WORK IN PROGRESS

i open my eyes to a blinding light coming from the left side of the room.
where am i?
why does my head hurt?
what is the sound?
i look around the empty room and everything is shades of grey.
it feels like somethings missing but i can't figure it out.
everything is so flat looking.
i roll over on my side and push myself into a sitting position.
i have still not figured out why my head hurts so bad
out of the corner of my eye i see something that stands out from the rest of the room.

why does this thing look different?

what is it?

its more vibrant than the floor.

it almost hurts my eyes to look at it.

as a matter of fact its different from everything.

the walls.

the ceiling.

its not the same.

in the opposite corner of the room something else catches my eye.

its smaller than the other object.

round.

but still hurts too look at.

why do they both look so different than the rest of the room?

they have to be connected somehow

i crawl over to the small object and roll it over.

these things have to be connected.

there has to be a reason these things look so different then the rest of the room.

i sat there staring at the two objects, completely puzzled by them.

rage was building inside me.

they have to fit together in some way.

they must explain why i am here

i try to put the small one inside the larger one.

nothing.

i could feel myself getting angrier at these objects all the while the sound is getting louder.

i couldn't take it anymore.

i started smashing the two objects together.

bit by the bit they started coming undone.

they were breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces.

the different shade was dissipating across the room as the objects were broken more with each smash

now the floor was completely covered in bits of this color.

it's everywhere.

Sam Taylor-Wood: Bram Stroker's Chair Series

The piece that I picked was Sam Taylor Woods chair series called the Bram Stroker's Chair. This series has such an interesting depth to them by the fact that they make the viewer ask so many questions about the piece, even though the action is completely possible. For me, the first answer that I wanted to figure out was how was the chair placed like that so as not to fall over. The most likely answer was that it was photoshopped in, but I thought it would be cool if it was bolted to the ground at that and secured at that odd angle. After you got past the angle of the chair, you start to wonder how the girl is balanced so precariously on top of the tilted chair. This is also most likely photoshopped, but there is part of me that thinks it would be so interesting if she was really able to do this. Also you notice that she is the only thing casting a shadow on the wall behind her, and in every piece you are unable to see her face. There is also an interesting contrast between the hard wooden angularity of the chair and the soft graceful aspect of the girl. This contrast is further pronounced in the fact that she looks to be dressed in her soft pajamas. I feel this picture raises a lot of questions that are purposefully left unanswered by the artist, most likely because she wants the viewer to formulate their own answers. There could also be no answers to the piece at all.

Live Mediated Performance Video

https://vimeo.com/87439979

Live Mediated Performance

For my performance, I wanted to deal with the idea of what happens after you die. I choose to have plastic goldfish inhabit a real space and throughout the piece, the goldfish were transferred by means of fishing line to inhabit a not so real space. You were able to see the shadows of the floating goldfish against the fishbowl that was being projected on the wall behind them, while also just floating around in mid air. Throughout the piece there was audio playing of all different theories as to what happens after one dies.
I feel that my piece was successful in the way that it was able to evoke an almost uneasy feeling from the viewers. Death is not a usual topic to verbalize and talk about and this piece confronted you front on with the idea of death, and even gave different ideas so that you were forced to think about what actually happens. I think it would be interesting to have it set up so that someone wouldn't have to pull the suspended goldfish up and they were just set on a timer mechanism. It would also very interesting to see it with a bunch of fish and have numerous theories of death playing on repeat.

Performance Piece

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtHTS_MRRTA&feature=youtu.be

Product Performance

Ariana and I decided to do a performance that involved a commentary on different daily routines that were performed by both males and females. I would first perform that male action, and Ariana would then perform an equivalent female action. We then got up and switched chairs and she would then perform the male action, and I would perform the female action. We did this for a series of actions and then ended the piece with each other us doing a bow and a curtsy.

One of the main comments that we got on or piece was that it could be elongated into an endurance piece in which the piece lasted hours upon hours. I think the idea of this would be interesting because doing the series of events once over, there were some fumbles from both of us. If we continued to do the piece for hours, then the actions would become more fluid and there wouldn't be any fumbles when each of the actions were performed. This would make the piece smoother and would further push the ideas of these monotonous actions that aren't even thought about when performed in real life. It would also almost blur the boundary between male and female actions since both genders are doing the actions so naturally.

4D Blog #1

For this blog entry I read a series of manuscripts and essays produced by artists. Notations by John Cage is a series of pages of different musical and the notes in which to create them. Some of the pieces look like average notes and stanzas, and others are pictures drawn across lines on the paper. Some pieces don't have any notes at all and just descriptive words across the paper to be interpreted by the viewer. 4'33 is a piece that was created by John Cage and performed by William Marx. The piece includes a series of happenings in which Marx sits down at a piano, but instead of playing the piano, he uses a stop watch to time each happening. Art Which Can't be Art by Allan Kaprow is a commentary on how everyday actions we take for granted can be viewed in a different way. The act of brushing your teeth has occurred thousands of times on a daily basis in a persons life, that the act is just accepted and is something that is just done without any though. Kaprow really focuses on the act of brushing his teeth for two weeks and observes the different things that actually happen and occur when brushing your teeth. How to Make a Happening was also written by Alan Kaprow and describes all the does and do-nots that go along with creating a happening. The point he seems to stress the most is that everything should happen completely naturally, like it would in real life. There shouldn't be any rehearsal of the happening to keep it in it''s truest and most natural form.

The piece that I decided to research further was the piece 4'33 by John Cage. Cage came up with the idea of creating a piece completely out of silence around 1947. He initially wanted to create a silent piece and be able to convince a music company that itwas an incredibly wonderful piece called Silent Prayer. He scratched that idea and did not want to go on with it. He continued his research and visit an anechoic chamber, which is a chamber that is soundproof and all the surfaces of the chamber absorb sound instead of reflect it. He assumed to hear complete silence, but instead all he could hear was his nervous system and blood circulating in his body. This is when he realized that everything has a sound and he wouldn't ever be able to experience complete silence until he was dead. When 4'33 was performed, Marx came out on stage, sat the a piano and closed the piano door and took out a stopwatch and timed each of the three sections. The audience was forced to listen to the sounds that were created around them and by each other. They were able to hear everything, from coughing and clearing throats, to shuffling uncomfortably in their seats. This piece really challenged what could be/and what is called music.