Artist Buttons – Warning Girls…
For my Artist Button piece, Warning Girls…, I wanted to convey the frustration girls and women feel having to follow safety precautions just to stay safe in their day to day life. I’ve been angry at the world more recently for the need for women to be told these kinds of common phrases since youth. So, I made these buttons intentionally confronting through the bold text and warning-like style to protest that society should instead be teaching their boys and men to be respectful and not violent towards women instead of teaching girls to always have these precautions at the back of their mind. Especially since even when all these precautions are met, violence against women still occurs.
Conceptual Portrait – Our Nannu
My piece, Our Nannu, is a conceptual portrait of my Nannu (grandfather). Those who knew my Nannu associated him with plaid flannels because he wore one every day. Since his passing almost 2 years ago, my Nanna (grandmother) kept his clothing, including all the flannels he used to wear daily. So, I photographed each of his flannels individually to be a conceptual portrait of my Nannu since they were the pieces of clothing he chose to wear every day. Also, since his flannels are recognized in my family as being an important part of him, my Nanna gave the opportunity to our family members to pick one of his flannels to keep. So, then I photographed each of my family members wearing his flannels to even further this portrait of our Nannu since my family was both a result of him and very important to him.
Conceptual Portrait Idea
- conceptual portrait of my grandfather
- he would wear flannels every day, it’s the piece of clothing that my family associates with him, since his passing my grandmother gave out his flannels to my family members
- so, portrait of my grandfather through a series of photos of his many flannels and/or my family members wearing all of his flannels
- displayed all together in a grid format
Audio Assignment- Pick A Song
For my audio piece, Pick a Song, I assigned myself the conceptual feat of listening to music while driving in the way that my brother uniquely listens to music in the car. Throughout the many drives I have taken with my brother when he has control of the music being played, it is apparent that this is the only way he listens to music in the car. Even through learning from conversations with my brother’s friends, this is a consistent process of his whenever he is assigned to be the one who controls the music. He simply cannot choose a song or let a song play all the way through. He hears the intro of a song or up until what he wants to hear and skips it. What makes his process of listening to music in the car even more interesting is that he has a very wide range of music taste which expands many genres. So, for this feat I went onto my brother’s Spotify account and shuffled one of his playlists to further convey this authentic experience. As well as skipping each song at different points to portray the frustration of thinking he will finally let a song play through but then him still skipping it. This resulted in hearing a multitude of music genres and not once getting close to completing a song on the drive.
One Feat, Three Ways Video Assignment
Feat : Playing With Hair
One of the ways hair is played with is by taking care of it. Such as experimenting with different routines, hair serums, hair oils and hair masks. Further, many experiment with hair by believing what they hear about whats good for hair and playing with what works for them. So, we deconstructed a homemade hair mask by putting household ingredients into hair that are known on the internet for their “hair benefits”. This includes raw egg, olive oil, mayonnaise and natural oils.
One of the ways hair is played with is by fidgeting with it. Fidgeting with one’s own hair is a typical thing to do when someone is nervous, bored or anxious. So, we compiled the many hair fidgets that we are aware we do with our own hair or that we have seen others do. This includes pulling curls, twirling, finger combing, volumizing, readjusting, trying multiple styles, picking split ends, eating, playing with loose hair, cutting and shaking it out.
One of the ways hair is played with is by playing with another’s hair. It is enjoyable to play with another’s hair and to have another play with our hair. This may include braiding, styling or simply finger combing through it. So, we mimicked the nostalgic hair braiding train to demonstrate. For some, it was a commence occurrence to either view or be involved in a “hair train” in our youth. Additionally, the act of playing or styling another’s hair is commonly seen as nurturing and comforting. Further, we demonstrated how these experiences could be never ending through mindlessly playing with hair strands and restarting braids over and over again.
Toronto Field Trip Blog Post
The art piece from our Toronto field trip that stood out to me the most was “Passing” (2022) by Maria Ezcurra. This piece consists of recovered/recycled shoes of various sizes and styles that are deconstructed and propelled in the sky to resemble birds. The artist’s intention of the installation of bird silhouettes is to symbolize the vulnerability and strength of migrant populations as they become accustomed to all the changes and difficulties that come along with living in a new country. She highlights the connections between the migrant journey of birds during winter and how her migrant family had to get used to waking up to the quiet mornings of winter without the sounds of birds since her family is initially from a country that has warm winters, meaning the birds don’t leave in the winter. Therefore, this piece stood out to me the most because it made me think about how my grandparents on my mother’s side had to get used to all the differences of life in Canada when they immigrated here from Malta in the 1960’s. Further, I immediately related “Passing” to the stories my grandmother has shared about her journey to Canada with my grandfather and their first few years of getting accustomed to the various changes. Such as the differences of language, politics, society, cold weather, food, career options and education possibilities.
Pipilotti Rist Blog Post
1. In Pipilotti Rist’s “Ever Is Over All”, a woman is excitedly walking down a city street while smashing the window’s of parked cars with a bat that resembles a flower. During this action, other pedestrians don’t seem to pay her much mind, offer smiles and a woman police officer cheers her on. Also, on the right of this video, another video blends into it that showcases soft movements of flowers and other vegetation. The woman who performs in this video is named Silvana Ceschi who is a Swiss documentary filmmaker and she performs the video in a graceful strut, gleeful facial expression and with powerful swings of her flower bat. Further, the walking video includes cool tones, slow motion and includes both wide shots and close ups. On the other hand, the floral video includes more warm tones, a lot of movement of the camera, many different angles and also is in slow motion. The sound in the video includes rhythmic drumming while a woman softly hums. It also enhances the performance by complementing the slow motion videos and adds to the ideas of femininity. This work strikes me because of the bold portrayal of breaking feminine stereotypes. These kinds of portrayals of woman are not the social norm and I find this performance to be a refreshing reminder that being “lady-like” is merely an unimportant social concept.
2. Throughout Rist’s video art career, she has explored ideas of women’s bodies, exposure, proper vs. strange behaviour and defying gender stereotypes. These kinds of concepts continue to be explored today. Her ideas relate to content that is being made on social media and these topics are still very much relevant. Currently on social media platforms, there are women of all ages posting content that wouldn’t be considered “lady-like” or “proper”. Such as women creating comedic videos of themselves acting hyper and strange to simply make others laugh or to make statements against social norms. As well as women posting videos talking about sexual topics becoming much more normalized and some even make careers out of sexual education on social media. I would say these ideas play out in Rist’s “Ever Is Over All” and “Open My Glade (Flatten)” because the women are both performing strange behaviour that would not be seen as socially acceptable. This is because a woman expressing aggressive behaviour by breaking car windows and a woman forcefully smushing her face against a window would not be considered “lady-like”.
3. The experiment of wearing my sweater on backwards at school changed how I felt by becoming quite uncomfortable since I was much more aware of what I was wearing and by paying more attention to those around me to see if anyone was looking at me. This didn’t necessarily make people treat me differently but I did notice those who passed me were looking at my sweater being on wrong for a slightly prolonged time. Also, I did this experiment while at the library and when I sat with my group of friends I found that each of them assumed that I had put it on backwards by mistake. Every friend that later joined our table continued to point out that I had it on backwards as if I wasn’t aware as well. I would say that this was a performance because this was an intentional act a purpose and had an audience that I intentionally wanted to view this experiment.
Kilometre Assignment
To document a kilometre, I calculated how many revolutions it would take for a 12in vinyl record to equal its length. Since records are circular, I found it’s circumference (C) through first finding its diameter (D) and radius (R). Then I calculated how many revolutions would be needed to equal a kilometre:
D = 30.1 cm
R = D/2 = 15.05 cm
C = 2πr = 2π(15.05) = 2(47.28) = 94.56 cm
1 km = 100 000 cm
Total revolutions = 100 000/C = 100 000/94.56 = 1057.53 revolutions
Therefore, a 12 in vinyl record must revolve 1057.53 times to equal the length of 1 kilometre.
I demonstrated this concept through counting how many revolutions were in the song Vienna by Billy Joel. I marked the edge of my record with a small piece of blue tape and a larger piece of blue tape on the surface of my record player to keep track of where I started my count. Then, I played the song and tallied how many times the record made a full revolution. The total number for this 3 minute 34 second song was 120 revolutions. Here is another way to view this concept through time:
Total revolutions of Vienna = 120 revolutions
Total time of Vienna = 3 minutes 34 seconds = 214 seconds
Total amount Vienna needs to play to be 1 km = 1057.53/120 = 8.81
Total time for Vienna to be 1 km = ((214)(8.81))/60 = 31.42 mins = 31 minutes 25 seconds
Therefore, Vienna by Billy Joel would need to play repeatedly for 31 minutes 25 seconds for its perimeter to revolve the length of a kilometre.