Week One

Notes on Sol Lewitt

Immediately after viewing many works by Sol Lewitt, there is so much intrigue as to how he accomplishes his large scale geometric pieces. However, what is most interesting about his work is his methodology and construction of his creations and how that manages to become a full piece. The main thought behind Lewitt’s work is that the idea becomes the machine that makes the art, which is a unique approach to the creation process of art as a whole. Lewitt creates the map and keys for other artists to follow, which in turn makes his pieces what they are; having the concept and plan to create the piece is entirely the artists job and making the piece is an equally important aspect. This separates him and a team of artists creating his work, Lewitt being the idea and the team being the machine. This begs the question, is this piece truly Lewitt’s piece if he himself did not paint it? This leads us to what the artists hand is, which is the general creation of a piece of art. The artists hand is not to be taken literally when an artist physically creates art, but what Sol Lewitt does is use conceptual art and ideas as his hand. The ideas and instructions themselves work as the artistic hand as it is the foundation and heart of the complete product.

Notes on Yoko Ono

Yoko Ono approaches art in a primal, emotional way, steering away from the pretentious false understanding of artworks by allowing every person to be able to create their own art, even those who do not consider themselves “artists”. When the word artist pops into one’s mind, they would think of grand Renaissance paintings or Greek and Roman Architecture, however, there is so much more to art than a tube of paint or modelling clay. The artworks that Yoko Ono mentions in the video of her reading from “GRAPEFRUIT”, there is an intimidating artistic title to the artworks, but a strangely simple direction to making the work. The artworks Ono discusses are merely basic human interactions with one another, with the Earth, or with their surroundings, creating a very human experience with what is known as a prestigious form of expression. These artworks challenge the viewer to not only analyze what art truly is in terms of creation, but also their lifestyle and connection to their own humanity and to the Earth they live on. The artwork requires the artist to be emotional and vulnerable but also analytical and creative with themselves, much like a painter or a performance artist would be. In particular, I enjoyed Yoko Ono’s billboards exclaiming “FLY” or “WAR IS OVER! If You Want It”, these are made in extremely public spaces and is incredibly vulnerable considering that it is coming from one voice. The gesture is so grand and yet it says so little on the giant billboards, indicating how simple peace and love can be. In terms of boundaries, I think that it would be very strange to put any boundaries on art like Yoko Ono’s, the bluntness of her billboards and simple yet complicated interactions in “GRAPEFRUIT” sticks in the minds of participants and creates grand opportunities for thought and the appreciation of life.

Notes on Bruce Nauman

Bruce Nauman had a unique approach to creating art, bridging the gap between art and reality. In most of his pieces there is a lot of focus on human behaviour or moments in time, things that are so ordinary and everyone experiences, such as the piece above “Bouncing in the Corner”. Nauman states “When language begins to break down a little bit, it becomes exciting.”, and he put that statement into his artwork, as he isolates his actions out of context and leaves the viewer with a sense of familiarity and confusion. The familiarity comes from the fact that the actions Nauman is doing is deeply rooted in human psychology through an unconscious form of movement that almost every human has done, but it makes the viewer wonder why it happens. What is so unique about a piece like “Bouncing in the Corner” is that it is framed as a basic action one would do in their spare time and not as a traditionally avant-garde artwork. It breaks down the building blocks of physical interaction between the human body and its surroundings and isolates it from the unconscious mind for the viewers conscious mind to witness. Bouncing around in a corner is similar to sitting in a field and ripping grass from the Earth.

Now observing a new medium, painting basic scenes and moments such as this piece “Coffee Spilled because the Cup Was Too Hot” is not necessarily a video of a basic action, rather a still or a tableaux of the aftermath and the feelings post-spill. This piece in particular is framed realistically enough to put the viewer in the situation, but the choice of colours are vibrant like a memory. It works similarly as “Bouncing in the Corner” in that this action is so human and ignites so much thought as to why this action is so revealing psychologically. The aftermath of spilling coffee is almost like a moment of reflection, a swift drop back to reality. Bruce Nauman had away of bringing small moments to light only by a single action or moment. There is excitement in seeing something so familiar being played with and seeing mystic truths being revealed in mere human moments.

Kilometre Project

For my kilometre project I wanted to use the cold weather to my advantage. Lately, the weather has really been difficult to live with and making me bundle up in layers upon layers of clothing, which makes me truly recognize my privilege in having a home and clothes to wear, with an abundance of layers at that. My project consisted of me taking a one kilometre walk around the U of G campus with my hand exposed to the cold air, enduring all the qualities that came with presenting my bare skin to the freezing elements. There was immense physical pain in doing so, so much so that I found my fingers curling into my palm for warmth when I could not turn to my gloves or pockets. My fingers were stinging, my skin dried up, my joints turned red, and my hand stiffened to wear I couldn’t bend my fingers. I arrived on the bus to go home and warmed up my hand, the whole experience was very humbling and I am grateful for the warm clothes I have, the weather was -11 degrees Celsius.

One Hour of Stillness

My hour of stillness took place in my crowded closet, full of clothes (both hung and fallen), art supplies, tote bags, laundry, candy wrappers, and cardboard boxes. I made the conscious decision to not tamper with the closet to make it more comfortable to sit in as it would feel unrealistic. Sitting in this atmosphere seemed almost appropriate in an upsetting context, my closet is a mess due to carelessness, stress, and prioritizing work over myself. Sitting in my own mess felt like a big sulking moment but having an hour to really let my thoughts roam it was reflecting on self-improvement. Nobody wants to be messy, nobody wants to be seen as emotionally messy or disorganized in general, but that’s vulnerability. I do not really want people to see my dirty laundry but that’s part of the expression of this piece.

As far as the discipline of sitting in one spot went, it was uncomfortable in many ways. I was sitting on a stiff cardboard box full of snacks stuck beside a wooden easel and a suitcase which could have been more comfortable. To add on to the experience, I had soft clothes to rest my back against. It was a strange sensation having a difficult surface to sit on with cozy back support, but it was like I fit right in, I was the perfect puzzle piece to the mess I created.

Throwing Jewelry in the Air

For this piece I decided to grab a handful of cheap rings of mine and toss them into the air. The discipline in this work was very irritating as I attempted this piece in the parking lot of my apartment and the silver rings blended in perfectly with the cement. The patterns created in this piece were very intriguing as there was a fair amount of negative space to observe, the holes in the rings provided such dynamic silhouettes and shapes contrasting with the light grey sky. It was very pleasing to see the different consistencies of these shapes, some rings had a big centred jewel, some had a thick band, and some were thin. Seeing all these shapes together was a very pleasing experience, each ring was unique in its own way and having each angle of it be captured really demonstrated the differences between each ring, truly a fun experience. One unfortunate endeavour was when I had to collect the rings after each toss, I ended up one ring short after the piece was completed. However, I think that makes me further appreciate this piece, it is authentic in its beauty and loss.

Faces (Candle Edition)

I wanted to change my face with as little additions as possible. I heard of terms like “5 o’clock shadow” and how it can change your face, as well as one episode of Seinfeld “The Strike” where Jerry dates a woman who’s face changes from conventionally attractive to disturbing depending on the lighting she is in. I thoroughly enjoy this exercise using harsh lighting because it truly makes me appreciate the use of asymmetry on my face. Theres a lot I do not enjoy about my face but I think these photos are where you can really see where my individuality shines with each crease, dimple, and curve.

More Faces

New round of faces, but these ones incorporate my appreciation for my possessions and my connection to myself through physical forms of expression, like fashion. I would like to think of fashion, especially in the jewelry aspect, very unique and personal, the amount of complexities that go into why a person would choose that piece of jewelry or the amount they wear is so interesting. Pendants on necklaces have such individualistic oddities that can call to whomever they please and earrings vary in sizes from big hoops to tiny gems. These faces are very much my dream masks, since I was able to treat it like a customizable doll and bedazzle it with some of my favourite pendants, a mixture of projecting how I feel and how I wish to be perceived, exploring one of my hobbies and interests, and just showing off my necklace collection.

Buttonz

For the buttons I wanted to try a form of minimalist collage with outrageous text to have a balanced product. I wanted to provide a symmetry or a completion of some kind, like eating a meal and being perfectly full. This can be seen through many angles, for example the words I used to create unknown and uncomfortable phrases, interestingly enough, one piece of the sentence can be seen as stereotypically feminine while the other term sounds overly masculine (see the loud and bold “PURE” and the pink and lowercase “pregnancy”). The use of collage is also something so near and dear to my heart, it’s connecting parts that don’t fit to make a phrase or an image that makes emotional sense. In this case, it’s feeling the absurdity of of words but knowing they are connected in that absurdity.

Sound Piece (of candy)

This piece was very therapeutic for me. Candy has always had a very comforting and nostalgic presence, as unhealthy as that sounds, I wanted to make a sound piece that truly encapsulates my appreciation for texture, variety, and pleasure in sugary foods.

To dip into my nostalgic thoughts of candy, I always loved the assorted candies with weird shapes and odd textures, there would be a blue raspberry button gummy covered in small crunchy balls, sour keys, marshmallow bananas, nasty black liquorice jelly beans, and so many more strange combos. I, myself, love variety and mix and matching, especially in fashion where I can combine what I want when I want. However, nothing even compares to TASTING your mix and matches, you get a whole new layer of variety. Sometimes you get the tastiest sugary delight and other times you get the most putrid, rancid taste you have ever received, but everything is new and exciting. I think this audio adds that excitement and freshness to the tasting experience as well as provides a sound portrait of each candy I eat as well as my mouth sounds.

Final Project (ex self-portrait)

This piece was made three weeks after an emotional breakup, I was not sure if this piece would be in good taste or if it would be invading privacy of any kind, but these quotes have been stuck in my memory and I find it therapeutic in a sense where I can read and evaluate them myself. These phrases were said by different people, ex boyfriends, boys who I did not like but liked me, and lengthly taking stages, each said about me or to me. Emotions are a very strong, especially love and infatuation, the things I have been told by other people don’t even feel like they’re talking about me, but it’s the ways I have impacted them that have brought them to say what they say. It is a self-portrait from a romantic view of myself, told my manipulations, over-exaggerations, genuinely kind words, and hurtful words too. This is a very heartbreaking piece for me to make, but it sticks with me the most.

The piece itself works as an interactive piece where you get to draw a slip of paper from the box and read one of the quotes, the more slips you read the bigger picture you get of me, with a few contradictions. It’s very personal and invites the participant to feel similar feelings to how I felt when I was told these things, or someone could relate to the phrase. The whole experience of this piece is heartbreakingly human.

WEEK 1: Kilometer

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What does Sol Lewitt mean when he says that “the idea becomes the machine that makes the art” in his work? What does the artist’s actual hand have to do with the final work in a conceptual art context?

In conceptual art the concept or the idea is the main important part of the artwork. It’s not so much the process of creation and the actual hand. The artist’s actual hand is more of a perfunctory action. The artist doesn’t have to think about what they’re doing; they’re simply following the plan they came up with during the conceptualisation of the project. That is not to say that the actual hand is not playing an important role in the artwork → as we can see in the example of this video, Lewitt has a team of people collaborating to make a mural. There is something about collaborative perfunctory work that can bond a group of artists together.

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Where do you draw the boundaries around the artworks in this video? What are the artworks? What strategies and tools does Ono use to challenge the viewer? Do you like any of these concept-works? Discuss.

I think that Ono’s book is within the boundaries of art. My interpretation is that Ono’s book is a written conceptualization of the artwork, and the artwork itself is the readers/viewers imagining the scenarios that Ono has written. Ono challenges the viewers by describing scenarios in her book that require a lot of imagination and creativity to picture in the viewers mind. Furthermore, she challenges the idea of art by creating something unconventional; something that is not what we traditionally would call art → she created conceptual art. I really like her grapefruit book because I find that it exercises the mind and it is very soothing and therapeutic to read and imagine the instructions.

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Describe two works by Bruce Nauman (include images) where he frames every day actions (non-heroic, banal) as art. How are they “framed” as art, and what does the framing do to our understanding and experience of the actions?

1. GOOD BOY BAD BOY

Nauman frames Good boy bad boy as art by using everyday language in an unconventional manner. The actors in the video repeat the same phrases over and over and everytime, they say it in an angrier voice. This makes the viewers uncomfortable and disturbed. Art is a creation or a concept that makes the viewers feel something and that is exactly what Nauman does in Good Boy Bad Boy.

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2. WALL-FLOOR POSITIONS

Wall-Floor Positions is yet another artwork that makes the viewers feel disturbed. In this video, a person is switching from position to position. This may seem like normal activity, but the way he frames it makes it feel Wall-Floor Positions is yet another artwork that makes the viewers feel disturbed. In this video, a person is switching from position to position. This may seem like normal activity, but the way he frames it makes it feel uncomfortable. The odd positions that the person is doing, along with the silence and black and white poor quality video makes for an ominous ambiance.

WEEK 2: Abramovic

When my father was young, he loved to bother his little sister. The first instrument he ever learned was the accordion, and so when my aunt was around 3 years old, he would put her inside of his accordion case and lock it shut. This was not pleasant for my aunt, so I decided to sit inside of my dad’s accordion case for an hour to reflect on how it must have felt to be stuck in there. Obviously, I’m too big to fit inside of it with the case closed, so I sat in it with it open to at least get some sense of my aunt’s experience.

At the beginning of the hour, I found peace and comfort in reflecting on my aunt’s and my father’s childhood. However, as the hour progressed I felt more and more restless and bored. I found myself searching for ways to keep busy. For example, one thing I did was keep a mental scoreboard of how many times my toes cracked within the hour. By the end, even the little games I made up in my head were not enough to keep me entertained. All I could think about was how much my back hurt from being in the same position. After the hour passed and I finally got to move, it was the most amazing feeling; I don’t think I’ve ever felt a bigger appreciation for being able to move even though it is such a simple thing. I cannot imagine being in the same position for more than an hour, let alone months as Abramovic did. This experience has given me a new found respect for Abramovic and I can really appreciate her work so much more.

WEEK 3: Defenestration

For this exercise, I did not have a window defenestrate something out of, so I decided to use a public space. I had a hard time brainstorming ideas of public spaces that I could throw something off of without littering or leaving a mess. This is when I came up with the idea of throwing flour, that way if it makes a mess, it would not be visible because it is white like the snow. I thought it would be interesting to defenestrate flour because of the explosion of powder it creates when thrown. I decided to throw it off a playground because it was the highest and safest public place I could think of.

Above are the 4 stills of a video that I took of the defenestration. The first time I threw the flour, I opened the bag before throwing it and I expected all of it to fly out of the bag. However, as seen in the first photo, none of the flour came out. So, I ended up having to throw it 4 times before I got the effect that I wanted. The more I threw the bag of flour, the more it ripped. Each still in the grid above corresponds to each of the 4 times that I threw it in order.

WEEK 4: Pandemic Portraits

SOMEONE I KNOW: EMILY

“Uncertainty. In life, jobs, school, in the world.”

For my first portrait video I chose to film my roommate Emily. I go grocery shopping weekly with her at Food Basics and I thought it would be a unique environment to do this portrait. I wanted to show Emily doing something that she normally does on a regular basis, which is why I chose the grocery store as a setting. It is also why I chose to position her holding our full shopping cart. I think the vibrant colours in the background adds a captivating aspect to the portrait making it visually pleasing.

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SOMEONE I DON’T KNOW: JOSEPHINE

“I’m stuck, I’m petrified, and I can’t move on.”

For my second video, I found a small group of people holding signs for a campaign of some sort. They were University of Toronto students and they were standing near the University Centre. I them to be in my video and Josephine volunteered. I asked her to keep holding her sign in the portrait because I wanted to show a diversity of people and I wanted to demonstrate what she was up to during this time.

WEEK 5: Faces

Tape face

I wanted to play with material that would allow me to change the shape of my face. My first idea was to wrap my face in plastic wrap, but I realized that I would not be able to breath with that on, so I settled for clear tape instead. I think I enjoyed using clear tape better than if I used plastic wrap because of the way it allows me to distort my face in more interesting ways. I also enjoy the way you can see my face through the tape, while I simultaneously am unrecognizable.

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Yarn face

I wanted to experiment with the obliteration of my face. I found a ball of chunky yarn in my room and decided to wrap my head with it. Originally, I intended to wrap my whole face in yarn, but I decided to leave my eyes and nose out to give the viewer an indication that there is a face under the yearn. The image turned out to be very odd because of the way my head looks enlarged.

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Hair face

I originally came up with the idea of creating a right side up face on my upside down head. To achieve this, I laid down on my back on a surface with my head hanging off upside down and I put glasses, a mask, etc on my face to create a face that is right side up. However, this idea was not successful because it was difficult to take a picture while I was hanging upside down and to make it look natural. I then decided to take a picture of myself with the glasses and mask on, but with all of my hair in front of my face underneath the accessories. This picture was also difficult to take because I could not see what I looked like in the cameras with all the hair in my face. The final image did not turn out as intriguing as my other two. However, I do find it interesting how the accessories suggest the idea of a face even though you cannot see my face at all.

WEEK 6 & 7: Buttons

These buttons were inspired by the allergy bracelets that people wear to alert others of a specific allergy that they have. I decided to make buttons that encompass the same concept, but with a twist. Instead of displaying the sentence “I am allergic to _______”, like the allergy bracelets do, I changed the sentence to “I am not allergic to _______.” My intention was to create buttons that are practically useless in an ironic and humouristic way. The design of my buttons turned out to have an innocent and harmless appearance. This is contradictory to the unintentionally offensive nature of the statement on the buttons. I was hesitant to make these buttons in fear that they would be offensive to people with allergies. My hope is that these buttons spark conversation on this matter.

WEEK 8: Audio Art

Missed Call

For this assignment, I chose to use existing sounds and put them together to create music. More specifically, I recorded all kinds of telephone noises to create my rendition of the default ringtone of the iPhone. I have always had a fascination for vintage telephones, thus what my idea was inspired by. In my house, we have a variation of telephones from different eras, such as rotary phones, portable home phones, etc. I recorded the different sounds including the beeping buttons on the portable home phone, the sound of the phone hanging up, the sound of the phone ringing, as well as several others. I wanted the piece to feel like it has a beginning and an end, almost like a story. To achieve this, I started the piece with the sound of the rotary phone dialling. I ended the piece with the sound of the voicemail of someone I know, followed by the phone hanging up.

Final Week: Conceptual Art

Choir of Strangers

This is my rendition of the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” originally sung by Judy Garland. I really enjoyed the audio assignment of the previous unit. I also appreciate the concept of involving other people in my art, as we did in the Pandemic Portraits. To combine these two concepts, I came up with the idea to create a song using only the voices of others (this included my friends, my family members, my classmates, my partner, etc). I wanted to assign each person involved to one specific note and ask them to record themselves holding that note for five seconds. However, I had run out of time and was unable to recruit as many people as I would have liked, so I had to assign each person to two notes. I then took all of the recordings and placed them together to create my interpretation of the chords to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. I chose this specific song because it is a simple piece that would allow for musical creativity, thus providing me with the flexibility that I needed for this project. This song also has significance to me because it was the first song that I was ever taught to sing as a child. This is a common song that is used to teach beginner singers. The significance of this song plays a role in my piece because the majority of the people who are involved are not singers and this would be their first time being involved in the production of a song. If ever I have the opportunity, I would like to continue this piece and produce the whole song. I would also like to involve more people to make the range of voices as diverse as possible. I really want this piece to demonstrate that the small five second contribution of one person may seem insignificant, but when you involve a whole group of strangers and put them all together, it can create something really meaningful.

☆ Writing Prompts + Make a Km ☆

Writing Prompts

SOL LEWITT: What does Sol Lewitt mean when he says that “the idea becomes the machine that makes the art” in his work? What does the artist’s actual hand have to do with the final work in a conceptual art context?

When Sol Lewitt says that ‘the idea becomes the machine that makes the art,” he implies that in the making of art, the artist’s idea comes first, and throughout an artist’s building on their idea, the materials needed to execute it will begin to manifest themselves and come to light. Lewitt’s process is very unique and also brings me another perspective on his statement. After Lewitt has come up with his original idea for a work of art, he creates step-by-step instructions for how it should be made and passes them on to a team who completes the work. He feeds his ideas into a metaphorical machine—the team that follows his instructions and creates the work on the scale and in the mediums he desires. Lewitt’s initial idea is still present in his final works, even though he himself was not the ‘machine’ that painted it onto the walls. This makes me think that the artist’s hand can take many different forms in a conceptual context. While Sol Lewitt’s hand isn’t physically present in his final works, his ideas influence the way that other artists work, resulting in a distinct style that is visible. With conceptual work, the ‘hand’ of the artist may not be communicated to a viewer through brushwork or linework that looks a certain way. The hand of a conceptual artist can take many forms. It could be an idea itself that is spoken verbally like in Yoko Ono’s work, acted out using the body, or simply the initial concept of a work itself that traces us back to the identity of the artist.

YOKO ONO: Where do you draw the boundaries around the artworks in this video? What are the artworks? What strategies and tools does Ono use to challenge the viewer? Do you like any of these concept-works? Discuss.

I really enjoyed Ono’s concept-work titled Painting On The Floor because she strategically uses a painting—an item that is viewed as precious by society and art institutions—as a tool to break mental and institutional boundaries that dictate the way art should be seen and interacted with. She asks us to leave a finished painting (something that is seen as so precious) outside on the street to be walked on. In Ono’s work, the art is the acting out of her instructions itself, and the thoughts and ideas the actions provoke. I love the idea Ono introduces about breaking the barrier of prestige around paintings and how they are meant to be looked at from afar on display. She asks us to bring the painting into an environment where people can truly interact with it. This definitely challenges me to view the works I create as an experience coming from curiosity and interest rather than a glorious final product.

BRUCE NAUMAN: Describe two works by Bruce Nauman (include images) where he frames every day actions (non-heroic, banal) as art. How are they “framed” as art, and what does the framing do to our understanding and experience of the actions?

Make a Kilometre: A Kilometre of Music

My kilometre is a collection of the music I listened to on a kilometre-long walk accompanied by a photo I took along the way. I overlapped the twelve minutes of music it took me to walk a kilometre into a four-minute file to make it more (or less) digestible because the idea of an entire kilometre can feel loud, overwhelming, and intimidating. Luckily, this distance can feel much shorter with a little bit of music.

☆ An Hour of Stillness ☆

My Hour of Stillness

For my hour-long performance of stillness, I decided to sit cross-legged on my kitchen table in my house in Guelph. I chose this location because I was inspired by the way in which Marina Abromovic created connection and interaction with others in her work The Artist is Present despite the fact that she is still. I wanted to sit on my kitchen table—a place where my roommates and I usually spend time together—to see what kinds of interactions and connections could form in the space even if I was in stillness. I specifically chose to start my hour around 5:30 when they usually make dinner (I was sure to ask their permission so they weren’t caught off guard).

Throughout the course of my hour, I found my pose physically demanding to hold, as my crossed legs kept falling asleep and it was difficult to sit up and keep my spine straight. It is truly incredible how Marina Abramovic was able to sit still for seven hours each day, I felt exhausted after only an hour of sitting. I also found it challenging yet interesting to sit and observe interactions and conversations I would normally participate in. As my roommate and my partner who was visiting cooked dinner in the kitchen across the room from me, it was quite difficult for me to hold back my responses to the conversations they were having. The two of them also seemed to find it difficult that they couldn’t quite connect with me in ways they were used to, but by the time they finished cooking dinner, they developed some strategies to poke fun at and interact with me. One of them was sitting on either side of the table and talking about me, saying comments like “Celeste hates ice cream” (which is absolutely not true) as a way to include me in the conversation (and also to try and pull me out of my stillness). It was very interesting to be able to interact with people I’m close with on a much more limited level using only my physical presence, and to have to tune into the idea that I was performing in order to keep myself from reacting.

There were also some very interesting moments of silent connection where my roommate would sit in silence at the table as they were eating, and we would simply acknowledge and feel each other’s presence while not fully being able to interact. I felt a stronger parallel between my act of stillness and Abramovic’s at this moment because I felt more of a sense of contact between another person and myself, similar to the connection she created using eye contact in The Artist is Present. Instead of observing a conversation as I did for most of my hour, here I was a part of a silent one. I felt much more connected in this moment than when my roommate and partner were directly poking fun at me and indirectly including me in conversation earlier. Those conversations felt more disconnected because the two of them had more of a means of communicating than I did. When they were present in silence just as I was, the connection felt more equal and reciprocated, and we could sit acknowledging each other’s presence. Sitting through these feelings and performing my act of stillness has helped me to understand the many dynamic levels on which connections and interactions can take place.

☆ Defenestration ☆

Defenestration of a Journal

In my two final images, I am pictured throwing an old journal of mine from my balcony. I have been considering what happens when you defenestrate an item that is usually meant to be contained or kept private, I see my journal as a physical container for my thoughts—a storage unit where I can hide them away to collect dust so that they don’t clutter up my life and cloud what is truly important to me. Defenestrating my journal alters my perception of it as a secret place to write and contain my thoughts. By throwing it outside, I am not only defenestrating the physical object of the journal itself, but also an accumulation of over two years’ worth of my thoughts, goals, and experiences. My buried thoughts are made available to the world as the pages flip open and the journal falls, revealing my face to the viewer in the second image. The visibility of my face suggests that as I release my journal, I am making a vulnerable layer of myself more visible to others, providing whoever catches it or stumbles upon it with the opportunity to understand me on a deeper level.

Defenestration Test Images of Headphones and a Journal

Working with the idea of defenestrating something that is usually meant to be contained or kept private, I originally experimented with throwing headphones off my balcony because they are meant to contain sound that you do not want others to hear. I decided that without the option of recording audio or video, this act of defenestration would lose a large portion of its meaning since headphones are meant to contain sound. The headphones were also not very visible on camera. The original thought process behind my choosing of the headphones led me to think of throwing my journal instead, and to extra experimentation with camera angles.

☆ Masks ☆

My Favourite 3 Masks:

Glasses as Masks in Film: Experiment 1: Masking ‘True” Beauty

In my experimentation of how I could use masks to distort my face, I found myself returning to the thought that certain daily items can function as masks, and that some of these items are used in the media to convey standards and status. I became very interested in the way that glasses and hairstyles are used as masks in films to signify transformation or to disguise someone’s identity. Here, I am exploring the way that glasses and hairstyles are often used in high-school films to disguise the ‘true’ beauty or potential of a nerdy, unpopular character before their famous makeover scene where they remove their glasses, take down their hair, and then wow! they’re suddenly popular and everyone wants to be them! I was inspired by Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills and the way she transforms herself to look as if she belongs in a film. Although it’s very clear I look the same in both of these images, on the left I am playing the role of an unpopular character trope with my hair in a ponytail and glasses, and on the right, I have my hair down, glasses off, and suddenly I’m nonchalant and don’t care about my schoolwork—perhaps this transformation came about during a classic makeover scene? Most of the time during makeover scenes in movies the characters look nearly the same before and after, and the only difference in their appearance is that they aren’t wearing their glasses and their hair has been let down.

Placement of a Learning Artist

With this experiment, I was thinking about discussions from my Theory and Criticism class last semester where it was mentioned that as learning artists study works of the great masters, they often feel overshadowed by them and wonder if they will ever create works to this standard. As I am still learning and experimenting as an artist, I wanted to explore my relationship to that feeling using my face, cutting images from an old art textbook and some print-outs of my own facial features and taping them to myself.

“You Can No Longer Wear a Cloth Mask on Campus”

Other Experiments with Masks:

Here are some of the experiments that didn’t quite make my list of favourites, but are still worth sharing 🙂

Glasses as Masks inn Film: Experiment 2: ‘Masking’ Identity with Glasses

This was another one of the experiments I did with the idea of glasses as a mask. I wanted to reference the way that in movies glasses are used as a disguise to conceal characters’ identities. I was specifically thinking about the story of Superman, and how the only way Clark Kent hides his identity from day-to-day is that he puts on a pair of glasses and wears regular street clothes. In my two images, it remains clear that I’m still the same person, the only difference is that I’m wearing glasses. With this in mind, I find it interesting that the public in Superman buys Clark Kent’s disguise, given as his facial structure stays exactly the same with and without his glasses.

Hiding my face with sunglasses

This was my first experiment for this assignment. I started out taking things from my room and covering my face with them as a way to get inspired and gradually discover more interesting ideas. The first item I started with during this process was sunglasses. This experiment eventually led me to think about glasses as masks and to my exploration of movie tropes.

☆ Pandemic Portraits ☆

This has been a very interesting set of portraits to complete, and this activity has pushed me far out of my comfort zone in terms of talking to strangers and working with new technology. It was a challenging experience but helped me to realize that people are usually very kind and willing to have a conversation (and even share what they have pent up) if you take the first step to approach them.

Someone I Know: Pete

“I just finished a three-hour reading and I’m very happy you called so that I could get a break from my work.”

Someone I Don’t Know: Miriam

“Oh man . . . this could be a long one . . .” (in reference to the list of things that she had pent up she could talk about).

*When she mentions “coworkers like him,” Miriam is referring to Steve, who Sophia interviewed in one of her social distancing portraits*

Someone I Don’t Know: Amara

“I just wish things could’ve gone better.”

Since Miriam introduced herself at the beginning of her portrait, I was able to record another portrait of Amara. I have been having issues editing the audio on this one, but I did learn how to access the voice filter on DaVinci Resolve to try and solve some of the issues.

☆ Buttons ☆

“HELLO, my name is . . .” Buttons

When I started brainstorming for this project, I wanted to explore the habit I have of naming inanimate objects. This habit stems from my sense of humour and also from a sense of attachment I grow to items including my plants (Evie and Van) and my phone (Craig). 

My initial idea for my button project was to make a series of “HELLO my name is . . .” buttons and to write a different name onto each one. I then planned to pin them onto inanimate objects as a way to experiment with the ways in which giving them a name can alter their significance and importance to people, or to make them laugh if they share the same sense of humour as me. 

With more thought, I came to settle on my final idea, which is meant to experiment with what can happen when pre-established titles of inanimate objects are shuffled around and placed in contexts they are not normally associated with. My final series still includes the phrase “HELLO my name is” but deviates from the typical format of a name tag. Each button has the name of an inanimate object written on it instead of a human name.

These buttons can be pinned in a way that is literal (i.e. “HELLO, my name is a chair” can be set on a chair). They can also be used to explore the process of how languages name objects (which can seem quite mysterious) by placing them onto an item they aren’t usually connected to (i.e. Pinning “HELLO, my name is rock onto a pillow can disrupt the connotations associated with both of these words. A person wearing the word rock can also disrupt the typical representation or meaning language has established for the term). If a person chooses to wear one of these pins, they might feel encouraged to act as an animated personification of the inanimate object on the pin they are wearing, bringing life and personality to an object that was once inanimate. Regardless of the context they are placed in, these buttons are meant to make someone consider and potentially challenge the associations and meanings they are reminded of when they read or wear the name of an inanimate object. 

Examples of my buttons in use (according to my own associations):

Our class + others wearing their buttons out in the world:

So far, my buttons have mainly been worn as name tags or pinned onto bags, which makes the most sense as these are the typical ways that buttons are used. I have found that when they are worn this way, they maintain the ability to get people to question the connotations associated with specific objects and the way these connotations shift when they are placed in an unusual context. People that have worn my buttons out have said that they made people do a double-take, laugh, or question the wearer about the meaning of their button.

☆ Audio Art ☆

Brainstorming:

• an audio file of me learning to tap dance (as someone who has done tap once in their life) or improvising a tap dance with no experience
  • inspired by the idea of creating music without any experience but applied to a style of dance I have no experience with
• a compilation of people doing their best tap dance or making a rhythm with their feet
  • 15 seconds per person – get 4 people to dance
  • could also have 10 seconds a person and get 6 people to dance)
  • titles: “do your best tap dance” “show me your best tap dance” “6 tap dance improvisations”
  • meant to capture a sense of the person’s personality in the way that they approach the tap dance prompt
• make a song from the scraping of my annoying desk chair
• a narration of every move I make for the span of an audio piece
• speaking every thought that comes to mind for the duration of an audio piece
• a list of every question I ask myself or others in a day
• audio portrait of the sounds of getting ready for a party/to go out

A Pre-Party Audio Portrait

Of the two audio works I completed, this one feels the most resolved because it has a clear beginning and end. In one take it captures the relatable experience of getting ready to go out and functions not only as a portrait of a moment before a party, but also as a self-portrait through the sounds of the products I used, the music I listen to, and the way I include my own voice.

5 Tap Dance Improvisations by 5 Individuals

Each ‘tap dance’ acts as a portrait of the person performing it, giving us a sense of their personalities through their improvisations.

This piece doesn’t feel fully resolved yet. After critique, I’ve thought about it more, and I do feel that the lack of tap shoes captures more of a sense of amateurish feel that aligns with the quality of the dances that I recorded. I believe it could be beneficial to announce each improvisation (i.e “Improvisation 1”) to make the work campier and comedic rather than ambiguous as the audio I currently have recorded would be more successful in this context.

☆ Conceptual Portrait ☆

Inspired by Sophie Calle’s work Take Care of Yourself, I wanted to create a conceptual portrait based on the concept of closure, working from a personal experience where a close friend of 12 years left me in nearly complete silence after the pandemic hit and we graduated high school.

I first thought about making posters that read “in search of closure,’ or printing out a letter to this person and posting it around Guelph (as we have coincidentally ended up in the same city) in hopes that they might see it.

Instead of passively sitting and having the signs search out closure for me, I decided it would be beneficial to act out the closure that I truly wanted in this situation. Even before starting this piece, I always pictured that I would run into this person on the street one day, and finally have the chance to tell them how truly upset I was but also to thank them for the lessons I was able to learn from the way they treated me. A phrase that I always pictured myself saying (even though I don’t think I’d have the guts to say this in person) was “fuck you but thank you.” Working with this phrase, I took all of the recurring thoughts I’ve had about our friendship since it ended, and organized them into a monologue that I performed and recorded. My performance acts as a conceptual portrait of the end of a friendship, of my perspective on the friendship, of myself, and of closure.

12 Years’ Closure

I feel that this video is the closest I can get to the proper closure I want to give myself without the presence of my friend. It is a reenactment of scenarios where I picture running into my friend in public, the only difference being that they aren’t there. I chose to film my monologue with a plain white background to communicate the way that I imagine this encounter happening in so many different locations, and to allow the viewer to add a bit of their imagination into the scene about where this one-sided conversation takes place.

12 Years’ Closure: Alternate Version

While this video is a less accurate depiction of the ideal closure that I’ve always thought about, I feel that putting the camera/viewer in the place of my friend who cut me off generates an interesting sense of confrontation and emotional intensity.

Week 1:

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1 km: Running Like a Lunatic with Bonnie and Manuel

A cement block 25 metres long, back and forth, reminiscent of the ‘suicide’ drills from pubescent grade 5 gym classes. Tragic. A 1 km run. Clonking around in Doc Martins whilst my wild cats (Bonnie and Manuel) frolic alongside me. Dad pops in too. All are intrigued and equally frightened by my antics. That was a genuine workout.

In more serious terms, the running was… Benny Hillesque. I wish I was a better editor; I would have totally put this song in the background:

Unfortunately I had already walked a kilometre during a previous attempt. I live in Turkey Point, a beachside village on the cusp of Lake Erie, and due to the cold weather and insane lake-effect winds, ice mountains have piled up in front of my house and the rest of the beach. I trekked on top of them. A -15 degree walk, many mountains and 5 hours of technological frustration caused me to cave in and create an easier fix- one that would help shorten the video. I am horribly out of shape and was losing daylight, so I thought the reservoir platform would make for better running grounds. I was dead wrong.

2 kms had already been completed before this second attempt, hence the 2.01 km starting point. I tried my best to reach 3.01 km, but apple watches are finicky sometimes, and I may have ran an extra couple of steps to complete my ‘run’ at 3.06 kms.

The quality of the videos went down as I edited, so I apologize for that. A huge airplane flew close to the beach and the fuzziness of the video totally removed it from view. It was pretty epic. Take my word for it.

Crisis alert, I have just been informed that the plane had to crash in a nearby farmers field. Here’s the article:

https://www.simcoereformer.ca/news/pilot-walks-away-from-plane-mishap-with-minor-injuries

This project reminds me of earlier works from Alan Resnick, who is one of my biggest inspirations. Please, please do yourself a favour and deep-dive Alan’s stuff.

Thanks for watching !!! : ) Hope I’m posting this in the right place.

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3 Questions:

★ Sol Lewitt ★

Personally, I slightly disagree with Sol Lewitt’s statement that “when an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all the planning and decisions are made beforehand, and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.” I think the enigmatic or entropic dynamic of conceptual art should be encouraged, and not pigeonholed into a machine-like formula.

Limiting conceptual art to just a singular artist’s hands closes many doors. With present expansions in artistic thinking, doors have been opened to create multitudes of possibilities. Art goes far beyond the ideas of singular artistic originality. The ways in which we can present and accumulate these ideas are very different than previously thought. Works may rely on existential means, technological means, and social means for this experimental presentation. An artist with an idea may look to other artists to speed up artistic progress. This combines work from not just the first idea-maker, but with other artistic brains and their ideas. I recognize that he utilized other minds and hands within his work, which is respectable.

Despite the word perfunctory slightly loosening up Sol Lewitt’s statement, creating conceptual art can be thorough in execution as well. I do understand that a person’s lens regarding their specialized category of art can be based on personal experience. His experience with conceptual art is different than that of another conceptual artist, therefore his statement is completely fine. Going on a tangent. Yada yada yada.

I believe that artistic concepts can brim with calculative patterns and intuition. It is a very plausible and acceptable way of creating; nevertheless, conceptual art should not be limited to that method. The universe may find a way to help bring new objectives or surprises to conceptual narratives and individualistic expression.

That is why I appreciate Yoko Ono’s contributions to the art world. Her concepts include the magic of the everyday, of individual experience (not just of herself, but of other beings), and the notion that the art she creates is mostly out of her hands. She also sheds light on the atrocities, devastations, and other disturbances that plague the world. Yoko Ono embraces the idea that art can very much be made of the audience, such as with emotive or interactive responses, nature, happenings, and many uncontrollable factors that consistently dominate our lives as humans beings. It is a shared and connected experience through the means of creating. Personally, her works often pierce me with stinging emotion, such as deep reminiscence, pain, anger, and discomfort.

★ Bruce Nauman ★

I thoroughly enjoy the approach Bruce Nauman has to conceptualizing. He used some of the most mundane actions in his earlier works, such as repetition of simple movements, to create performance and video art. This way he breaks down the barrier of the materialistic, physical production of art which is more common of mediums such as painting or photography. He continues to spark wide conversation and broke barriers regarding the definition of what art can be. The concept of the action is of importance.

I especially love his neon works, and I think his use of neon animation is very effective. It is reminiscent of nighttime advertising and carnival signs. He simplifies glorified and powerful actions, such as having sex, or experiencing pain, and diminishes them into minimally framed animations, basic colour schemes, primitive text, linework and symbolism. I have always been drawn to neon signs in both an aesthetic and spiritual(?) manner. TMI. If you catch my drift.

Thanks for reading!! Have a Grateful day! (~);}

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Week 2:

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An Hour of Sitting

For my hour of sitting, I wanted to experiment with the relationship between sound and movement, or in this case, the lack thereof. To many people, music is a main source of mental stimulation, and each person’s experience with music is completely individualized to preference and an array of emotional responses. No matter the opinion, a reaction will generally spawn within the brain in one way or another when listening. Babies and toddlers respond and learn when exposed to music. For those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, music can be a way to spark familiarity in a confusing and disorienting existence.

It is very rare that I can sit still and shut up for more than a few seconds, especially in the presence of noise; specifically, music. I feel as if my brain is simultaneously in harmony and at war with sound. I am a serial whistler. It’s honestly a sickness.

An hour is not that long of a timespan, but when the mind is not entertained and the body is not in action, an hour feels much longer. The struggle between keeping a consistent stature whilst letting precious time roll by can take a toll on your mentality and physical comfort. I decided to use something to at least entertain my mind while I sat- not talking, not dancing, not singing, not twitching, not whistling, not tapping, not snapping- nothing: with a playlist. The playlist is exactly an hour and acted as my timer for this experiment.

We all know what happens when we experience joy through music and the physical reactions that take place, both knowingly and unknowingly. We also know what happens when we experience dislike towards music. I know how I react to music that I despise; with (not to be dramatic) burning rage and disgust. I am heavily opinionated regarding what I am passionate about and what I am not passionate about. I’m sure many will relate.

I filled the entire hour of this playlist with these godforsaken abominations. I was hoping that in forcing myself to listen, I’d give the songs that I hate a more thorough analysis. Maybe these songs could be the ‘enemy-to-lover’ storyline; if only I gave them a true chance to come out of the hard shell that encapsulates them.

I was wrong, and it sucked. To not physically grimace at each song or run and turn them off was a special sort of willpower that I didn’t know that I had. I managed to be reactionless, but my mind was screaming in silence. The itchiness of my wool sweater irked me as well, and I should have just slouched right as I started the playlist. Keeping a good posture is a challenge.

I took a time-lapse of this hour since I don’t have another person around to take a picture. This photo is a still from that time-lapse. I look pretty fed up.

In the performance, ‘The Artist is Present’, Abramovic’s sheer determination and concentration to keep eye-contact with the strangers is astounding. Being still and focused on another person’s gaze takes courage. Facial recognition is such a vital part of human instincts and survival, much like the recognition of noise. The eyes are truly the window to the soul, and many struggle with eye contact in day-today life due to this powerful social and biological connection. We can read so much from another person just from their eyes. Like noise evolving to music for pleasure, empathy and facial recognition has evolved into a means of complex communication reserved for us in the world.

Here’s the playlist. BNL is awful.

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Week 3:

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Flying and Apologies

I threw my beloved stuffed animals off the balcony. I felt so bad I thought it was only appropriate to give them a kiss in apology. Like when you slept with every stuffed animal as a kid so no one got offended. Don’t be fooled, there is definitely a soul within the stuffing. Throwing Sparkle off the balcony was difficult, she is my oldest Webkinz. I thought it would look cute but kissing them each on the lips was a weird choice I know.

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Week 4-5

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Pandemic Portraits

★ Steve and Celeste ★

Celeste: Celeste was kind enough to volunteer as my first pandemic portrait.

”I keep getting one piece of bad news after another and don’t have time to process my emotions.”

She is a personal friend of mine and she had been bombarded by a plethora of bad things all week. I was trying to manifest goodness for her but unfortunately life can be A LOT sometimes and doesn’t go as planned. I hope she’s doing better now : ) !!

Steve: Steve is someone I ran up to. Probably startled them. I was nervous. I asked him and his coworker if they could help us out with the Pandemic portraits and they agreed. Steve unfortunately introduced himself which I did not specify that he wasn’t supposed to do that, so we cannot use the footage. He was extremely optimistic and was avid about spreading positivity.

”Hey, I’m Steve. I’m glad that the days are getting longer; it’s light after six o’clock nowadays. It’s been a beautiful sunny period for the last six weeks or so, it’s all good!”

Thank you for the positivity Steve! We all need it right now 🙂

★ Lily and Pup★

Lily: ”Stress.”

Puppy: *drooling*

I saw Lily’s puppy and I knew I had to interview her. She was extremely kind and when I told her the prompt, she took quite a while pondering what to say. She settled on the word ”Stress.” which was very relatable. Unfortunately there was very loud construction going on, so I messed with the audio so we could hear her response better. I regret not asking her the name of her puppy : ((((

Thank you Lily for your time! : )

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Impromptu Masks:

Masks aren’t particularly the most glamorous things in the world. There has been a prominent disconnect from identity and self expression due to having to cover the majority of our faces. As much as people tried to wear decorative masks, I personally feel like wearing cloth masks do a disservice and are counterproductive to the proper function of masks. I’d much rather wear safe surgical masks, and they aren’t very flattering unfortunately.

I do not like hiding my face, emotions, makeup, etc. Some days it’s nice when my face is not up to par (per say), but I feel as if I cannot express myself. I was talking with a friend today; we went out for lunch the first time and I hadn’t seen her full face before, though we have been friends since the first day of classes this semester.

I live in a dorm in South, and my room is very baron. This week has been really stressful and these objects are a couple of things that tickle my fancy whenever my grey jail cell of a room or lack of sleep is bringing me down. A lot of people are depressed due to the dullness of life, and the lack of social interaction and facial recognition. Empathy is the root of all things human, which includes human aesthetic. Facial recognition stems from empathy as well. If only we could wear our most favourite objects on our face instead of the masks.

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Week 7

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Button Making : Conceptual 10 Second Cats

I wanted to have limited time in order to strip an idea down to its most basic meaning, while also using sporadic movements and thoughts to create something new and fun.

I have been doodling cats my entire life, and always put a celebratory cat drawing in cards for my friends and family. I wanted to see how my stylistic drawings of cats would evolve if I only gave myself 10 seconds to draw each one. It was stressful, but it was successful in the fact that each cat has its own spur-of-the-moment personality.

Each of us have our own visualization of a cat, a quick one that pops into our heads when the word is mentioned. Cat. Ears, round face, little cheeks and whiskers, big eyes. This is merely the concept of a cat, and not it’s true form. Giving yourself only ten seconds to draw a cat breaks down its form into something childlike and basic.

I was also thinking of digging up cat drawings from my kindergarten days, or possibly creating an exercise that involves classmates by making them draw a cat in 10 seconds so the cat’s concept varies from person to person.

Putting each cat on a button lets the button holder have their own unique pet cat to keep.

Edit: I totally forgot about this brilliant music video my They Might Be Giants. Sort of a similar conceptual breakdown. Maybe this was my subconscious inspiration.

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Week 8

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Audio Piece: Sightless and Soundless Sonata No. 20 in G Major, Op. 49 No. 2 by Ludwig van Beethoven

This assignment was a tad bit frustrating due to the absence of two essential senses that I rely on to play my conservatory pieces. I experimented with playing sightless and soundless while improvising, but it ended up sounding ok surprisingly due to my comfortability and knowledge of tones and chords. I felt as if my fingers were comfortable creeping unknowingly when improvising. Beethoven songs, on the other hand, are a lot more technical. Dynamics, tempo, general movement and location of fingers all factor in when playing a more challenging piece. It’s interesting, one mistake was obviously enough to skew the entire song onto a different path. I have this song tight within my belt already but without knowing the location of my fingers on the keyboard, once I got further along in the song, mistakes became extremely audible. I played this for my grade 8 piano exam last year, and my technique now is far beyond this song- I consider this Sonata a warm up lol (my ego and confidence in this song has been damaged lol).

Note the buzzing of the piano, it could definitely be a mixture of the piano- (piano strings sometimes buzz, I don’t know the exact reason. This is a piano located in the basement of Alexander Hall, and is the best piano out of the three practice rooms. Pianos are never perfect)- and also the force and drive of the dynamics I was expressing. It was definitely a lot louder due to my lack of hearing, and also because I find when I am learning a song or am having a brain fart during a song, I let go of all expressionism in order to be as accurate as I can with the notes (even though expressing a song with proper dynamics and mood is equally as essential as getting the notes correct). Also, my Blue microphone I used was sitting directly on top of the piano, which then vibrated and picked up a lot of the buzzing. I generally use it for shitty demos for my personal music and totally forgot that I should have put it away from the piano.

I relied extremely heavily on muscle memory throughout the song, the beginning being smoother than the further parts of the song. The beginning of the song is the most comfortable for me; I’ve played the beginning gazillions of times. This song is a 4 minute piece, so once I get further into the song and run unto… the runs of the scales, and also octaves and jumps to lower and higher notes in a sporadic manner, I fall apart very quickly. Distance is hard to determine when you cannot see or hear. I feel like I did pretty good regardless though.

I also wanted to pay homage to the struggles that Beethoven had experienced in his life as he aged; he experienced extreme deafness (60% of hearing loss) by the time he was 31 in 1801. He developed three distinct styles within his playing and composing, and pursued writing beyond the development of his disability. He started hearing high pitched tones, starting from his left ear and travelling to his right eventually. There is lots of speculation regarding this deafness, some people arguing it was caused from lead poisoning, and some arguing it was caused by typhus.

Obviously I’m not half as good as Beethoven was. This recording is like nails on a chalkboard to me. But I like to think of myself as just ‘Glenn Goulding’ it. (Glenn Gould was a famous Canadian pianist who specialized in Bach and Beethoven, and critics hated him because he played around and experimented heavily with tempo and dynamics in respected songs which were generally played with great discipline.

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Final Portrait: Lil Irrelevancies

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Firstly, I wanted to create a portrait symbolizing my mother’s talent in floral design and colour. My mom has the best taste, but unfortunately she doesn’t feel that way about herself. I wanted to celebrate my love for her and her taste through a portrait. I had a few ideas but none of them seemed to work, and both my mom and I were struggling to pinpoint a general theme or concept, which in turn caused stress. I wanted to save her portrait for a later date so I could truly take the time to make the portrait as expressive of her as possible.

Flipping through an old notebook, I discovered a few odd phrases which were scattered randomly throughout the notebook. I tend to whip out my journal to write down phrases that are important to me in the moment, in order to not forget the importance of the thought. Curiously, I totally forgot many that I had written in this particular journal. No matter how hard I rubbed my temple I could not remember,

The idea popped into my head to create a conglomeration of all of these little thought blorps. Once important, now forgotten. The word irrelevance popped into my head, merely for the reason it describes these blorps perfectly ( and I just like the sound of the word) ‘Irrelevancies’ sounds too pretty to mean what it does. Through reexperiencing them, we create new meaning. It is a blank slate for new interpretation. Celebrating these irrelevant thoughts. The illustrations resemble what the blorps describe, just to create more substance to the pages.

Hello everyone 😀

I’m excited to get to know you all while making art alongside each other.

Thoughts on the conceptual…

Over the past few years, as I have tried my hand at many mediums, I have found that there is a distinction that can be made. The final product of the artist’s labour and the process that take place in order to make a work all contribute to the viewers experience with the work. These distinctions are often what may drive an artwork. Sol Lewitt’s comments on ‘the machine’ encourage us to consider the process of conceptual art as a piece of the final work. So much of Sol Lewitt’s artistic plans require the help of other artists and hands to execute a final plan, but its that planning and cooperation that is the art work. The machine that is the idea is the artistic piece, the process and final product and equally important. The conceptuality of some of Sol Lewitt’s ideas make all the participating parties conceptual, we can ask who is the artist? What is the art? The final piece, the process, or the plan? What is the artist’s hand when there are multiple minds at work? These are some of the things that I admire most about conceptual work, the aesthetics and composition are admirable to say the least, but it is also the discussion. The emotional responses and thoughts evoked by the work deepen our connecting to the visual world and each other and we explore ideas brought forth by artists like Sol Lewitt.

Yoko Ono’s work has always be so interesting. Its always multifaceted, it always, somehow, personally striking. It always connects to me somehow. I don’t think I have any boundaries to draw, I don’t think I have any place to restrict her work, I am only a humble viewer! The artworks I see live in the viewer, the thoughts her writings and performances provoke, live on within the viewer. She puts forth both normal and out of the ordinary prompts for us the interact with the physical world, these tools she wields are all experimental. Something that stands out to me in Grapefruit is her writing style, I find that each page is a sort of poem. Her word choice and style of instruction are artistic and it’s like I can hear her speaking to me when I read them.

One Hundred Live and Die is a popular work of Nauman’s, I admire how it confronts us all with the possibilities in our existence. The volume of light fills any viewers eyes and how they react varies, but it does reminds us of many things. I think this work is framed specifically to contrast against itself. Without the combination of the “bad” (kill, hate, cry) or “good” (love, touch, feel, play) concepts, the weight of each combination would not be nearly as heavy. All these experiences and actions affect us different (and similarly) and Nauman just works to present them to us. Framed as a beautiful neon blast of light, these combinations presented all together insinuate there is no one actions that comes without the other.

Fist in Mouth also strikes me as highly interesting, though it is technically a simple motif with the addition of Nauman’s hand, it speaks volumes. I think a lot of Nauman’s work asks us to consider what we see and we naturally try to connect it to what we know or feel. This piece questions who we are without our voice or what is left behind when we are blocked of communication. Nauman’s framing allows us to take his work and form our own meaning as we see fit. I read about Nauman’s work and consider all these specific meanings and nuances that are pulled out and I imagine Nauman in his studio. With everything he produces being art and I wonder what he has hidden away in his lab, where he crafts these meaningful and emotional works, I wonder how his unseen experiments  would affect me. I wonder how he would frame them if he was required to.

Kilometre

This video is a documentation of me sitting, simply doing nothing for the time that it takes for an average person to walk a kilometre at an average pace. Growing up an only child, I spent a lot of time hanging out with myself doing things like reading, drawing, watching television etc.. My Dad would always consider these small habits as “doing nothing”. He would regularly find my in my room spending time with myself and ask why I wasn’t outside, going for a walk or doing something more involved. This never seemed like a problem to me, but to him it seemed not as productive as he would have liked.

In this video I sit in my room for 12 minutes (the average walking time of a km) and do absolutely nothing, just reflecting on such a small moment of my day and reminding myself that not every second of your life needs to be used doing something “productive”

In this time I could have walk a whole kilometre, but I didn’t, I just spent 12 minutes with myself.

This is my kilometre.

Yoko Ono Wishing Tree

After writing my wish I sealed it with wax and used a small hair clip to attached it to my one and only house plant. It recently put out a new baby leaf and hopefully the leaf and wish will emerge together.

Week 2 – I Hour Performance (❁´◡`❁)

Hi everyone! I chose this week to watch paint dry. My landlords recently erected a new room in our basement and have been finishing it up lately. The other day, they dropped by to give it a few coats of paint. After they left I snuck in and sat down on the couch, I sat for an I hour without a clock or phone and told my partner to come tell me once an hour came. I just sat in the cold basement and watched this coat of white paint dry. It was quite relaxing in a way and I quickly wanted to slip into a nap. I am not sure if it was because it was meditative or boring though. Eventually I couldn’t smell the paint fumes anymore and was just acting in time, just sitting and letting thoughts pass. I became very aware of my surrounding, I listening to the distant street sounds and the washing machine work away.

I didn’t get a photograph in the moment because no one was home, but I snapped this photo in the space to show the plainness of the room.

I feel like Marina Abromovic would chuckle if I told her I watched paint dry. I was very conscious of how difficult it must have been for her to sit for 7 hours a day, but also maybe it wasn’t, she believes so strongly that the artist is present when they are still that she is her art at the end of the day.

Week 4 – up, up and away….

For this week, I threw my groceries into the air! I literally just experimented with trying to compose something in midair, I don’t have a window high enough to throw things out of and I chose groceries for a specific reason. Basically, I got hit by a car on Saturday night on the way home from work… I am totally fine, but I keep imagining how much worse it could have been. I was walking home from work with 2 bags of groceries when it happened so I imagined a more dramatic outcome for these photos.

some test shots;

and some of my favourite compositions;

Alternative Mask

For my alternative mask, I created a cone, a sort of blinder.

I hate talking about covid and covid and everything related because the past two years of my life have been hell. The pandemic aggravated every mental illness I already had and made living borderline impossible. I short, I am exhausted, everyone is, I hate talking about the “silver linings” because i don’t believe there was any for me. It alienated me from everyone I know and separated me physically and mentally from any loved ones. I had nowhere to run, no home to move back into, I lost my job, and I didnt even experience the worst of it. I can elaborate so much more but I didn’t want to lie and say that I was feeling hopeful or blessed. This is how I truly feel about everything.

My mask is a paper cone. In order to function during the pandemic I have become reliant on my ability to use tunnel vision. Focusing on one thing, whether or not its physically or mentally, it is really the only way i have been able to stay on top of everything.

Video Portraits

Button Ideas

Artist Multiples – Buttons!

🎵Audio Project🎧 – System Regulation

For this week’s project I decided to collaborate with my partner. Both of us are quite anxious people and we express our emotions in different ways. Personally, I deal with things very mentally, until they manifest into physical feelings. My partner expresses himself very physically right away. He tends to pace, to tap, hum, whistle and pick at his hands while working. He has never been one to notice this so I invited him to collaborate with me on the piece.

The fun twist here is that he is quite musically inclined, he has a deep sense of rhythm and training on multiple instruments so music really flows out of him. He was surprised to find out how much I notice his habits of tapping out rhythms on his desk or whistling melodies absentmindedly.

I wanted to make this as a sort of ode to him, we made it together and it was such an interesting conceptual idea, but also a great way for us to combine our arts!

I also intended to keep to sounds very organic, we did our best to recreate them as naturally as possible. Almost sounding as if the song happened accidentally, the same way he usually releases his nervous energy.

Final Week – Conceptual Portraits

I created this triptych in ode to my mother. My memories of her exist only within my mind, while I was young and still developing . The mind manipulates moments once stored in the brain. It pushes and pulls information, altering what we remember. This process of compartmentalization is one that has informed my practice thoroughly. Like memories that are archived in the mind, these photographs are manipulated through photoshop. The dreamy state I achieved is representative of the feelings left behind by confusing and traumatic moments. These photographs are of my parents and I in particular, but I believe that this notion of memory, as it affects us all, is a realm in between reality and and fantasy and is applicable to all archived moments. It is a landscape created by the brain to reinforce moments that we are sure happened but may not be correct.

These conceptual portraits of significant moments in time exist to affect the emotional state of the viewer, regardless of personal connection to the subjects. They use the digital medium to contradict the physicality of the printed photograph. As the photograph exists, so does the memory, the seemingly permanent state can still be altered as it remains in flux.