WHAT IS A KILOMETER:
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/1010367895
For my kilometer project I wanted to show the perspective of a kilometer. I chose to film two videos, on the right I walk a along a meter stick 1000 times and on the left I walk a normal kilometer down my street and back. The idea is to show the difference in perception, both videos are me walking a kilometer but one is much more tedious than the other and shows monotonous action while the other is a nice stroll down the street with different views and experiences.
PIPILOTTI RIST:
1)
Pippiloti Rist’s “Ever is over all” is the video that most caught my eye. The video features a female actress in a light blue dress with red high heels walking down a Zurich street holding a colorful stick that looks like a rose with a very long sturdy stem, with it she smashes three car windows while walking past strangers and even an officer. Meanwhile there is another video on the right playing slowed down close up footage of a flower garden, filled with lots of bright reds, greens, and yellows. The main performer in the video is not Pipiloti Rist but actually a friend of hers named Silvana Ceschi who performs with a gleeful stride as she happily smashes the cars freely. I would also argue that the strangers and officers in the video enact a sort of performance as well by trying to not really react to Ceschi’s actions, as the officer and strangers in the video ignore or politely smile at her but try not to actually interact with her. It is a dynamic performance that goes against the performance of the everyday as it embodies freedom and boldness over social normalities. The framing feels entrancing as the video feels as if it wraps around you occupying its space very well. The video on the right feels very large and close while the one on the left is more direct, having the figure centered (on the left). This makes the video on the right look like an angle from a different universe as the flower theme connects the two. The colors featured are bold and bright. While the left side has a light blue tint the right has a bright green tint but both videos feature emphasis on the color red representing the boldness that both films carry. Another thing adding to the feeling of the videos being intertwined is the slowed down and smooth movements of both the camera and figures present throughout the entirety of both videos leading to a very cohesive short loop. The camera work is smooth and fluid. While the camera constantly moves around to reveal new angles, both for the woman smashing the car and the angles of the “flower” she is smashing with. The video is edited in a way that keeps your attention throughout, never holding a shot for too long but instead exploring new and interesting angles to depict this performance. These quick chances in the editing also helps to make the loop more effective as it seamlessly seems like another camera cut when in fact the entire video had begun to loop. The sounds immediately re-contextualize the tones and mood of the film. As the film itself is very euphoric and joyful the music seems very melancholic and somber. The effects present in the sound such as the skewed piano notes, the drumming pattern, and the women humming all feel very haunting, as if trying to peel a darker side to the context and framework of the piece. The loud sounds of the windows being smashed also add to the boldness and abrasiveness of the women present in the piece. The presentation in the gallery looks highly immersive, as the viewer sits facing the corner of a giant two sided panel. Each side containing the side of the video gives the effect of the piece being all around you, as the viewer is literally in the middle of the piece themselves. This would add to the emotion of the film further putting the viewer into the perspective of both the women and the flower rod, while also enhancing the central themes of largeness and boldness the Pipioloti Rist wanted.
2)
The topic of shaming women for certain behaviors or the idea that there is a “proper” way for a woman to behave is one very much present in “Ever is Over all”. Rist challenges these normalities of society by showing a presentable female acting irrationally and radically, very “unlady like”. These types of ideas are still being challenged very much online on platforms like Tik Tok and Youtube to this day. For example female content creators posting themselves dressing in unconventional wacky ways and going outside or expressing interest in mostly male dominated spaces such as video games. Both these are instances of female boldness and freedom as these women express themselves without fear. Women are often told to be submissive or quiet. Not being listened to and respected they are conditioned to not speak out and say what they want or what is on their mind, as well as being told what to wear, how to act, and what to do. Pipilotti Rist flips this on its head by having a woman look like the “standard” from the surface as she is wearing a dress with a nice smile on, but behaving radically as she smashes cars in bright contrasting colors euphorically. This performance blends what is normalized with what is socially acceptable as it very much blurs the line between the two. It makes the argument of breaking out of the mold created by patriarchy and instead carving one that suits yourself
3)
I went to meet my friends in the Engineering building in the lounge area to study and decided to show up with my black shirt inside out. It made me feel very self conscious walking through the building with my shirt like this, many times I would feel as if people I walked past looked at my shirt although part of me believes I was just embellishing in my mind. When I walked up to my friends I kept thinking about what they were going to say or what they would comment, but instead nobody actually paid any attention or noticed. Nothing was said to me for the majority of the morning, to the point that I had basically forgotten I actually put my shirt inside out. Until one of my friends pointed it out and laughed, I embarrassingly changed my shirt back to normal, but outside of that nothing really happened or was said after. This makes me realize how much our own minds screw with our perceptions of the public. We think about ourselves and our flaws so much that we ascribe the idea that everyone else around us must have noticed already or must have the same thought about you. When in reality you do not know what they are thinking and whatever it is nine times out of ten it has nothing to do with you and something about themselves instead. After this I can see that I don’t have to be so worried about the flaws and insecurities I see in myself and that instead I should accept them and move on. This is a performance on top of a performance. The simple act of dressing up to go to school and study is a performance. By dressing and acting a certain way I am essentially creating a character for myself to present to the public and by wearing my shirt inside out I am taking that already made character and changing it to the public. Both cases are for some sort of reactionary emotion either being beneficial or negative; they both represent a performance of myself. So, yes this was a performance and one that both didn’t go how I expected to and also unexpectedly gave me a lot to think about my future presentation or performance to the public and how I carry myself here on out.
FEILD TRIP:
Alex Da Corte’s Ear Worm was my favourite installation I saw in the trip. It features a collection of films, characters, products, and toys that are heavily tied to pop culture. Many of these iconic figures are associated with fun and positive connotation and Alex Da Corte subverts these ideals by perverting them with imagery of every day life. Mixing aspects of pop culture with violence and sexuality while mutating the imagery itself. Da Corte playing characters like Mister Rogers, the Statue of Liberty, Marcel Duchamp, Eminem, and a whole slew of iconic characters Da Corte gives them a more complex and disturbing twist. The one that stood out the most to me was Charlie Brown, having Da Corte draw a twisted version of Charlie Browns face on a porcelain doll with marker.
ROCK PAPER SCISSORS:
For our gesture we chose to focus on the game Rock Paper Scissors, A simple game usually played up to 3 with a winner and a loser. Our objective was to try and change the rules and standards of Rock Paper Scissors while keeping the core ideals and feeling of the game intact. The most obvious change was using literal objects instead of hand signs, this adds an element of realism and tension within a children’s game now incorporating preparation, setup, and possible danger. The game could end at any moment because the rock might just break/snap the scissors in half before getting to 3, this is an element we never considered as the game we twisted began to enforce its own rules upon us. Another subtle way we flipped the game is by negating the idea of a winner or loser. Rock paper scissors is a game played to 3 specifically to avoid a tie situation, Jacob wins the first game and I win the second, but nobody wins the third. Creating a scenario in which nobody wins or looses and there is essentially an infinite tie. The game to 3 was never played and hand signs were not used, but we definitely played on epic game of Rock Paper Scissors!
ROCKBAND:
For my audio project I decided to focus on Rockband a game where you play famous songs on toy guitars, drum, piano, and microphone. This idea began in my room while my friends were playing Rockband, I could here the clacking of the instruments together but I couldnt here the song itself. I would hear these sounds throughout the weeks and slowly begin to know which songs were being played depending on the clacking. I wanted to play one of my favourite Beatles songs in Rockband and reinterpret it with just the clacking. I added every instrument possible to Rockband having drums, piano, keys, guitar, bass, and finally vocals. I think this came out very good as you can tell the song being played while also feeling disconnected from the original audio which was my intention.
CONCEPTUAL PORTRAIT OF CHANGE:
For my conceptual portrait I decided to try and depict change in the natural world. The idea was to find a very big rock and take a photo of it every hour on the hour for 24 hours, afterwards printing the photos on paper and cutting the rocks out lastly arranging them into a circle ordered by time. The rock is a solid subject, one that will not change for days, years, maybe decades and yet it changes every hour. Every day on those hours this rock goes through those changes and so do we as people. The shape of a circle is to remind us of our own time and humanity, inspired by many sculptures of life and death made in the Neolithic period depicting time as a circle and connecting it to both a humans life and death. In the same way the rock shows that everything changes little by little every single hour, and all these small changes are the most important ones because together they make the overall transformation of a subject.
How are you feeling today? Buttons:
The buttons I decided to make were emoticon buttons that represent different emotional expressions that one could relate to. This was inspired by those “How do you feel?” posters you see in doctors offices but this way a person can pick out the emotion they are feeling and wear it. I am personally love to nap and instantly fell in love with the sleeping button because in some way it represented me and it was fun seeing others do the same and pick out the emotion they wanted to show.
