December 6th, 2009
Page 1933
With this final project I wanted to explore nature as a fragment, as opposed to a whole. I wanted to specifically focus on an element that I am the most drawn to: Fire. I wanted to somehow incorporate the way fire moves, its power, its effect and the way it travels into a work with meaning. I was truly inspired by the work of Paul De Marinis and his approach with incorporating sound with historical events. Specifically, his piece entitled “Firebirds” of 2004 does so. He uses an oracular flame kept captive within birdcages while reciting speeches of some political leaders of the twentieth century. The sounds project as omnidirectional loudspeakers of surprising clarity and amplitude.
BookBurningHitler
Paul De Marinis has been working as an electronic media artist since 1971. He has created numerous performance works, sound and computer installations and interactive electronic inventions. He is internationally known for his work and has received major awards and fellowships in both Visual Arts and Music. After studying a few other pieces by De Marinis, I was drawn into his integration of historical audio with this installations. Some incorporate the element of nature where others just grasp my attention for their historical relevance and political stances. An example of a piece he did where nature was a prime symbol in his work was “A Light Rain” done in 2004 in collaboration with Rebecca Cummings. Viewers take an umbrella and walk into the rainbow and hear music played by water streams. His incorporation of audio into his work led me to fall for his other pieces, specifically “Walls In The Air” done in 2001. De Marinis sets up a postwar polish radio set to receive messages from the programs of radio free Europe mixed with Am broadcasts. Another piece which incorporated the voices of Joseph Stain, Elvis Presley and Spike Jones was “The Lecture of Comrade Stalin” from 1999-2002.
These audio integrations along with De Marini’s first piece Firebirds allowed for me to have some room to develop my own ideas. As already know, anything that incorporated historical events or relevance to a piece immediately pulls me in. The piece Firebirds already uses the element of fire, which I would like to involve with my piece, but to also extract political messages through my piece.
What I would like to do is somehow integrate audio from the Nazi Era, specifically speeches by Adolf Hitler or his Propaganda officers during the 1933 book burnings in Germany. The main premise of this was to burn all books in Germany which did not correspond with Nazi ideology. This case of book burning is traumatically remembered because the books that were destroyed were irreplaceable and their loss constituted a severe damage to cultural heritage. With this as the main idea, the use of a flame and the power of fire will come into play with a digital representation of a flame over a large span. I would like to pile up books by authors that were forbidden or lost during this rally. I would like for there to be heat coming from the room, along with the smell of burning paper. Audio will play from actual recorded sounds from the book burning along with the crackling of the fire. Somewhere amongst the silence, I would also project the images of the lost words from books that were burned from the event.
The element of fire is to represent the violent and out of control spread of something so horrible. This would tie into the rule of Adolf Hitler in Germany and represent a time where high culture, such as literature, along with millions of lives being lost. I understand that this project takes a turn on the use of nature as the focal point, yet I believe that the inspiration of De Marini’s historical interplay truly fuelled my idea and brought it to a new dimension.
Monday October 5, 2009
The Fence
Given the word “Ownership” to create an installation piece…Go!
Ownership=Marriage?
The construction of my installation stemmed from the idea of “ownership” and the institution of marriage. In using symbolism and metaphor, I wanted to portray the idea of marriage as ownership . Growing up, the idea of marriage has had to change for me as I identified with the idea of “family” meaning that one parent was higher then the other in regards to power and say in a relationship. This poses the question of “ownership” in a marriage and if it exists between two people who promise to spend the rest of their lives together.
Creatively, the assignment was put together with multiple long pieces of wood found in a dumpster near Church and Wellesley. I nailed them together creating the idea of a fence, leaving no room to pier through. The white fence with black hinges slowly faded into broken pieces of wood with a rough texture and scattered nails throughout. There is a latch in the upper right hand side that does not come together with its other component. There are two wedding bands on either side of it with a string tied to the latch. The fence sits propped up on the wall. The scale of work is approximately 4” x 6” in width and height.
Conceptually, there is a wide range of symbolism in the piece constructed. The idea of a fence barricades a certain section from another. It creates boundaries and rules, the accessible versus the non accessible. There is no room left between one piece of wood and another. This leaves little to no room to peer within or between each piece to see what is going on behind them. This symbolizes the private unhappiness and struggle that neighbours, friends and family do not get to see in a marriage.
The application of white paint symbolizes the idea of perfection and the suburban way of life. Living in the suburbs isolates a stay at home mom from her family and friends, which is something I have personally come to understand through my family unit and friends in new marriages. The fence’s unfinished painted job represents the attempt of marriage and love and how it can fade over time. This idea has now transcended into my work of seeing the constant struggle between my parents growing up in a tense household.
The fence latch on the far right hand does not allow both pieces to match up. They were built to work together, yet they are dysfunctional if unmatched. Although two pieces are made to fit, they will not work if they do not come together, like a partnership. One wedding band sits on the long portion of the latch with more range to be taken off and on. Another wedding band sits clasped in the latch with out range or movement. One holds more freedom then the other. This connects on another personal level for myself, as one ring belonged to my father and the other to my mother. This, in turn connects to the idea of ownership and one partner who sets boundaries and rules over the other.
The piece was constructed to question the institution of marriage, free range and to question if you completely give yourself to someone, what exactly does that mean? Does it mean completely giving up your freedom and happiness? Does it mean being barricaded and restricted from spaces, isolation and decision making? Does marriage actually mean ownership? Is a completely balanced marriage actually an achievable reality? I wish for these questions to be asked when this piece is displayed and for people to think more critically about the idea of matrimony and power dynamics within the family unit.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Claire Brunet-Special Focus Studio
The Natural World & The Relationship
between Art, Environment and Architecture
Proposal: City Subway Station Meets Utopia
Presentation with Billy Choi
Bringing nature into a space can hold a variety of changes to mood, functionality and aesthetic appeal. It is important to question how we use space on a day to day basis and how something like this can change when elements are added or removed to or from a space. In accomplishing this proposal I would first like to direct my focus on the theme and how Billy and I attempted to put a spin on the assignment. As opposed to bringing changes into a natural space, we decided that it would be interesting to bring a natural setting into a space that is used everyday in the city.
The natural world that we proposed to bring into this city space is composed of greenery, water and rocks. Bringing living plants and shrubs underground into a subway station is not something one would see on a day to day basis. The city moves at the speed of light with citizens jumping on and off of subway cars, ignoring their surroundings and only focusing on their destination. Transforming the subway platform into a canal can be connected to the fast paced movement of a fast paced river. The movement of the subway train replicates this. Creating a utopia underground creates a new relationship between people and the space they exist in.
From a social context, the site suggests a different outlook on movement and time. The subway station is usually used as a tool to go in and out of. To go through it and past it. The change of scenery allows for people to enjoy their surrounding and admire beauty. The installation proposal would change the way we use the space and how we move in it. Although a proposal as such may not be practical, it is important to bring a sense of calm into a fast paces space such as a subway stop in Toronto. Would people take the time to come down and look at the alterations? Would there be less movement throughout the station? This piece would alter the way people move around the city by wedging a path they take everyday. It challenges routine and popular movement, making people conscious of the route they are taking when a piece of the puzzle is taken away.
In my own artistic practice, I have always enjoyed creating site specific work that involves the viewer in the piece. I understand that creating a scenery as mentioned above, there would be a bit of controversy, as a station would be blocked off. The site specific peace would make a statement on how people would react if a space used everyday was no longer made accessible. In creating this utopia underground, it barricades the public from getting to one station to another. It is important to question if people would actually allow something like this to take place, even if it interfered with their daily movements and pathway to the city.
OCAD- 1st Year Projects
Time Based Media
GART 1B06
Doug Back
September 17/08
September 28/08
We have this movie due near mid October. As for what I have in mind…I’m really not sure as of yet. I have this odd pressure sitting on my shoulders that’s telling me I should be creatively charged and ready to go because it’s September. Let me say that this stuff doesn’t just magically appear because school is here.
I think a part of me, considering we have so much freedom with this piece, would like to video tape some kind of direct hit on popular movement or reaction. I have taken some of my influence from one of my favorite artists, Jenny Holzer. She posts up images all over huge cities, making people stop and think about what it is she is attempting to say. I also looked into some street art and how some artists use urban landscapes as their canvas:
http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/street_art/3.html
I would like to somehow incorporate this into the movie, yet I’m not quite sure what direction I should head in. It needs some more time—In that time, I will also learn how to use these awesome, little cameras that you can bring anywhere with you! I’m still looking for the on button, though…
Audio/Video Project
October 14/08
Moving away from my PC and beginning to use iMovie has been an adjustment considering I have always had this weird fear of the mac computer. They look so complicated, I mean..all that white, no right click and no direct copy/paste? These things can make or break your computer confidence!
I’ve finally got the whole camera thing down and ready! It’s amazing how much you can learn by just fiddling around with it. Yes, you delete hours of filimg…but it’s a learning experience.
For this project, I decided that it would be best to work with two awesome classmates of mine. We had a great time running around the city with the camera, playing the accordian in places where, well, you shouldn’t be playing an accordian! I wanted to keep this footage, but there was some weird glitch thing between the school’s mac computers and the new software for the camera. Anyway, we lost all of it and had to start again.
Our final project didn’t turn out anything like what we anticipated. Hours of editing went into creating this eerie idea about “the things we have no power over changing”. We wanted to create a kind of abstract representation of thought and struggle. Through the use of simple imagery and inspiring audio, the movie came to be.
Here is the movie:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/video/video.php?v=1010947287713&subj=501629512
I owe both my partner’s a great deal of thanks for getting the movie to be what it came to be. It wouldn’t have been possible without the editing genius of Mile’s and the creative flow of Katie. Love it.
Assignment #2
Written Paper
Am I a Cyborg? Are you a Cyborg? Let us define the term together, shall we? A Cyborg is a science-fictional shorting of a “cybernetic organism”, meaning that in time, we may have more artificial body parts that make up all of us as human beings. The conclusion to follow this is that we might become a brain in a wholly artificial body (Haraway 150). I fully understand and comply with the idea that to modify out biological constraints, we need to use technology as a means of advancement. We have cloned, duplicated stem cells and discovered ways to make the impossible, possible. Yet, somehow I feel as if we have surpassed the “do not cross here” sign and are tipping over the edge of moral conduct, if not falling off the edge entirely. I’m finding it a little difficult to unblur the optical illusion between science fiction and social reality.
I am a cyborg. I am also a human being who feels that I am at a crossroad of disconnect from how things are and how things should be. Am I proud of it? Not really. I believe that with the idea of advancement in mind, misconduct, misperception and obsessive control have paved the way for the modern day human being to not only identify as Cyborgs, but to do it with their head’s hung down in shame. To be frank, I believe that we have bitten off more then we can chew and we have abused and improperly defined our ideas of progression.
As technological advancement progresses daily, I believe we have become so immune to innovation that our ethical boundaries have shifted. We have abused the failed notion of not being able to identify between therapy and enhancement. My idea of a cyborg somewhat strays from traditional views of machine meeting the organic functioning of a human. The use of steroids to enhance performance in sport to laser eye surgery for someone who can’t be bothered to take their contacts off before bed are two of many new innovative ways of survival as a Cyborg. Yes, these advancements assist in the performance of day-to-day activities, but have we been spoiled with these open-ended options for enhancement? I believe in replacing a limb for someone who was born without an arm or leg. I also believe in respiratory machines to keep someone alive. Or do I? It is difficult to draw the line as to where we are tampering with survival, or who decides when we live or how long it will be before we die.
Post humanist thought is a view that humans should try to develop in ways that are safe and ethical through technological advancement that will enable the exploration of possible ways of being. The words safe and ethical seem to have been hurdled when it comes to ways in which we have progressed. Trans humanists believe that all people should have access to such technologies. What I would ask is, just because they are available, should everybody be using them? No one truly knows what damage we are doing to ourselves as we close our eyes to medical advancement and act as guinea pigs to the scientists of our era. This can relate to the idea of, “Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should”. There is a difference between want and need, which is something we have all lost sight of. Unless we lose the power to see, hear, speak or breathe, then I believe we can survive. If not, then I think it is important to question where the machine starts and the human stops.
Shifting this medically and connecting it to post human health, an altruistic stance of a society means to create healthier, stronger and more intelligent people, to save resources, and lessen human suffering. Imagine blowing out the candles at you 130th birthday party. Your memory is in tact, your senses are flawless. You can be everything you were at 70 and more. As you age, you become stronger. Does this sound too extreme or is it in fact a reality of where we are headed? When will the greed end and when is it simply time to say enough? What I question connects to our egotistical view of our survival and ourselves. It is easy to misconstruct the idea of perfection.
I believe there is a flaw in making something too powerful and too advanced. From the inhuman strength of The Bionic Woman to the development of the Radio-Frequency Identification Tag implanted in humans to store information, all innovative creations bring a new level of dishonesty to the table. The ideas of privacy, meritocracy and the day-to-day morals of being and survival all seem to slip away under the carpet of high achievement and an unrealistic desire to understand everything. We need to attempt to do everything all at once, the fastest way possible with the greatest results. What if we take an idea like replacing our minds with computers a little too far? Are we truly that distant from such a ludicrous idea? Is replacing our act of thought, memory, reasoning and understanding for something else to do the thinking for us what we truly want? Let us take a look at the dependency factors of humans and this small culture revolving around cell phones. Jesus, I don’t even remember the digits of my own phone number. We need to stop and question, “Do we need it and can we live without it?” There is a vast difference between want and need. With innovation comes not having to think anymore. Does that come with a sigh of relief?
This constant hunger for perfection, to be the fastest, the smartest, and the strongest can all be linked to great achievements and innovation, but at the same time, they make us stupider by the minute. In contrast to this, I find it ironic that we all want to understand everything. We all want to do everything. Is perfection really what we need? With future innovation comes a link to past events. I believe that striving for perfection in the past relating to attributes of the poisonous ideas of Eugenics and social Darwinism. Do whatever we can to keep the strongest alive during this race of time. We are all racing against one another. With a pattern of history known to repeat itself, who’s to say that attempting to create perfection won’t happen again and lead to devastating results?
This sense of control of mechanics over natural progression and deterioration can be linked to power through political strangulation and ideas of perfecting the human race. The term Biopower, coined by Michele Foucault, refers to the practice of modern states and their regulation of their subjects through techniques for achieving the subjugation of bodies and the control of populations (Foucault 34). “Biopower is a technology of power through control, which can then be connected, to the emergence of nation state and modern capitalism”. It is interesting to connect this to the defining nature of what a cyborg really is when biopolitics focus on the protection of life rather then the threat of death. When power is placed into the wrong hands, genocide has set when the state has so much invested in maintaining and protecting the life of the population. Genetic cleansing can be seen from the beginning of time to North America’s Natives, Rwanda’s Tutsi tribe, Hitler’s Aryan Race and Mao’s Communist China. The idea of perfection through the formulation of human’s into a cyborg can lead to troublesome ideals. This in theory may attempt to keep us alive, but it is easy to loose sight of the damage it has done throughout history when it comes to social control and the unattainable idea of perfection.
The human being is still young. We know little of what can be done light years beyond our existence. It baffles me to think that we have taken such sharp, devastatingly wrong turns, when we can be moving at a slower pace and attempt to morally conducting ourselves. I believe that we have lost our sense for goodness. We have been turned off by mediocrity in this race against one another. I believe in working hard. I believe in attaining plausible goals, but I believe in doing this through meritocracy and moral conduct. I believe that we all have it in us to be good. If we have built a monster, I believe that we have the power to deconstruct it and start again. We can take apart our cyborg-selves and look within the natural essence of our being. We have the minds of geniuses within the bodies of young people. We need to revolutionize and redefine what it is we stand for. Is it immediate satisfaction, or long term well being? For the sake of humanity and redefining the negative discourses connected to innovation, we must take a few steps back and remember what it was like to be human again.
Assignment #3
Final Project/Presentation
I owe York University a great deal for their dragging strike. Why? This opens up the schedules of many people willing to help with the filming of my video. This final project, from the minute I received it, was pretty clear to me. I knew right away what I wanted to portray and how I wanted to do it.
Accurate queer representation through film has always been something that has not been portrayed through main stream media. I wanted to film something honest and personally accurate, without the cliché theme of heartbreak behind it. I would like to use music by the artist, Sia, but I want to pull away from this being a music video.
I want it to be raw, extract emotion and hyper evaluate the senses, specifically through touch. I’ll see what I can do. We’re filming this upcoming Thursday…
Still filming. This is going to take a lot longer then I thought. Editing has taken me hours already. I don’t think the song by Sia is going to work. I want there to be no lyrics in the song. I want people to get what is going on, without spoon feeing it to them. I’ll keep at it and do some research on more music, like simple piano or acoustic sounds.
December 16/08
It needs to be said that iMovie 08 is a pain in the ass. I downloaded the 2006 edition instead. I found that many features are simply missing from the new version. The Video Effects button is gone, so is the option of seeing the movie from abasic timeline. These are crucial features! I’ve also just found the rewind button for editing the movie into choppy bits. I want to portray memory accurately through cutting the movie up. I want it to go back and forth from memory to the present moment.
I found this great song by Trentmoller. It’s called Moan and does a great job in fitting with the movie. I don’t want to make it too long either, but I want to use the idea of repetition to show the constant struggle within a relationship and how someone would assume that nothing would change with any new issue that would arise.
After hours, upon hours of editing, the project was finally finished. I wanted it to be as honest as possible and aprpeciated for its unique take on a young relationship between two female lovers. Cheers to learning all this new stuff through this class. I loved every minute of it!
Check out the movie here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibze8DZPZEU
