1. Critique Parents videos
2. Reminder – all work should be up to date on blog by WEDNESDAY

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1. Critique Parents videos

Have a restful reading week!

1. Finish critiques

2. More in progress discussions/parents videos

Watch Jim Verburg, For A Relationship (in Studio library)

and Aislinn Thomas: Rod, Bernie, Peggy, Aislinn (2009)

Rod, Bernie, Peggy, Aislinn

1. Work time – in progress – discussions
2. Video Editing Demo with NATHAN (1 hour) Bring your laptop or working device

Reminders: ALL work from weeks 1-6 must be posted on the blog – I will be checking it all for completion and effort during Reading Week – due next week!

1. Discuss proposals for Parents Video Art

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1. Critique fully documented Text Multiples! Put all documentation – images , title and a clear description of the work on your blog page.

Video Recording demo with Nathan

VISITING ARTIST TALK!

The School of Fine Art and Music is pleased to present the Winter 2022 Visiting Artists and Speakers Series. Our next event featuring visual artists Abbas Akhavan will take place on February 7, 6:00 – 7:00 pm EST. 

Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/97176335957 

Topic: Abbas Akhavan: Artist Talk 

Time: Feb 7, 2022 05:45 PM America/Toronto 

Meeting ID: 971 7633 5957 

Abbas Akhavan’s practice ranges from site-specific ephemeral installations to drawing, video, sculpture and performance. The direction of his research has been deeply influenced by the specificity of the sites where he works: the architectures that house them, the economies that surround them, and the people that frequent them. The domestic sphere, as a forked space between hospitality and hostility, has been an ongoing area of research in his practice. More recent works have shifted focus, wandering onto spaces and species just outside the home – the garden, the backyard, and other domesticated landscapes. 

Akhavan’s recent solo exhibitions include Chisenhale Gallery, London (2021), Fogo Island Arts, Fogo Island (2019), and The Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2019). Group exhibitions include Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool (2018), SALT Galata, Istanbul (2017), and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2016). Akhavan was recently the artist in residence at Atelier Calder, Saché (2017), Fogo Island Arts (2013, 2016, 2019), and Flora: ars+natura, Bogota (2015). He is the recipient of Kunstpreis Berlin (2012), The Abraaj Group Art Prize (2014), and the Sobey Art Award (2015). 

You can find more information about Akhavan at the following link:    

https://catrionajeffries.com/artists/abbas-akhavan/works

Zoom links for forthcoming events will be distributed via. email and made available on Instagram @guelphmfa 

We acknowledge, with respect, that the University of Guelph is situated on the treaty lands and territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit and on the ancestral lands of the Attawandaron people. Their historical relationships with the land continue to this day. 

Océane Buxton, Still from Saint-Madamette of Los Angeles Chapter 2, 2021.“The artists propose allegorical subversions to oppressive systems through a kind of propositional queering. Connecting these works are themes of identity, satire and costuming which foster a sense of liberty across the circuits of capitalism and production.”– Marissa Sean Cruz, CuratorFRUIT LOOPS: Video Art Live Screening curated by Marissa Sean Cruz Thursday, January 27th, 8PM ASTLive Stream LinkCuratorial Statement Marissa Sean Cruz, 3:42  S(HE) WOLF Alisson Escobar, 2019. 3:25   Taking is too easy, but that’s the way it is (Dance Dance, Revolution?) Alvin Luong, 2016. 1:55 bbssscrib1920x1280 Amy Lockhart, 2018. 2:21 Fruit Jus Arjun Lal, 2021. 1:12 Who Do You Think You Are, I Am Bridget Moser, 2019. 6mins 20secs.  Undefined Figure, Claire Hunter, 2022. 11:04 Abra Hiba Ali, 2018. 4:59 Welcome to the Alter-Ego Citadel KanikaxX, 2020. 14:22 Saint-Madamette of Los Angeles Océane Buxton, 2021. Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, 14:14More information about the artists and featured works can be found on our website. About The CuratorMarissa Sean Cruz is a digital multimedia and video performance artist from Kjipuktuk (so-called Halifax). Their experimental videos use 3D modelling, sound design and costumed performances to study identity and value systems. Remixes of pop culture and commercialized products are synthesized creating alternative narratives. These humorous works aim to process a fast-paced contemporary present and envision possible, utopian futures.  Marissa Sean Cruz (b. 1996) has been displayed in venues like Xpace, Studio 303, Gallery 1C03, Galerie VAV Gallery and Struts Gallery and Faucet Media Centre. Cruz’s various projects have been displayed throughout the United States and distributed digitally through spaces like the Centre for Art and Thought, Canadian Art, Video Pool Media Arts Centre, Public Parking and more.For more information visit: Struts Gallery 7 Lorne Street, Sackville, NB, E4L 3Z6 • 506-536-1211 info@strutsgallery.ca www.strutsgallery.ca

Text based prompts, interventions, and multiples

5 ways Jenny Holzer brought art to the streets

Discover how this influential artist continues to produce art that is impossible to ignore

• (Section below from Tate Modern)

1. LANGUAGE

American artist Jenny Holzer is best known for her thought-provoking, text-based installations and her creative use of electronic technology. Whether seen on billboards, T-shirts, cups, condoms, or in a gallery, her work asks us to consider the words and messages that surround us in the information age.

I used language because I wanted to offer content that people – not necessarily art people – could understand
Jenny Holzer

Words are central to Holzer’s work, whether pasted on a wall, flickering from an electronic sign or carved in granite. She presents messages in ways that reach people outside of museums and galleries, such as on stone benches, signs, posters and T-shirts. These texts reflect the language of breaking news, advertising and other mass media. They can often provoke strong responses. For example:

MONEY CREATES TASTE

ENJOY YOURSELF BECAUSE YOU CAN’T CHANGE ANYTHING ANYWAY

A MAN CAN’T KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE A MOTHER

These messages come from her first major text work, Truisms, which explores the idea of gathering and presenting information as art. She created nearly 300 of these statements, based on common sayings and clichés, and expressing many different points of view. These texts first appeared on anonymous posters wheat-pasted throughout lower Manhattan in New York City. Later, they were placed on disposable cups, silver bracelets, condoms and electronic signs. In 1982 she displayed these messages across a giant electronic signboard in New York’s Times Square. Holzer hoped they would prompt people to recognise and question the ‘usual baloney they are fed’ in daily life.

The tone of her next work, the Inflammatory Essays, is more challenging and aggressive. These took the form of 100 word paragraphs printed on different coloured papers. Holzer wrote these texts herself, but we shouldn’t see them as directly reflecting her own opinions. Her writing often considers issues from multiple viewpoints but always tackles issues important to many people.

2. COLLABORATION

I was so relieved to stop, not just for sheer laziness, but because I was able to expand what I could do when I work with other people.

Throughout her career, Holzer has worked with many artists and activists from different backgrounds. She was part of Collaborative Projects (Colab), a group of New York City artists. This collective championed access and inclusion and created work in response to the political issues of the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1985 she brought her Truisms to life in a different way, working with choreographer Bill T. Jones on the dance project Holzer Duet … Truisms. In this performance, the actor Lawrence Goldhuber recited a text by Holzer while Jones danced with and around him.

Holzer also uses texts written by others including poetry, prose and first-person accounts of war and its aftermath, such as those collected by charities including Save the Children, Human Rights Watch and The Not Forgotten Association. Declassified government documents offer another starting point for her art. For example, the 2007 screenprint Protect Protect is based on a PowerPoint presentation used to brief the White House in advance of the US and UK invasion of Iraq. By enlarging and adding bright colours to these documents, Holzer highlights the dangerous power of language. We see the words “protect”, “suppress” and “isolate” superimposed on an image of a deeply divided Iraq.

3. TECHNOLOGY

A great feature of the electronic signs is their capacity to move content. I love that because motion is much like the spoken word: you can emphasise phrases; you can roll and pause, the kinetic equivalent to inflection. It’s a real plus to have that programming capacity. I write my text by saying the words out loud, or I write and then say words, to test them. Having text move is an extension of that process.

For Holzer, technology is a tool that can convey her ideas to a much wider audience. She often uses light projections and LED signs in her work. The LEDs borrow technology traditionally used in public advertising and warning signs. Through these screens, she can make sure that her art is displayed in the places “where people look”.

In Sign on a Truck (1984), Holzer used a vehicle equipped with a sound system and an electronic display to present a mixture of speeches, interviews and humorous images. The project was an attempt to use technology to spark debate and capture a diverse range of voices and opinions on the eve of the United States presidential election.

4. ART IN EVERYDAY LIFE

Holzer builds a more intimate relationship with her viewers by creating art that exists outside of traditional art spaces. She wants her work to be something that you just happen to notice while going about your everyday life. She is not interested in work that can immediately be read as art. In this way, her work is similar to graffiti. When art is located on the streets, it cannot be ignored.

An example of this approach is Holzer’s stone benches. She began making these in the mid-1980s. Just like the benches you find in city parks and cemeteries, these objects offer a place for reflection or discussion. Everyone is invited to sit on them and chat together. Holzer works with many kinds of stone and carefully selects materials that suit the engraved texts.

5. POLITICS

The line between activism and art is blurred in Holzer’s work. Almost all of her art is political in tone. It asks questions about our roles in society and the differences between public and private life. Through her choice of statements and the minimal way she presents them, Holzer takes herself out of her artworks. They are no longer personal. They are not her words but a shared voice or many voices.

Her latest project IT IS GUNS is a response to student movements demanding more legislation for gun control in the United States. In March and April 2018 she presented anonymous text on LED screens mounted on lorries. The vehicles drove and parked by landmarks and city centres in Washington D.C., Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Atlanta and key locations throughout Florida. The screens showed animated texts with language relating to gun violence, such as SCREAM AGAIN, RED BLOOD or SHIELD HER. These words flashed up in quick succession like free-association poetry. They also suggested the rapid-fire rhythm of semi-automatic weapons.

Holzer’s work is as relevant now as ever before. The photo above shows Lady Pink, a New York graffiti artist and one of Holzer’s collaborators. She is wearing a T-shirt showing one of the artist’s Truisms. Taken in 1983, the photo went viral in 2017 when it was shared widely online in response to the #MeToo movement. (Holzer section from Tate Modern)

Jon Sasaki

Napkins (Materials Safety Data Sheet)

2011, Multiple, paper serviettes printed with one of three colours of ink. 5″ x 5″

A Clock Set to 24 Hours Into The Future

2014-2015, public artwork for Sheridan College’s Temporary Contemporary, Trafalgar Campus, Oakville Ontario.

“Unlike most campus clocks, this one has been set 24 hours fast, always displaying “tomorrow’s time.” Of course, on a four-numeral digital clock, tomorrow’s time appears indistinguishable from “today’s time,” and therein lies a small bit of levity that is intended to open up a range of poetic interpretations.”

“A clock tower running 24 hours fast is in fact practical and functional in the present, but serves also as an aspirational signpost pointing towards the idea of tomorrow.” From his site Jon Sasaki

(the accompanying didactic panel)

An Obsolete Calendar Towel Embroidered with an Identical, Future Calendar Year,
1970/2065, 1982/2049, 1976/2032 and 1969/2042

2012, ongoing, embroidered found vintage textiles, each approx. 17″ x 28″.

In an ongoing series, obsolete calendar towels have been embroidered with the date of an identical, future calendar year. Beyond giving the discarded object a renewed relevance, it proposes a disturbingly banal vision of the future… that decades from now we will still be pining for some vague 19th century inspired nostalgia… covered bridges, copper kettles, cast iron stoves and millponds… images that were anachronistic wishful fictions even at the time the calendars were first printed.From his site Jon Sasaki

Please Don’t Take This 1000 Yen

2013, intervention in the neighbourhood of Konohana, Osaka Japan.

Upon arriving in Osaka, I observed hundreds of bicycles that had either flimsy locks, or no locks at all to secure them. I surmised there was some sort of honor system in play, and decided to test it a little. The results were surprising to me.

Four signs were placed around the neighbourhood early one morning, asking residents to please not take the 1000 Yen bill attached to it.

Two of the signs remained untouched until I retrieved them late that night. One sign disappeared mid-afternoon, although it probably had something to do with it being posted on the city’s bulletin board without permission. The fourth sign disappeared late in the day, which still impressed me. It turns out it was taken by a random, concerned neighbour who wanted to safeguard it. She did some sleuthing, somehow correctly guessed the restaurant I would be visiting later that night, and returned it (along with the 1000 Yen of course) a few hours before I arrived.

Lee Walton

Momentary Performances

On his website, Lee Walton writes: “For Momentary Performances (2008-2010), I used vinyl text on city walls to announce ordinary moments that will take place. These texts are installed throughout the city weeks prior to each performance. Nearly 20 of these public works took place in Minnesota and Atlanta.

After acting out the script exactly on schedule, actors casually disappear into the city as if completely unaware of the descriptive text. Unexpected public is left to wonder about the reality of the serendipitous occurrence.”

An Everyday Tragedy – Lenka Clayton

2016 / billboard text / 36 ft x 30ft / photos: The Last Billboard

Text written for The Last Billboard, visible during May 2016.

The Last Billboard is a 36 foot long rooftop billboard located on the corner of Highland and Baum in Pittsburgh, PA, USA, that displays a different text each month composed by a different individual. The custom designed billboard consists of a rail system with wooden letters that are changed by hand. The billboard is curated by Jon Rubin. 

All The Hours – Lenka Clayton

June 2014 / wooden letters on billboard / images: Jon Rubin / The Last Billboard

A new text work is currently installed on The Last Billboard; a changing billboard on the rooftop at South Highland & Baum in Pittsburgh, PA, curated by Jon Rubin.

https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s11/christine-sun-kim-in-friends-strangers/

Christine Sun Kim

Adad Hannah

Dad and David Visiting

2010, Video, 7 min 22s. Edition of 5.

Dad and David Visiting was produced while my father and his boyfriend were visiting us from San Francisco. They were sleeping on a mattress on our floor. When I was walking past them one morning I realized the beauty of the scene and grabbed my camera.

From Adad Hannah’s website

Michele Pearson Clarke

“Parade of Champions” (2015) explores the grief experiences of three black queer people, following the deaths of their mothers. Although grief is borne from loss of any kind, for an adult child, a mother’s death is incomparable. As universal and inevitable as it might be, this suffering is complicated by the restriction on mourning in our culture. Grief upsets us. It makes us uncomfortable. The bereaved are expected to mourn in private or at the very most, publicly for a short period only. For black queers, already unseen and othered, grieving a mother’s death requires a further pushing back against notions of disposability and invisibility.

Drawing on my own experience after my mother’s death in 2011, Parade of Champions centres this black queer counter-narrative in creating a poetic encounter with loss. Employing still video portraits and audio interviews, this immersive three-channel installation invites viewers to bear witness to this black queer grief. From https://vimeo.com/148414120

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Mom and Dad

“In Mom and Dad (1994), Antoni made up each of her parents in the guise of the other, photographing them together in three different permutations with either one or both of them costumed in this way.”

Momme

“For the 1995 photograph Momme, Antoni hid under her mother’s dress, her own adult body bulging like a pregnant belly.”

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Gillian Wearing: 2 into 1 LINK

The short video projection 2 into 1 (1997) features a mother and her two sons, one generation lip-synching the dubbed words of the other. It is hypnotically disturbing to watch a pair of 10-year-old twins take turns speaking their mother’s exasperated love for them. “I think Lawrence is absolutely adorable, he’s gorgeous, I love every inch of him,” Lawrence says, in a slightly raspy woman’s voice. “But he’s got a terrible temper.” Halfhearted affirmations of self-esteem also figure in the mother’s monologue, along with deep fatigue, all sounding precociously sympathetic–if not a touch demonic–coming from her children’s lips. Equally unnerving is the mother’s mimed recitation, heard in the soft, clear voices of clever preadolescent boys, of her sons’ accounts of her. We hear their criticism of her driving (“too slow”) and clothes (“she doesn’t dress too well”), and their complaint that she goes out to clubs too much (slightly disheveled and obviously anxious, she looks like she could use the break). For their part, the boys, baby-faced and natty but incipiently loutish, are hardly ingratiating. A dazzlingly deft expression of the complex pushes and pulls in the mother-son relationship, 2 into 1 is an even more concise articulation of the triangulated relationship between artist, subject and viewer. Treating emotional truth as if it were the coin under the three fast-shuffled cups of a sidewalk con artist, this video pictures the circulation of meaning as a kind of vaudeville act, fast, funny and a little cruel.

Basil AlZeri

Basil AlZeri is a Palestian artist based in Toronto working in performance, video, installation, food, and public art interventions/projects. His work is grounded in his practice as an art educator and community worker. He explores the intersections between the quotidian and art, and strives for interactions with the public, using social interactions and exchanges to create gestures of generosity.

AlZeri’s performance work has been shown across the Americas.

The Mobile Kitchen Lab

With The Mobile Kitchen Lab (2010 – present), AlZeri performs simple and generous gestures, inviting his guests to identify the Palestinian stories of land, resources and labour that are built into his recipes.

Initiated in 2010, his durational performances feature live projected instructions provided by his mother, Suad, via Skype.

Hear a radio interview on the project here.

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Patty Chang

Patty Chang, In Love (2001) SEE VIDEO HERE

“Exploring the darker side of femininity and socially constructed notions of desire, Patty Chang often takes a corporeal, visceral approach to performance, an art form that underlies her work in video and photography. Like female pioneers of performance in the 1970s, such as Marina Abramovic, Eleanor Antin, and Hannah Wilke, Chang uses her body to address issues of the objectification of women and their representation in art history and popular culture. Chang’s work is often inflected with humor and often pushes commercial and popular female stereotypes to their extreme. In the photograph Melons(1998), for example, she uses cantaloupes as prosthetic breasts. How consumption and desire are inscribed upon the female body is addressed in Chang’s art, but equally so is a woman’s own desire of self.https://www.youtube.com/embed/P4HfEh-kT4c?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

Much as Janine Antoni, Sally Mann, and Gillian Wearing have explored the sexuality and conflicts inherent to the parent-child relationship, Chang examines the territory of the primal, parental connection in her work In Love (2001). In this dual-channel video, two separate scenes of the artist with a parent are juxtaposed. Chang faces her mother and, in the adjacent frame, appears face–to–face with her father. Simultaneously both images show the artist’s and respective parent’s faces pressed together in what at first appears to be a deep kiss. Gradually it becomes evident that the video is running in reverse time, and that they share not a kiss but rather an onion from which they both eat. They bite into it slowly, pausing as they take turns offering it to each other, as if it suggests the proverbial, forbidden fruit. Parent and child swallow before they take additional bites, blinking hard to hold back tears from the onion’s sharpness and pungency. However, in the video’s reversal of time, the onion is reconstituted and the tears disappear—wholeness is thus regained.”

Text from the Guggenheim

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Every five years, artist Ragnar Kjartansson asks his mother to spit on him for several minutes in front of a camera. The Icelandic mother and son here discuss the fascinating performance, which Kjartansson argues has become “like a part of our family life.”

In 2000, Kjartansson asked his mother if she wanted to spit on him for a video project, which she immediately accepted without any further need for convincing. While spitting, Guðrún Ásmundsdóttir, imagines that her son is one of the businessmen that got Iceland into the financial crash. “When I feel that spit it never feels violent or something, she is just helping her son to do an art piece” Ragnar says, and goes on, “There has always been a lot of friendship in our relationship.”

Kjartansson furthermore explains that both of his parents were “militant feminists”, and that there are feminist undercurrents in his work, such as the spitting echoing how women got ‘a voice’ and were able to ‘spit’: “Being raised by an actor, you start to understand these emotional tools that actors – and directors and people making theatre – use … they use humour and confrontation as tools in making a composition.” Always seeking not to be too literal in his art: “It just doesn’t turn me on.”

Ragnar Kjartansson (b. 1976) is an Icelandic artist, whose work ranges from paintings and drawings to videos, music and performance. 

See also Evergon:

Evergon

EXHIBITION TEXT

In 1990, my younger, gay brother died of AIDS and other complications. In 1992, my Mother, Margaret Lunt, modelled as Ramba Mama in my work, Ramboys: A Bookless Novel. In 1993/4, because of her modeling and because of her relationship as my Mother, she participated in the TV special Evergon on Adrienne Clarkson Presents. Immediately after the viewing, my Father went on a tirade because photographs of my Mother’s bared breasts had been shown on television. She had not told him of the modeling session and he had not seen any of my exhibitions since 1976. Two days later, he was admitted to the hospital with a heart attack, brought on by anger and rage.

Three years ago, my Father died of cancer. In the Fall 2000, while driving Margaret to Montreal to be with me for two weeks, she suddenly stated: “You don’t photograph me nude anymore.” I had never photographed my Mother totally nude. So during that visit, we completed a ‘nude Margaret’ photographic shoot. These images of Margaret, started during that visit, have continued on each successive visit. She is well aware of the power that these nude photographs have. They profile her as a strong woman within her aging body. The mirroring image of myself has been a response to the images of my mother and to our relationship as the sole survivors of our family and mirroring compatriots. Although, I can see my behavioural and physical traits inherited from my Father, I see and feel many more traits from my Mother. Margaret is now eighty-two. I am fifty-five.

– Evergon

Kelly O’Brien: My Brother Teddy, 2014

https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000002760109/my-brother-teddy.html

See also: The Stories We Tell, by Sarah Polley in studio.

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Student works on the theme:

What Would Your Life Be Like Without Me?

These are stills from a video of my parents describing the lives they could of had, if they remained childless. C. Wisdom 2019

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For Lack of a Better Word… White.

This is a still from a video of my parents. I asked them about their experiences with race and prejudices. The video aimed to highlight their contrasting experiences, however the results showed some endearing similarities and how their relationship has altered and shed light on their individual experiences.

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Two Into One is a video that borrows the lip synching strategy from Gillian Wearing’s original video of the same name. I filmed my parents one Saturday morning for as long as they would let me. As I continued to antagonize them they became more and more self conscious. I later dressed in quick drag and lip synched to their complaints and concerns regarding the camera to create an abject and heightened reality of their own fears of being shown “not at their best”. Emily Reimer

Discussing Abstract Art

My parents were pulled away from their regular evening activities and sat down individually to discuss my most recent series of abstract paintings. They weren’t told to analyze them or criticize them, they were just told to talk about them. They also weren’t shown or told what the other had already said. This video reflects not only their relationship to me as their daughter and the art I produce, but also to how they go about viewing art in their own separate ways. Rachel V.

My video is composed of cut together clips of my mom and my dad each describing where they want to be buried. I chose this because I know they each have very specific spots, and have had them for a long time, which have a lot of family history tied to them. My mom, coming from Quebec and my dad, coming from Saskatchewan, both have multigenerational Canadian families, and then they met in the middle and had me. My sister and I were both born in Manitoba and now live here, so even though my parents both have such strong connections to these places, I don’t have any of the generational ties and memories that they have. It’s interesting to see how, although they’re married and have their own children in central Canada, they still have a connection to their hometowns, which leaves my sister and I in the middle to eventually chose our own plots. I thought this would be a neat way of getting them to explain a bit about their families without asking for a direct description. I even filmed the video on their dining room table, which has fittingly been passed down a couple generations and was made by a relative from my mom’s side.

Here are the separate, uncut videos of my mom and my dad’s maps and descriptions:

Summary of work this week:

1.Discuss final works in progress for text multiple

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1. Demo photographing works with mobile phone cameras

WORKS MUST BE SUBMITTED FOR PRINT BY THE END OF THE DAY

TOMORROW – to be ready for documentation and critique next week on Wednesday!

1. Parents Video lecture and assignment

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VIDEO ART ABOUT OUR PARENTS: LECTURE AND ASSIGNMENT

Summary of work:

1. Look at drawings/proposals of work in progress
2. Demo of publishing and editing software

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Look at proposals, and discuss work in progress

Consider work must be completed for submission to print by TUESDAY next week!

WEEK 12

I decided to create two tattoo designs for this project. The first is press here. This tattoo was originally meant for the eyelids but works well in many locations. It invites action, whether that be a positive or negative action toward the one tattooed with it. The second tattoo is the missing poster. This tattoo features a picture of me when i was 14 years old. it was taken the year before i really started to struggle with borderline personality disorder. In the year following, i faced an episode that led me to run away from my home for a short while. This is something in my life i have always carried a great deal of shame towards, both my disorder and the situation i’m speaking of. i wanted to create this tattoo in an attempt to heal that little girl. To let her know that what happened is okay and that she is not inherently bad for mistakes she has made while struggling so deeply. I want to start a conversation surrounding borderline personality disorder. I want to speak and educate ones who aren’t aware of bpd about the intense emotions, mood swings, impulsive and self destructive behaviour and many other facets of life with bpd. It is a conversation that is more than worth having to understand these things and to destigmatize mental illnesses. This tattoo was very overwhelming for me to wear, it connected me to apart of myself that felt extremely lost.

WEEK 11

notes

WEEK 10

for my final video, I wanted to focus on the idea of a day in the life vlog. Although I wanted to track my daily life, I wanted to do so in a way that highlighted my own experience with technology and social media. I do not believe that people are meant to be accessible to other people 24 hours a day. With technology and our smart phones on us at all times, we tend to make ourselves there whenever anyone feels they need something or want to speak with us. There are societal expectations surrounding this and we feel as if we are not placing enough effort into our relationships or online personas if we do not respond or repost or make ourselves readily available at all times. if We are meant to have time to sit with ourselves away from our screens, to connect with the earth and the world around us and other people in real time face to face. I chose to use images of nature because I view it as the complete opposite of the technological world. It is also a true saving grace to me in many ways, one being when technology and the online version of me becomes to much, when I need to sit with the physical version of myself and understand my thoughts, my emotions and my being. The actions I chose to take are ones of me connection with nature in ways that are absurd, they are private actions and ones I would never share online to a social media platform. They accurately show my own digestion of a day in my life, connected to nature and afraid of the walls i’ve placed surrounding my self feeling the paradoxical need to be online, post and text while vehemently craving the opposite, natural connection and no technology clouding my being.

WEEK 7

notes

WEEK 5

For my final parents video, I decided to go with wrapping my umbilical cord like a necklace. I want to focus on the disconnect I feel surrounding an object that is so intrinsically connecting. In polish culture, a parent must keep their child’s umbilical cord or their child will be unsuccessful in all forms of life. I thought that using this would be interesting as it is truly a part of both my mother and I, neither of us really has any more claim over than the other does. In saying that, it symbolizes very different things for both of us. My mother used to love to wrap sea glass with craft wire. I used the same technique in wrapping my umbilical cord. I chose to have the unboxing and repacking of my baby items as the repetitive action and task based work reminds me of a parent completing tasks or packing a box with special things of you child’s. I also think it is necessary for the context of the video. I wanted the video to have fast cuts to signify this disconnect, to have the viewer jarred and acquainted with sharp cuts. I used an incandescent white balance while filming to make it look cold, distant, removed and sterile. Something I really struggled with is the audio. I tried many different forms of audio such as ambient noise, my mother reading the note that is in the box, breathing, end based text with a short phrase about connection but none of them felt right. I wanted the video to be very quiet in action so I decided to quiet the audio to make it match that. I found this video very emotionally draining but emotionally healing to make.

WEEK 3

notes

For my warning labels, I decided that I would focus more on the idea of wacky labels. The kind of warning label where you read it and think “woah someone actually had to do that to warrant a label”. I felt that stickers were the best format as they are easily moved around the world and placed in spaces that are commonly acquainted with the public. I chose to pair down the phrases to two “drinking pickle juice may cause harm” and “romanticizing apple sauce may cause harm”. I struggled with ideas of places to put these stickers as to put them in a traditional warning labels sense (ie on a windex bottle) would not be a place where my multiple could be seen by many. I decided to go for a walk and put up some stickers in places that felt right. I walked on Gordon street which is very busy so I know the ones posted there will be seen by many. I decided to place them in spaces completed unrelated to the content and in spaces warning labels wouldn’t usually be. This adds to the bizarre aspects of the viewers encounter with the label. Not only is it something they won’t understand and will wonder about, They will wonder why it is on the bus or a garbage can.

WEEK 2

When thinking about text work, i immediately thought of warning labels. I spoke with some classmates about the idea and thought of some bizarre warning labels, ones you know someone out there had to experience to warrant a label. I was thinking of content to produce these labels when i started thinking about intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts at some points plague my brain and some thoughts can be harmful, even just to your mental health. I wanted to stick with the bizarre nature of wild warning labels though so I focused on some of these thoughts that were over on the bizarre end. These images of drawn warning labels include some intrusive thoughts and some absurd sentiments.

I am struggling to decide what kind of multiple I would produce these as. I was thinking stickers or posters. with stickers i think i would have to narrow down the number of varying designs. These are just some tests though so I wouldn’t be opposed to choosing 2-3 of them for stickers. I like the idea of stickers because you could place them on physical items as if the warning label was for that product. I think that posters could be interesting as well, printed fairly large.

WEEK 1

notes

Jenny Holzer is a text based artist who uses text on a public scale to urge a response from the viewer. He uses short, often provacative phrases to spark conversation and reaction. She focuses on themes of consumption, abuse, power, social structure and control. I am interested in Holzer’s work because of the feeling that is seeped into it. Her text packs a real punch of emotion and thought extremely successfully.

Holzer’s most well known work is her 1978-87 list of truisms. This piece is framed very interestingly because of the definition of truism. A truism is defined as a statement that is obviously true and says nothing new or interesting. Yet, Holzer’s phrases can be seen more as hard truths for some with different thought patterns. She uses this framework to enforce the idea that the ridiculousness that these phrases are not true to some people or society. The language she uses is simple and easily readable so it can be digested by many people. It is also featured in many different ways. She has shown this work through lists, t-shirts, billboards, large scale projection and installation, posters and other formats. Her work speaks on mass production and consumption as her use of simple text can and has been reproduced many times in many ways. An example of a truism in the list is “abuse of power comes as no surprise”. When acquainted with this phrase, knowing Holzer views it as truism, people are met with a feeling of discomfort. This is because it is a hard truth, people trust in their authority figures and government and hope or even in many cases turn a blind eye to their abuse of power. Holzer’s phrasing urges you to think critically about the structures surrounding you.

Another work is an essay from her 1979-81 series inflammatory essays. These essays were mass produced and scattered across city streets. This essay is printed on light pink paper, a colour associated with softness, tenderness, love and kindness. The words however, say something very different. It is a tale of destruction, of anger and hatred. It shows the narrative of a tenacious underdog, coming to take out the front runner after what feels like years of emotional build up. Although we do not know who the message is coming from and who is it is being delivered to, it feels very personal. The first two lines are “don’t talk down to me, don’t be polite to me”. I find this contradiction of phrasing very interesting as the first sentence is the only one Holzer writes that suggests some sort of retaliation. it then becomes quite aggressive with her saying “I’ll cut the smile off your face”. This rage and hatred is passionate. The final two lines are “The games almost over so it’s time you acknowledge me. do you want to fall not ever knowing who took you?” These lines make the piece more ambiguous. It is believed that Holzer is physically communicating with someone in the first few lines but these lines make that connection and speech more removed. It’s almost as if its a diary of a destructive thought pattern.

I believe that the real joy of viewing Holzer’s work is the feeling you experience from it. Although the narrator is removed and we are left with simple text on simple background, you can feel the emotion seeping through the production. The person speaking is removed yet enveloping you with word and thought. You can feel that they are enraged and want to push away from the mal things they experience.