Tattoo production time! Printing in class, tests, designs and consultation
ALL TATTOOS must be printed and ready to apply for our class party on Wednesday! Make extras to share.
Let’s print some quick posters and invite other students to join us if they want a tattoo.
WEDNESDAY
TATTOO PARTY! 11:30 – 2pm – Bring snacks, cloths, water bowls, and your tattoos, and your adventurousness!
Apply your tattoos to each other, to yourselves, to friends and go wild! Bring snacks, and remember – you only have to participate up to your comfort level, no one has to get/give temporary tattoos they don’t want. Come take pictures, share snacks, DJ, have fun.
BLOG posts with documentation of your tattoos in ideal presentations, with a description and title will be due on the blog – along with ALL other blog assignments and art projects WEDNESDAY April 9th at noon.
This is the FINAL deadline for all work in our class – there will be no late work accepted after this date.
Human beings have been tattooing themselves for thousands of years. For religious and spiritual reasons, for beautification, remembrance, for rites of passage, for sex, as expressions of identity and belonging; of protest, of love and sometimes – of possession and hate.
Artists have explored many of these ideas in artist-tattoo projects, utilizing self-conscious, and conceptual strategies in designing and applying tattoos. The resulting works are sometimes surprising, provocative or difficult, funny, or emotionally moving.
Students will create a tattoo piece. You can use the transfer paper or other print and drawing techniques to make one, or multiple tattoos. You can also consider ways to present your work – on a body, in a performance, or in a video. Finish your tattoo somehow – to present to the class and on the blog as a finished artwork.
**** While your work may be a proposal and sample of a permanent tattoo, I would recommend you do NOT apply a real permanent tattoo/mark on yourself or others to complete this assignment. After critiques you are free to do what you like with your own body – but for class, you will not make a permanent body alteration, please.
Consider artist tattoos by:
Jana Sterbak
Douglas Gordon
Catherine Opie
John Murchie
Shannon Gerard
Artur Zmijewski
Michelle Lacombe
David Shrigley
Jordan Bennett
Santiago Sierra
Alethea Arnaquq-Baril
Students will document finished works for addition to the blog. Include a title, a short description and one to two images or video of your work.
Works must be posted on the blog ONE WEEK after final class – with a title and description to receive a final grade.
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Prep for in class exercise on Wednesday – SHOW US YOUR TATTOOS
DEMO for printing on Tattoo paper and demo assignment – with a partner, make a tattoo based on the work of MICAH LEXIER that involves more than one body to complete. Make and document in class!
WEDNESDAY:
Watch and discuss the documentary: Tuunnit: Retracing the Lines of Inuit Tattoos
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Discuss ideas for tattoos
Work time and printing in studio
Review work time next week, and plan tattoo party!
From 11:30 (SHARP) to 1pm we will be having our critiques for:
Ana
Cheyanne
Charys
Kayla
Esais
GO TO OPEN STUDIOS – 2-530 pm and/or 7:30-9 pm Students must visit MFA studios/Captstone studios during this period. Nathan will be present to support technical questions if you would like to work on your projects in the lab.
BLOG assignment: Capture a few images of student work from Open Studios and comment on the experience of visiting the artists, studios and the works on your blog.
Diane will be leading Candice Hopkins around Open Studios and hosting the visiting speaker lecture. I’ll see you walking around – let’s high five!
Open studios 2025 information:
We look forward to welcoming everyone to Guelph for MFA Open Studios 2025! 🌟
MFA Open Studios is a free event open to the public where you can meet and greet our MFA students, see their current projects in their studios, and attend the Studio Art Lecture in Contemporary Art given this year by curator and writer @candicebhopkins!
Leading up to the MFA Open Studios and the Studio Art Lecture in Contemporary Art on March 19, we will introduce our first and second year candidates! Stay tuned to learn more about their diverse practices! 👀
Open Studios is on Wednesday March 19, 2025. The event will run from 2:00 pm to 5:30 pm and 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm.
Please visit the link in our bio for more information about the event including complimentary parking and registration for free tickets to the lecture.
“No audience, no player, no composition: this popcorn controlled robotic drumset is the most hygenic and the random performance I ever built. All sounds are triggered by popcorn, sensed by piezo elements, converted to MIDI, transferred to a robotic system and played live on drums without the interference of a human composer.” Text from: / moritzsimongeist
From Annie Hsiao-Ching Wang, My Son and I at the Same Height, 2002-2020
Videos may be up to 10 minutes MAX. They may include original and/or found footage.
Ideas and work in progress must be discussed in class before critiques. See schedule for details.
Consider your parents. You may choose to work with one or many of the individuals that are your parents.
*No need to panic. This does not have to literally be your mother or father – you may work with the idea of parents, with remembered parents, with other people’s parents, with dream parents. Interpret this theme as widely as needed. You may also be a parent – and want to explore what the role means to you – and work with your children. It’s up to you.
Who are your parents? What are the quirks that distinguish them? What is your relationship with them like? What are their relationships like with others? What are they into? Who were they in the past vs. the present? What are their strengths and their weaknesses? Do they understand what you do? Do you understand what they do? Think about what you want to discover, or bring out about your parents, and/or your relationships. Think about something really unlikely for your parents to do. How do the attributes and concerns about your parents reflect truths about you or your family? What do your parents or relationships reveal about the wider world, and not just about you?
You may consider tools and formal techniques*:
Interviews
Voice-overs
Using still photographs
Truth vs Fiction
Documentary style observation
Use of sound/music/dancing
Taking your parents by surprise
Instructions for parents to perform
Task for you to perform with your parents
Performances by non-actors
Working remotely with parents
Absence of parents
Past vs. Present
Using found video/film/audio
Look at the works of these Artists:
Michelle Pearson Clarke
Basil Alizeri
Janine Antoni
Gillian Wearing
Jim Verburg
Lyla Rye
Evergon
Sarah Polley
Patty Chang
Aleesa Cohene
Steve Reinke
Aislinn Thomas
Mona Hatoum
Lee Walton
Rajnar Kartansson
Adad Hannah
Sheilagh Restack
Lenka Clayton
Kelly O’Brien
Tommy Kha
*Reminder: Always create works that are safe and respectful for you and others at all times. Discuss your ideas with the instructor.
WEDNESDAY
We will watch some of the final (snow day) videos and discuss them together.
Discussion of Parents ideas together in class.
All work from weeks 1-6 DUE on BLOG including:
Banner assignment and notes
Notes on Neil Postman reading
Presentation for Internet video
Work in progress for Internet video
Field Trip notes
Internet Video piece
Response to Bridget Moser’s video My Crops Art Dying but my Body Persists
Snow day work-from-home work due on blog TODAY before midnight:
WATCH and COMMENT ON THE WORK OF YOUR CLASSMATES:
We need to complete our After the Internet videos critque by examining work by the following students.
Comment directly on their blog pages. Say more than “I liked x”, or “x was funny…” Comment in detail on at least three things about their video – for example: the specific significance of their references; how the video begins and ends; use of cuts, and transitions, text, image quality or other editing effects; some of the ideas, arguments, and questions raised by the artwork; and how all of these artistic decisions affect the experience of watching the video, and how they may or may not serve ideas the artist intended.
Esais
Cheyanne & Ana*
Yasmin*
*Some of these final Internet videos have not been posted yet. Please post your final videos and a description ASAP! These three works should be available for viewing by NOON today.
Suggested time required to complete: 1 hour
WATCH and MAKE A BLOG POST REFLECTION:
“Moments of pathos and humour in Moser’s work arise from the friction between her virtuosity and ineptitude. On one hand, Moser’s writing is full of disarming turns of phrase and poetic insight (“I’m drowning in a sea of Hamlets! All indecisive and infested with ghosts. And me worst of all”), and her imaginative reconfiguration of simple props is nothing short of thrilling. Her vaguely narrative performances elicit sensations of being slightly “off” or unreconciled. They feature props and set pieces in states of becoming or collapse. They access humour and produce pathos through the haphazard and awkward. They reveal moments of beauty and insight to be the tenuous constructions that they are by allowing them to fall apart.” – Jordan Tannahill
Watch the video again – in light of the commentary by Charlene Lau – and comment on the ways Moser appropriates internet tropes, youtubers, pop culture references, and/or memes in this work. What are some of the things her colour choices, and/or her props and costumes remind you of? How do you experience the video physically? What are some of the ideas Moser is playing with, including questions she is raising? What is the role of absurdity in her work? In your discussion of Moser’s work, you should quote the art forum review twice.
Suggested time required: 1 hour
OPTIONAL: Dive into Moser’s other works, including performances and videos.
Note: Your blogs should be up to date with your final videos and descriptions (every member of the group should make a post) and all of the required posts so far. I will be grading all the work on your blogs when we return.
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED FOR OPEN STUDIO 2025 The MFA students are hosting Open Studios on Wednesday March 19th to coincide with the Studio Art Lecture. The speaker this year is Candice Hopkins who is a citizen ofCarcross/TagishFirst Nation and lives in Red Hook, New York. Her writing and curatorial practice explore the intersections of history, contemporary art, and Indigeneity. She is Executive Director and Chief Curator of ForgeProject, Taghkanic, NY. She was the Senior Curator for the inaugural 2019 and 2022 editions of the Toronto Biennial of Art and part of the curatorial team for the Canadian Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale; documenta 14, Athens and Kassel; andSakahàn: International Indigenous Art, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. This exciting event draws people from all over to attend the lecture and visit the studios of the MFA graduate students and a group of Capstone undergraduate students. This big day is fast approaching, and we need the help of volunteers to make it happen. Volunteering will not only give you a chance to build your resumé and contribute to school life, but you will also receive some swag and goodies to show our gratitude! We are looking for 20 volunteers. Your duties will include greeting and guiding guests and visitors around campus, to the lecture hall and studio spaces, and help with setup or takedown of signage. A few people will look after studios when MFAs or Capstone students need to leave their space briefly for breaks. Specifics on timing and hours for the Open Studio event are detailed in the Volunteer Form.
There will be a one hour training session and tour of the MFA studios before the event on March 14th. Volunteers have the option of attending a morning or afternoon session that works around your class schedules. Volunteers will mainly be working in a group of two people so you can sign up with a friend and make a day of it! Or meet new friends! This is a great opportunity to connect with the grad students, the University community, and the art community at large. More information about the studio art Lecture and Open Studios can be found on the SOFAM website and @guelphmfa Instagram. To sign up, please email Stephanie at fortin@uoguelph.ca to request a volunteer sign up form.
Banner project (includes images, live links or videos, description and notes)
Notes on Neil Postman chapters – Amusing Ourselves to Death
Presentation of video references from the internet for your project
Field Trip Blog Post
Comprehensive blog posts contribute to getting the full grades for your assignments. The blog in general (especially articles and notes) will be evaluated at the end of term to contribute to your participation grades.
Discuss Field Trip:
Charles Campbell, How Many Colours Has the Sea?Lap See-Lam, Floating Sea Palace – The Power PlantLiquid Gold, Alex McCleod – Harbourfront Centre
VIDEO EDITING DEMO with Nathan
Video editing refresher, using found footage and found sound from the internet
Begin collecting footage, research and work with partners in class.
