Final Project

This series of gifs utilizes animals which are known for their stark and dramatic eyes, in combination with organic, abstract, geometric, colorful, kinesthetic and often symmetrical patterns and movements. The eyes are the threshold between the internal and external worlds, and these gifs play on that sentient. I tried to use patterns which reflected the personality of the animals they are paired with. The owl’s eyes are calculated and relaxed. The spider’s eyes are jumpy and intense. The snake is mysterious and hypnotizing. This gifs are meant to be playful and mildly psychedelic, and reflect the aesthetic which is popular on internet blogs like tumblr.

Internet Sound Performance

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ahh

mwh

saturn

shepup

shepdown

deep

 

 

Descent

If I had to sum up the concept of this piece in one word, it would be ‘descent’.
When I began this project, I had words like ‘dreamy’, ‘hypnogogia’ and ‘nightmare’ in my head. I wanted it the sounds to cut into the listener’s core and give them a floating feeling. It’s a very common thing to feel the sensation of literally falling as you’re drifting in between wakefulness and sleep. By utilizing the auditory illusions of the infinitely rising and falling shepard’s tones, it gives the listener the feeling of either falling or ascending into the dream world. The deep muffled underwater sounds gives the feeling of being under a blanket, or submerged, or drowning which is also a very common dream. There are rising voices and howling wolves chopped and screwed in the background which gives it a surreal, dreamlike feel, as well as reminding the listener of the nightmares that everyone occasionally experiences. The piece fades out to a simple white noise, which exemplifies the static experience that is sleeping. Essentially, the piece represents the descent into sleep, and in this case the listener is greeted with a nightmare.

Sound Readings

CHRISTIAN MARCLAY

I enjoyed the music in this documentary because of the process and the end result. Much of the music I listen to in my own time is heavily based on samples, either created by the artist or appropriated from an outside source. Utilizing records in this way is not entirely groundbreaking, but combining the samples with live instruments is unique and respectable. The sheer variety of sound he achieves with his tools is amazing, and really takes the listener on a journey. I would love to see a performance in this style.

 

JOHN CAGE

I’m very fond of his deliberate and innovative perspective on music and sound in general. The world needs more people like John Cage, who stray from the beaten path and embrace experiments and innovative ideas in their expression. After watching this documentary, it makes you reconsider how you feel about the genre fitting music we hear all around us. Why is any of it “better” than anything else? His utilization of setting the stage, but not playing a note creates meaning within the ambient sounds of simply an audience of people.

 

THE ART OF NOISE

I thoroughly enjoyed this article, I love that this perspective was taken on music and noise over a hundred years ago. I feel like he accurately predicted the future of music, specifically electronic music. When I listen to artists such as Boards of Canada, Flying Lotus, Aphex Twin, ect. they are enjoyable to me specifically for reasons examined by Russolo. Modern electronic artists are perfecting embracing the art of noise, sampling sounds from literally anywhere and utilizing them in their music. Like on the Baths track “Maximalist” the muddled voices sound like walking through a crowded room, and the beat is constructed out of simple noises like a cup of pens and pair of scissors.

 

Performance for Video

These performances were inspired by Navajo indian ceremonial sand paintings, which can be painstaking and take weeks to create, only to be intentionally destroyed and swept away during performance. I depict a similar concept in these videos. The journey is surely just as important, if not more, than the destination. With these videos I have focused entirely on the processes and taken actions to remove them from the outcome. In the first, I separate a large bowl of candies by color, only to destroy the finished product. In the second, a friend and I completed a 300 piece puzzle, but ignited it on fire immediately upon completion.

Week 9 Readings

“Some Thoughts on Endurance Performance Art”

Q: “Quality endurance performance art seems to have to do with (at least) three criteria:

1. Is the piece part of a larger conceptual trajectory that the artist is pursuing? In other words, does it connect outward into other media or other concepts in the world (concepts other than the concept of a person sitting in a box for a long time).
2. Does the piece cost the performer something, or is it a relatively facile thing to accomplish? [MTAA’s 1 Year Performance Video is an ingenious, media-aware critique of this rule.]
3. And finally, related to these first two, but least concrete of all, does the piece produce some sort of magic? Does the endurance performance lead to something beyond what it merely is, or is it merely a person lying in a box?”

C: The authors criteria for successful performance art makes it seem fairly tricky. To sum up the 3 rules: 1. Must mean something. 2. Must have a consequence 3. Must be more than a sum of the parts.

Q: How do you make something more than it is?

How to Tell if Your Submersive Artwork is Really That Submersive”

Q: “Use your own experiences as a guide and don’t be afraid to take a chance. Stay away from the go-to shock tactics and you’ll be more likely to yield a work that’s authentic and powerful.”

C: This article was good because of the many specific examples of both good and bad performance art, and I did agree with the author on most of his opinions. This article was also worded less whimsical than the last, which I appreciated. All his bullet points were good to remember as well, so i’m putting them here.

-Has it been done before?

-What exactly are you subverting?

-Does the work relate to your own experience?

-What’s at stake?

Q: Is subversive art always more meaningful than non?

 

Am I Normal – Artist Statement

This video is entitled “Am I normal?”. I attempted to smoothly juxtapose clips from outdated sexual education videos with outdated horror movies. All source material has a natural cheesiness to it, which goes well with the tongue in cheek narrative of this piece. Typically, my art relies more heavily on aesthetic and emotional appeal, and lacks a solid narrative. This piece varies from my norm, and was a unique challenge to create. To achieve the narrative in this piece, I had to incorporate other tactics, including humor, timing and narration. I tried to pay close attention to the audio, as I wanted the video to feel smooth and unaware of its own absurdity. The natural static in the audio of the older footage aided this, and I tried to keep it constant throughout. Also I believe my use of pauses and silence aids in the humor of this video.

There’s something heart warming about movies and documentaries that are out of date, and I believe the kitschiness and personality of these clips adds to sardonic character of this video. The original sources of all the material in this video ranges from the 60’s-80’s, and I hope it’s believable that my compilation appears to be from this time period as well, not from 2016. The sources used are as follows:

Curse of the Werewolf (1961)

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Teen Wolf (1985)

Class of Nuke ‘Em High (1986)

Am I Normal – A Film About Puberty (1979)

Boy to Man (1962)

Human Growth (1962)

Essentially, this video is allegorizing puberty with classic horror transformations. I used the most gruesome and exaggerated clips from these horror classics to represent hair growth, sweating, acne and erections. The clips are tied together in an abbreviated, but classic documentary format.

Am I Normal?

In Defense of the Poor Image

Q:” The poor image is no longer about the real thing – the originary original. Instead, it is about its own real conditions of existence: about swarm circulation, digital dispersion, fractured and flexible temporalities.”

C: As an artist, I tend to frequently ignore the quality of images. My process tends to destroy, blend, distort and transform. I have a taste for low fidelity images and films. The richness and mystery which present themselves in “poor” images can be very powerful. For example, here is a datamoshed video experiment I made for a digital image making class. The clips I used were often “poor” as fuck, but when blended together produce a very organic result.

The inconsistencies which compose a “poor” image often become a very important aspect of the final image. Whether the distortion and reappropriation comes physically or digitally, the results achieved feel absolutely natural. For example, static on a television. Whatever is happening to the digital signals on their way to your screen is certainly composing a “poor” image. But is it not also organic and beautiful? People categorize technology as accessory, unnatural etc. But this is not the case. Everything is natural. It comes from the earth and the glitches and distortions achieved through technology are no different than the fracturing of a frozen lake, the weathering of the forest, the life and death and constant movement that surrounds us.

Q: Are poor quality images objectively worse than high quality?

Alternate Cloud Gifs

These are essentially the original six gifs of my series reversed. Instead of beginning in the clouds and revealing themselves over time, the silhouetted images begin evident and slowly work themselves back in with the background. I chose to add extra frames at the end of each gif, of the silhouette hidden in the clouds, to make their relationship more noticeable. I believe this series feels a bit more surreal than the first,while accomplishing the same goals. However, after upload, it appears that these gifs have lost much of the quality.

Gif Artist Statement

This series of gifs pairs images of clouds moving and morphing across the sky, with playful and clear silhouettes. At some point, everybody has looked up to the sky and seen images within the clouds, and these gifs play on this sentiment. I chose to keep each gif simple, smooth and relaxing. The silhouettes remain static, while the clouds move in each. The silhouettes are invisible in the first frame of each gif, and only reveal themselves as their surroundings move and change while they remain constant. While the images are very obvious in some, like the birds and the giraffe, other silhouettes are subtler and reveal themselves slowly. I believe two keys to happiness are enjoying the simple things, and appreciating the beauty in the world around you. These gifs demonstrate both of these.