CONDUITS (performance piece)

The lungs provide the deepest conduit the outside environment has to the inside of our bodies. The universe will never get deeper inside of you, then when it enters your lungs. For my performance piece i wanted to explore and manipulate the intention and extension of atmospheric intake that we experience when breathing. Usually, an individual will intake atmosphere, witch will fill the lungs, then exhale atmosphere. The process, then ends, and is repeated over and over again,until death.
I wanted to tap into this process and prolong it by adding another person to it. During my piece, I take in atmosphere inside my lungs, exhale it not onto open space, but instead inside a balloon, and I share it with another pair of lungs, witch then intakes the atmosphere that has already been inside of me before finally releasing it into the open.
I found that inhaling air that has already entered another beings body was extremely intimate for I was receiving something that had traveled deep inside another body.
I used my boyfriend for the piece because I wanted it to be intimate ritual and I painted each of our balloons like ourselves, symbolizing the process of self creation( as we blew them up) and the consumption of each other as we exchange air.

-CONDUITS-CLICK TO SEE VIDEO HERE

Allan kaprow Warp book

After listening to Kaprow's "how to make a happening" I acquired a much better understanding of what makes a happening and how one should be arranged. I became interested in creating one therefore I chose to write a script for a happening for the warpbook challenge. I titled the piece "Listen"

Listen 

-11 nude couples stand along the shore of a beach faceing each other.

-one person from each couple has their back to the water and the second person stands two arm lengths distance in front of their partner, faceing the water.

-all persons not facing the water put on ear plugs.

-all persons faceing the water then proceed to use their body's to imitate the movement of the waves for their partners.

-this goes on for three hours.

Notes: 

the 11 couples may be of any sex combinations 

-the 11 couples should agree to meet at one spot and at the same time proceed to walk towards their predetermined positions along the shore

-the 11 couples should have a significant distance between each other along the shore. The space should not be so large , though, that adjacent couples can not see each other. 

- the persons imitating the wave movement may use their body in any way they choose as long as they remain standing and directly in front of their partner.

-there should be no talking in any part of the performance 

-if any passer by is to ask questions  or stand by to watch any or all couples all participants should act naturally and as if it were a regular event , not reacting, or stopping their actions . 

- after three hours should pass an  extra person should walk along the shore passing between each couple , as soon as this person walks  between each individual couple that couple should silently walk towards the beach and leave the area not talking or interacting in any way.  

Rand, Bearden, Gallagher

Paul Rand

For my Paul Rand response, I took a character concept that I have had, and worked with for a couple of years and redesigned it. Along with looking at his work in illustration and children's books, I read "Black In The Visual Arts" (1949) and "Design And The Play instinct" (1965) and attempted to use Rand's concepts and methods to come up with a clean smart and approachable character design that would "work". My character is an androgynous human that represents all self's, I have previously used the character concept in individual illustrations, and a couple of children's books but the design has always remained a concept and has never been solidified. After a goon amount of attempts, I came up with a character that fit my vision and was much better designed then in my prior attempts. For my composition I drew the final product three times on a large poster board, introducing it to the world.  I attempted to use an appropriate and balanced amount of black in the design to give the character weight, and importance.

Ellen Gallagher

(detail)

For my Gallagher response I created a mixed media composition on canvas. I really appreciated Gallagher's exploration of layers and layering, both in physical and non physical terms in most of her work. I wanted to create a piece with many layers both conceptually and physically. I created a piece in acrylic depicting a parallel reality leading to and coming from infinite possibilities. I wanted to add texture to the piece, to add a more "real" and physical layer on top of the composition, therefore I used hot glue to extend some of the forms I painted to on to the surface of the canvas.

Romare Bearden

For my Bearden response I wanted to depict my personal idea or story of life. Bearden, through painting and collage, told the story of Afro American life, and the general story of mankind.  In the spirit of Beardens scissor skills, I cut out cardboard bottles an pasted them in a natural arrangement on top of a busy acrylic painting. I used hot glue to make three dimensional seeds, or units, on (and hanging off), the bottles. To me bottles are a very familiar type of container and I believe that they very accurately represent the human. I believe that the human experience consists of perpetual containment and categorization of experience, and therefore I made the mixed media piece to reflect that. I chose to use seeds to represent units of, material, thought, or experience filling the bottles and interacting with each other in the background of the piece.

Line project

 Three Stages of Listening 

For this project I used a dancer a classical piano player and a jazz bass player to represent the 3 different lines found within each of the three different types of listening to music a person can experience.

The pianist played a bach piece  representing the type of listening that is non liniar and only composers such as bach mozart or virtuosic players experience. It is a multidememsional line were the listener hears not only a unit but the entireaty of possibility within it.

The dancer listened to the pianist and improvised , creating her own linear decision path being engaged in the music and reacting to it. This type of line was much more linear then the pianist line.

 The bass player free improved within the confinements of the Bach harmony while being completely non engaged in it. The bass player created an absolute linear representation, by using direct stream of consciousness to improv.


There was no rehearsals prior to the piece to keep everything as genuine as possible.

 Inside Landscapes

 For my Sol Lewitt piece I wrote a set of instructions that guides the reader through a list of steps, written like an abstract guided meditation meditation, in order to complete a simple drawing. The purpose of this piece is to encourage the reader to start the instructions by envisioning a landscape in their mind, initiating their experience at a peaceful place. The instructions then take the reader through a set of very specific steps that are completely new and unfamiliar to the reader, detaching them from any prior expectations or incentives. This allows for every reader to genuinely create a drawing as naturally as possible, without planning, or engaged thought process. The reader the finishes the instructions as you would finish a meditation, with a final step, asking them to step back, and reflect. Every reader ends up with a completely original landscape extracted from within, through which they can better understand themselves. every reader undergoes a process of imagining a mountainscape, and almost accidentally creating one, actively and directly making a thought and a set of impersonal decisions into a very personal reality.

recent work

Marcel Duchamp

I wanted to explore Duchamp's fascination with wordplay in my piece, therefore in the spirit of his ready-mades I found a "playful phrase" on the internet that was not made by me and I used simple line to make it a piece of work. "a plateau is a high form of flattery" is a phrase that speaks to me because i believe that in life after every period of experiential growth follows a plateau period from which we can flatter ourself(s) with reflection and fascination.

 

Gabriel Orozco

For this piece i wanted to like Cornell, remove a part or a quality of an object, or to change it somehow to show it in a completely new light. I photographed translucent containers under a spotlight to show not their function, but the beautiful light shapes that they emit.

 Eugene Atget

for Atget , after researching him i learned that he considered his photographs to be documents. and the entirety of his work documented specific parts and angles of old Paris in a personal and intimate way. I learned that his work was specifically valuable because Paris dramatically changed shortly after his documentation of it. I created a documentation of my current state of mind. I wrote down, in a free flowing manner, different statements exploring different angles of thinking that explore my current state of mind. I used a standard sheet of paper and wrote in pencil without correcting spelling errors to keep it personal and to represent the fact that it is a non-permanent "current" documentation, one that will most probably change. I covered the paper with a clear plastic protector that can be lifted. I would present the piece tacked to a wall, such as one would tack a document. 

 

John Cage "a walk around my block"

For this piece I went on a ten minuet walk around my block and collected 5 organic objects that I found throughout 5 separate moments of my walk. Each viewer is instructed to open only one box leaving the specific moment in my walk that the viewer experiences , completely up to chance.

 Oldenburg

this piece was inspired by Oldenburg's hanging sculptures and their sudo-sexual innuendos

Donald Judd

For this piece i wanted to place a sires of objects that were not made by me, but by nature, in a way in which they would become singular non metaphorical entities containing an inside and outside space witch could be aesthetically contemplated

Joseph Cornell

After Cornell's shadow boxes, I made a Self-map in a jar that extends outward. The jar encloses a strange terrarium that looks membrane like and entangled. I placed a circle and wrapped wooden stick to represent my feminine and masculine sides and I made a small flute out of clay to represent a personal core grounding.

poetics of place

The Dump


For this project I documented a small dump space outside my house that I pass by and utilize everyday. I aimed to bring forth the beauty in the small space that surrounds and confines a small dump bin. I wanted to show the almost hidden beauty in the wear and time that the walls of the space contain. When i got to really look at the space I found myself in front of what seemed to be almost paintings created by cracks, stains and the textures of deterioration. I was surprised to see how a simple change in the angle in which I visually approached a space could change the entire context of it. I was able to experience the transformation of a place that was once unpleasant , dull and unimportant to a space containing hidden beauty within its filth and deterioration.