Sunday, January 31, 2010
Elizabeth Warren
So the awesome facts in this video: we spend less on food, clothing, and technology now than in the 70's.
Parents would rather live near a nuclear test site than a bad school district. People are buying into schools.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
God darn grad school statement
One winter day in Finland I took a walk into a big forest with a mushroom expert. After 15 minutes with my head down following a network of puddles, I looked up and didn't see Miyuki. The sun was about to set for the next 20 hour stretch of night. I couldn't see the edge of the forest where we entered and any sounds I made were instantly absorbed by the trees and moss. I had never been so scared. My sense of direction was confused by my anxiety, so I closed my eyes and spun around until I felt that I was facing the direction I came from. I ran in that direction for only a few seconds and the road appeared. The dehabilitating fear was wonderfully humbling.
The contrast between this fear and all previous fears before caused a realization that I have lived a protected life with a narrow spectrum of experience-- limited by my identity and my urban dwelling. My disorientation seemed unremarkable in the context of the daily lives of the Finnish people I related the story to, and I learned to accept that other people's realities have different extremes. A goal of mine is to be able to work independently from the comfort and stability of controlled situations provided by my nationality and my upbringing in order to interact with realities of extreme contemporary experience and to create my own. In search of these situations I confront the unknown with planned unpreparedness. I seek extremes where I can ask questions and develop work based on the answers. The systems I have developed for inquiry include writing and distribution of surveys, offering free collaboration/pedagogy, and meeting one-on-one with people. My interrogation techniques are designed to unravel people's private and public experience (first to themselves, second to me) in order to get a larger sense of what is happening.
When I arrived in rural Finland last winter for an art residency, I forgot my boots. My unpreparedness forced me into a search that took me into several Finnish homes and provided the unintentional research I needed to begin my project. I believe in the openness of a traveller without the right gear. This vulnerability creates opportunities for me to move within a community and to begin to prove my legitimacy and interest in a place and its people. You might call this my discreet system for free education.
Although I arrived with the least appropriate footwear, I travelled with what I needed to improvise some kind of self-legitimation. I have found that my introductions and inquiries are easier if I look like an authority, so I often make a title for myself that is supported with paperwork and business cards. Assuring people of my employment by an institution or a concept in town or elsewhere helps create an image of me as a person who belongs. I used this system to begin navigating the town of Haukivuori, Finland when I had to search for winter boots to borrow. This necessity created the chance to invite people for a free introductory consultation from one of the staff at my consultation firm in the forest—Future Unincorporated. With business cards and a list of complimentary services, I began to build what became a tight schedule and a full rolodex.
To further legitimize my place in a town, I have often worked to secure, build, or find a space where I can invite the public and can curate a situation that will nurture the kind of intimate conversation that I need for my project. In Finland, I began to wander through fields and forests in search of lightly used building structures that could accommodate the needs of a small corporation. After a few days of searching I found an abandoned well-house that was less than a mile from a major road. With minor renovations like wall paper, unblocking the insulation that was blocking a potential skylight, and creating a new floor, I was able to move my desk and waterpoofed cardboard office equipment into the building. Less than two weeks after my arrival in Finland, I was beginning to accept clients for free introductory consultations. We ate cake and coffee until we couldn't feel our toes or see eachother in the dark afternoon, and I learned about what these Finnish ate for breakfast-- which led to the origin of the foods, the significance of tradition, the impact of globalization, and the state of agriculture in the town. By the end of the consultation I had a sense of what each client saw in the future, and after a few weeks I was a hub for information, gossip, and I felt that I had found a place in the community.
In the past this type of built or found structure and the situation that develops inside of them have become a supplementary parasite (a parasite wouldn't live without the place and the place secretly needs the parasite) to what I find in a town, where I can offer complimentary services as a teacher, collaborator, or consultant. I become professionally adaptive-- I offer services that accent, emphasize, or critique--and always supplement the place.
The first project that could be characterized by its supplemental parasitic qualities was the Infinite Museum, which was located in a shack that I built onto the side of the HVCCA in Peekskill NY. I was inspired by the relationship between idea and failure in the work of architect Le Corbusier, so I wanted to realize one of his ideas that was never totally realized: the museum of unlimited growth.
I proposed an addition to the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art as a gesture to begin a constant outward building process in the spirit of Le Corbusier. I built a canvas covered shack onto the side of the museum building, and that became the Infinite Museum. I hired myself to run an outreach program and began to offer classes throughout the town for youth and seniors that were around themes of attempting failure.
My mysterious presence in the institutions of the town as an interested outsider-- suddenly offering workshops to people who did not ask for them, was grounded by the fact that I was working for the Infinite Museum. In one class for elderly women we built modernist renditions of the home they remembered most fondly, and it was difficult to convince some of my simple intentions, but my briefcase of brochures and business cards with the address of the museum signified my authenticity.
The role of the artist in a highly interactive social practice often seems to be that of a professional organizer with clear motivations and a clearer mode of very directed research, evaluation, and implementation. My sense is that this streamlining makes for sterile and predictable work that is too practical to be magical, and so specific that the audience is denied flexibility in interpretation. I hope to transcend the utilitarian aesthetic I have developed as I have followed in the footsteps of artists, activists and architects who necessarily developed skills to organize and activate the public for political purposes. Now that we have seen the large network of individuals that supported the election of Obama, I want to be part of a new phase of socially interactive artwork that builds on the success of those grass roots tactics using a new language of materials and brave experimentation with aesthetics. A very observant and responsive public is needed to expand on the success of the campaign, and the systems developed in art will become the models for how to do this—but I want to see more radical modes of implementation, and less conservative processes. In a time of political and economic desperation, art can be the thing that reminds people how to be keenly critical of their reality.
My next project will incorporate some of the physical remnants of the American recession to prove that physically and conceptually, when there is a depression, a space is created. Using frozen spaces that have lost their function or purpose due to the global financial crisis—an empty office space, a foreclosed property, or an abandoned construction site—from 4 cities, I will create a community redesign center. The center will be a temporary found or built structure in each town that will act as a design laboratory where the public will be invited to come and reimagine the fortune of the community by suggesting a practical form and use for the empty place. Using architectural modeling as the principal method for idealistic re-landscaping, community members will be led to develop macquettes and drawings for the repurposing of frozen spaces in their town so to stimulate their community. There will also be workshops from local community members with expertise in handicrafts and other practices that maximize resources in creative ways to support a lifestyle that can withstand economic fluctuations.
Many of my projects have been successful, but many of them have been underdeveloped or feel unresolved due to my independence from institutional support. I have many large ideas that I would like to pursue with the support of a grad school community at UCSD. In this type of work, I have often, if not always, been alone in the field. I do most work solitarily in order to maintain my powers of camouflage and nearly silent imposition because I have desired total immersion in new places and communities. However, I would like to pursue larger projects with more human support for the development and critiquing processes as well as more collaboration and feedback in the field. I am interested in continuing to develop projects and systems that are recognized within and outside of the art world, that expose opportunities for people to engage in new types of observation and interaction with their society. While at UCSD I would like to pursue the completion of several of my projects with the help of specific faculty members, each who I feel have a body of work and/or a sensibility that has informed my development as an artist.
The contrast between this fear and all previous fears before caused a realization that I have lived a protected life with a narrow spectrum of experience-- limited by my identity and my urban dwelling. My disorientation seemed unremarkable in the context of the daily lives of the Finnish people I related the story to, and I learned to accept that other people's realities have different extremes. A goal of mine is to be able to work independently from the comfort and stability of controlled situations provided by my nationality and my upbringing in order to interact with realities of extreme contemporary experience and to create my own. In search of these situations I confront the unknown with planned unpreparedness. I seek extremes where I can ask questions and develop work based on the answers. The systems I have developed for inquiry include writing and distribution of surveys, offering free collaboration/pedagogy, and meeting one-on-one with people. My interrogation techniques are designed to unravel people's private and public experience (first to themselves, second to me) in order to get a larger sense of what is happening.
When I arrived in rural Finland last winter for an art residency, I forgot my boots. My unpreparedness forced me into a search that took me into several Finnish homes and provided the unintentional research I needed to begin my project. I believe in the openness of a traveller without the right gear. This vulnerability creates opportunities for me to move within a community and to begin to prove my legitimacy and interest in a place and its people. You might call this my discreet system for free education.
Although I arrived with the least appropriate footwear, I travelled with what I needed to improvise some kind of self-legitimation. I have found that my introductions and inquiries are easier if I look like an authority, so I often make a title for myself that is supported with paperwork and business cards. Assuring people of my employment by an institution or a concept in town or elsewhere helps create an image of me as a person who belongs. I used this system to begin navigating the town of Haukivuori, Finland when I had to search for winter boots to borrow. This necessity created the chance to invite people for a free introductory consultation from one of the staff at my consultation firm in the forest—Future Unincorporated. With business cards and a list of complimentary services, I began to build what became a tight schedule and a full rolodex.
To further legitimize my place in a town, I have often worked to secure, build, or find a space where I can invite the public and can curate a situation that will nurture the kind of intimate conversation that I need for my project. In Finland, I began to wander through fields and forests in search of lightly used building structures that could accommodate the needs of a small corporation. After a few days of searching I found an abandoned well-house that was less than a mile from a major road. With minor renovations like wall paper, unblocking the insulation that was blocking a potential skylight, and creating a new floor, I was able to move my desk and waterpoofed cardboard office equipment into the building. Less than two weeks after my arrival in Finland, I was beginning to accept clients for free introductory consultations. We ate cake and coffee until we couldn't feel our toes or see eachother in the dark afternoon, and I learned about what these Finnish ate for breakfast-- which led to the origin of the foods, the significance of tradition, the impact of globalization, and the state of agriculture in the town. By the end of the consultation I had a sense of what each client saw in the future, and after a few weeks I was a hub for information, gossip, and I felt that I had found a place in the community.
In the past this type of built or found structure and the situation that develops inside of them have become a supplementary parasite (a parasite wouldn't live without the place and the place secretly needs the parasite) to what I find in a town, where I can offer complimentary services as a teacher, collaborator, or consultant. I become professionally adaptive-- I offer services that accent, emphasize, or critique--and always supplement the place.
The first project that could be characterized by its supplemental parasitic qualities was the Infinite Museum, which was located in a shack that I built onto the side of the HVCCA in Peekskill NY. I was inspired by the relationship between idea and failure in the work of architect Le Corbusier, so I wanted to realize one of his ideas that was never totally realized: the museum of unlimited growth.
I proposed an addition to the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art as a gesture to begin a constant outward building process in the spirit of Le Corbusier. I built a canvas covered shack onto the side of the museum building, and that became the Infinite Museum. I hired myself to run an outreach program and began to offer classes throughout the town for youth and seniors that were around themes of attempting failure.
My mysterious presence in the institutions of the town as an interested outsider-- suddenly offering workshops to people who did not ask for them, was grounded by the fact that I was working for the Infinite Museum. In one class for elderly women we built modernist renditions of the home they remembered most fondly, and it was difficult to convince some of my simple intentions, but my briefcase of brochures and business cards with the address of the museum signified my authenticity.
The role of the artist in a highly interactive social practice often seems to be that of a professional organizer with clear motivations and a clearer mode of very directed research, evaluation, and implementation. My sense is that this streamlining makes for sterile and predictable work that is too practical to be magical, and so specific that the audience is denied flexibility in interpretation. I hope to transcend the utilitarian aesthetic I have developed as I have followed in the footsteps of artists, activists and architects who necessarily developed skills to organize and activate the public for political purposes. Now that we have seen the large network of individuals that supported the election of Obama, I want to be part of a new phase of socially interactive artwork that builds on the success of those grass roots tactics using a new language of materials and brave experimentation with aesthetics. A very observant and responsive public is needed to expand on the success of the campaign, and the systems developed in art will become the models for how to do this—but I want to see more radical modes of implementation, and less conservative processes. In a time of political and economic desperation, art can be the thing that reminds people how to be keenly critical of their reality.
My next project will incorporate some of the physical remnants of the American recession to prove that physically and conceptually, when there is a depression, a space is created. Using frozen spaces that have lost their function or purpose due to the global financial crisis—an empty office space, a foreclosed property, or an abandoned construction site—from 4 cities, I will create a community redesign center. The center will be a temporary found or built structure in each town that will act as a design laboratory where the public will be invited to come and reimagine the fortune of the community by suggesting a practical form and use for the empty place. Using architectural modeling as the principal method for idealistic re-landscaping, community members will be led to develop macquettes and drawings for the repurposing of frozen spaces in their town so to stimulate their community. There will also be workshops from local community members with expertise in handicrafts and other practices that maximize resources in creative ways to support a lifestyle that can withstand economic fluctuations.
Many of my projects have been successful, but many of them have been underdeveloped or feel unresolved due to my independence from institutional support. I have many large ideas that I would like to pursue with the support of a grad school community at UCSD. In this type of work, I have often, if not always, been alone in the field. I do most work solitarily in order to maintain my powers of camouflage and nearly silent imposition because I have desired total immersion in new places and communities. However, I would like to pursue larger projects with more human support for the development and critiquing processes as well as more collaboration and feedback in the field. I am interested in continuing to develop projects and systems that are recognized within and outside of the art world, that expose opportunities for people to engage in new types of observation and interaction with their society. While at UCSD I would like to pursue the completion of several of my projects with the help of specific faculty members, each who I feel have a body of work and/or a sensibility that has informed my development as an artist.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Peter Doig Acrylics
Yesterday I did my first full set of acrylics. For those of you who don't know, 'acrylics' refer to the false nail extensions a gal can put on her nails. I bought a bunch of supplies, not quite knowing how they all went together, but I managed a full set, including some 'gel' toppins. So basically I gave this girl 3 inch extensions to her finger nails, and I also gave them a real robust look with a heavy coat of thick hard coating. I am sad to say I do not have a photo of this momentous step in my life and art practice, but I do have what you see above: a painting of Peter Doig's painting called '100 Years Ago' that I painted/collaged onto a large false thumb nail. I have to say it was a successful first experiment, and I was happy to donate it to the collection of Nick C. Herro on this, his 26th birthday. I think he will wear it with pride. Now the kids at the salon have started to make a real scene everyday. Nails are getting did, and I am happy to say that the quality of conversation is getting better as the nail doin skills improve. Yesterday I found out that two of the girls who are regulars in my salon have close family in Iraq. All sorts of stuff is coming out over the salon table.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Oliver Sachs, let's talk about emotional memory.
Often I can't remember events, people, or facts. When I was young I was known for memorizing license plates, car makes, and could recite entire conversations. Now, it seems that my memory is almost non-existent.
When I do an art project, when it is finished, I all but forget that it ever happened. When I remember it, it is often with bitterness—even if I had a good feeling about it while I was working on it or when it was being shown. It translates as an emotional imbalance, a lack of confidence, or amateurism. I am not disgusted by those traits, all of which I have to some extent, but it does become a bitter war between my intellectual decisions and my gut's hateful memory of my recent past.
About one year ago, my mom moved to Indiana to a farm because she ran out of money and the ability to deal with her previous life. It caused me to recall my childhood, which ranges from unconventional to completely abstract and difficult. I had not really visited my childhood memories since I was in it. It seems like that was a reflex of my brain. It was all protecting my happiness and shit.
I am credited with a very 'present' way of participating in life, but I think it might be that I have no ability to access my memories most of the time. It is great for yoga class, and fantastic at parties and for participating in intense conversation, but terrible for Trivial Pursuit. Sometimes it almost feels like I don't want to escape the forever of the present moment. I dread the end of things, feel anxious and impatient with small changes. I hang on to ideas and forget the reality. But who doesn't?
I haven't spoken to high school friends or had any contact with the past since I left each location. It is undeniably different from the experience of my peers- it is not a generational trend. It has made me a great participant in NY social circles because I easily forget who I was friends with before the present friends came around. When my best friend from High School showed up in NY, I was surprised by the memories she accessed in me and by the feeling of being remembered earlier than my contemporary era. I could not access some of the important memories that Kelly brought up.
For me, every project and experience is linked because it is mine, but I have trouble building on them. I work foundationless, which leads to a sense of always starting over. Everything is always a revolution.
I have trouble interacting with family or even finding a place for them in my life. It is as if I forget them and only their nagging and reminding me can keep me in touch with them—and often it is out of guilt instead of love. It is not that I don't love them, because when I interact with them I do. But I cannot access those feelings when I am moving along through life. I never call to say 'Hi', because it doesn't occur to me.
This is just the first exploration of the failure of my memory. What can I say? I have been disappointed by my brain in the past few years. Maybe I could at least give my mind credit for protecting the rest of my experience from being infected by what might have been a dark history.
BEAUTY SALON!
A new project. This will take place at BCCP at Brooklyn College this fall.
BEAUTY SALON is a space to explore these two words. The project has many possibilities due to the spectrum of meanings behind the words in the title.
Beauty is something to talk about. As an artist, I am interested in what other people find beautiful.
To begin this project, I will make a map of all the local beauty salons in Flatbush, of which there are many (on the wall if that is ok), and I will begin to install a 'booth' made of cardboard.
Beauty salons are common and often they are able to survive economic downturns because people always need a haircut. Beauty as a pursuit and an interest is inseparable from being human, so no matter what political, economic, or social degradation happens, the salon will be in business.
The beauty salon will be open on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from 2-6 pm, and I will offer beautification services in return for a typewritten receipt that acknowledges the most beautiful thing that the client had witnessed that day.
*The currency accepted is a story, because the dollar isn't worth much.
Clients are also invited to rent a booth at the salon, where they can offer beautification services and expand the client base (invite their friends). To rent a booth, the stylist is responsible for decorating their booth. All stylists must maintain receipt policy and all beautification must be documented.
The beauty that happens in the salon will be documented and put on the wall, salon style. The accumulation of beautiful images will evolve into a beautiful installation.
THIS IS A SALON
sa·lon n
Also called beauty salon
Also called beauty shop
1. A large room, such as a drawing room, used for receiving and entertaining guests.
2. A periodic gathering of people of social or intellectual distinction.
3. A hall or gallery for the exhibition of works of art.
4. A commercial establishment offering a product or service related to fashion: a beauty salon.
OF BEAUTY
beau·ty n
1. the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest).
2. a beautiful person.
3. a beautiful thing, as a work of art or a building.
4. Often, beauties. something that is beautiful in nature or in some natural or artificial environment.
5. an individually pleasing or beautiful quality; grace; charm: a vivid blue area that is the one real beauty of the painting.
6. Informal. a particular advantage: One of the beauties of this medicine is the freedom from aftereffects.
7. (usually used ironically) something extraordinary: My sunburn was a real beauty.
8. something excellent of its kind: My old car was a beauty.
BEAUTY SALON is a space to explore these two words. The project has many possibilities due to the spectrum of meanings behind the words in the title.
Beauty is something to talk about. As an artist, I am interested in what other people find beautiful.
To begin this project, I will make a map of all the local beauty salons in Flatbush, of which there are many (on the wall if that is ok), and I will begin to install a 'booth' made of cardboard.
Beauty salons are common and often they are able to survive economic downturns because people always need a haircut. Beauty as a pursuit and an interest is inseparable from being human, so no matter what political, economic, or social degradation happens, the salon will be in business.
The beauty salon will be open on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from 2-6 pm, and I will offer beautification services in return for a typewritten receipt that acknowledges the most beautiful thing that the client had witnessed that day.
*The currency accepted is a story, because the dollar isn't worth much.
Clients are also invited to rent a booth at the salon, where they can offer beautification services and expand the client base (invite their friends). To rent a booth, the stylist is responsible for decorating their booth. All stylists must maintain receipt policy and all beautification must be documented.
The beauty that happens in the salon will be documented and put on the wall, salon style. The accumulation of beautiful images will evolve into a beautiful installation.
THIS IS A SALON
sa·lon n
Also called beauty salon
Also called beauty shop
1. A large room, such as a drawing room, used for receiving and entertaining guests.
2. A periodic gathering of people of social or intellectual distinction.
3. A hall or gallery for the exhibition of works of art.
4. A commercial establishment offering a product or service related to fashion: a beauty salon.
OF BEAUTY
beau·ty n
1. the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest).
2. a beautiful person.
3. a beautiful thing, as a work of art or a building.
4. Often, beauties. something that is beautiful in nature or in some natural or artificial environment.
5. an individually pleasing or beautiful quality; grace; charm: a vivid blue area that is the one real beauty of the painting.
6. Informal. a particular advantage: One of the beauties of this medicine is the freedom from aftereffects.
7. (usually used ironically) something extraordinary: My sunburn was a real beauty.
8. something excellent of its kind: My old car was a beauty.
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