize that the vanishing and becoming is me. This is the year that an 18 year marriage ends, and a new kind of partnership begins; one with a landscape that is foreign and keeps pointing to the questions, “who are you outside of this, what do you believe in, what life will you create for yourself now, what did you learn?”

None of that was forefront in my mind when starting this project, but it’s becoming clearer that as one creates, pieces of oneself are revealed, intentionally or not.

The song used was KMFD’s Dogma, in my 20’s I had painted the lyrics over a giant “X” and had hung it on the wall of my tiny studio apartment in Capitol Hill, it was a reminder to not get caught up in the trappings—to stand for something and believe in it.

The video is from two sources, The New Yorker’s “100 Years of Protesting” and Legion’s Season 1 trailer. In Legion the main character, David Haller, struggles with his sanity and his potential, his past, present and future, among other things. Every so often the video cuts to a protest scene where we see a different kind of struggle that also shows past and present in hopes for a future. The clip that I am most worried about misinterpretation is the KKK, so I’d like to state that I do not support or believe in their cause, but I am surprised by the revival of the sentiments. I’d hoped by including the still from the Civil Rights movement of the man trying to shield the woman from the fire hose and football player Kaepernick’s misinterpreted protest would help signify the position as well as the idea that some things appear to vanish but are still there under the surface, growing and becoming again.

Self-critique: As for the overall video presentation, I’m not happy with all the cuts and transitions—but this has more to do with not knowing how to use Premiere as well as needed to really get an effective flow. There is also a good chance that there was an easier way to do the cuts and inserts than I had done with the video, and the audio could have been cut better at the end, but I couldn’t figure out how at this time. Overall though it was fun, even if it didn’t turn out like envisioned. Eventually (as in soon) I’d like to do some different tutorials on the program to be more proficient and have a better presentation.

Exercise #3 Vanishing and Becoming

This was a lot more difficult than anticipated, but it seems the program Premiere, has a lot of fun features.

Video: Rhythm 0 1974 by Marina Abramovic

Music by Sune Rose Wagner, cover of Rob Zombie’s More Human Than Human

Response to Reading #3

Time and Motion (Ch. 6) and Projection: vanishing and becoming.

I really appreciated the textbook covering 2 and 3D mediums as well as video and cinema. Personally, I don’t think I’ve spent a lot of energy into thinking about how time might be referenced in either the pieces I’ve made, or those that I’ve viewed by others; but I suspect I’ll be more aware of that from now on. Obviously with photographs it is a fragment of time, a moment captured, but I hadn’t considered time being reflected in the age of the subject, even though that would seem the most direct and obvious reference, or whether there was a symbolic reference (i.e. a watch or a skull—which really strikes me as odd when I type this because my favorite art and artifacts to stare at are Memento Mori’s and vanitas, but apparently I’m looking at those from a “seize the day” point of view rather than an inevitable outcome after a passage of time).

The other reading, Projection: vanishing and becoming, by Sean Cubitt, almost lost me with the nihilism, but had a little recovery at the end so I scrapped my first response to consider what he was saying a little bit more. My brain wants to focus more on the psychological and emotional projection rather than a projector as an art medium. There was a little of both in there, but it seemed his essay was directed towards the possibilities that could be around an emerging technology in the art world that at this time seemed a little underutilized and unexplored to it’s full potential to Cubitt.

Interactive installations are always a good time and a great way to get people engaged at museums and galleries, and that is mostly the kind of projected art I’ve seen at the DAM, with a few exceptions.

The first few pages were the most interesting to me personally, as Cubitt covered myths I’d never heard before. Baudrilard’s thoughts put me on the defensive, while also questioning my own motivations behind why I do portraiture—which in all honesty was good for me.

I’ll still need to go back and reread Projection: vanishing and becoming because there were segments that I’d really like to think about in more depth.

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Project #2 The Loop (Forever):Rainbow/Music videos

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These are just simply well done and cut at the right places!

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The Loop Project (#2)-

I decided to do these GIFs on various weather types (and one fire) because I didn’t want to do any movie GIFs because I thought a lot of other people would do that subject (and I also couldn’t think of a good movie to get GIFs from). I also really value dynamic weather because I’m originally from California, so something other than sunshine is just really awesome to me.

I also included one of fire because it can be really beautiful to look at, but super destructive if not contained. I honestly think that might be really metaphoric about certain things in life, but that’s not the point of this assignment to get into that.

I also thought these GIFs would just be really nice and calming to have on my computer. Most of these GIFs are from calming sounds videos.

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I’m rather in love with the dynamics of nature, how it can be both peaceful and volatile and this series shows this very well.

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Project #2- The Loop

I decided to do my series on something I really care about and see everyday. My cat Noodle. She’s always moving, playing and making me laugh. This project wasn’t only fun for me, but incorporated my everyday life into it. I feel that these pictures really show her personality and the way that we interact together. She is first pet that is completely mine and I’ve very proud of that. I think it makes me growing as a person and becoming responsible. I find the mood of these to be innocent and cozy.

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Kitties are just calming, and in this series you can absolutely feel the love between them.