Body/Politic installation reflection

I had not done a body cast before, and it was a bit of a strange experience. In a way, it exemplified the body dysmorphia I sometimes feel and the disconnect between fat individuals and what fat bodies are seen to represent. My work with plaster has been very minimal (mostly just one-part molds for ceramics) and so this project was a huge learning experience.

I was much more nervous about setting up my installation than I thought I would be. Inserting my own torso into a public venue left me feeling vulnerable, and I left it until the very last minute. When I went to install my project, I found that the torso was too large to sit on the chair and it toppled over. I quickly remedied this by balancing the stomach against the table, but this resulted in putting the back of the torso and the text attached to it out of view.

I’m not quite sure what the reaction to my installation has been. I have not seen anyone interact with it, but I often see that it has been moved from the chair to the table top, presumably so the chairs at the table can be used. My art, and my torso, is an intrusion on this public space and putting art work in public venues gives you a lot of insight into how art is valued.

If I were to do this project again, I would take more care in the plaster casting stage. It could have been done more successfully and much more neatly. I would also choose more carefully how to place the text on the torso. If I were to do this in a gallery setting, I would set up a table for two to resemble a tea party of sorts.

DIVAS at the Owl

Divas is an annual drag show held at the Owl and is a fundraiser for UR Pride. As it is my first year in Regina, it was the first Divas show I had been to, but it was in fact the 11th Divas held on campus. From the first time I entered the UR Pride centre last September, I've heard Divas mentioned quite frequently and was excited for the event long before we started planning for it. As a board member at UR Pride, I was responsible for volunteering during Divas, but still really enjoyed the drag performances.

Some of the performances, especially Jenny Talia's, went beyond the basic concept of "performing as the opposite gender" and would make an excellent performance art piece in a different context. Kent Monkman is another artist who uses drag and gender performance in his work – his performances often involve his alter-ego Miss Chief Eagle Testicle.

Ivan Coyote

 (photo credit to TD 365)

Ivan Coyote, a story-teller from the Yukon, engages with story-telling as a way to explore our individual and collective identities. In their keynote address Friday, March 16th at the Breaking the Silence conference in Saskatoon, Ivan shared a few short personal stories, as well as an article written for an online publication and an excerpt from a speech. Ivan was on stage with a podium in a theatre with the audience in seats, which spoke to the academic nature of the conference, but their storytelling attempted to bridge the gap between academia and lived experience.

 The conference and lecture where in Saskatoon, and I drove up Friday afternoon with two friends. We got into the city half an hour before Ivan was supposed to speak, so I was dropped off at Broadway Theatre. It immediately reminded me of Vancouver (Broadway theatre, Starbucks on the corner) and the times I visited my older sister there as a teenager (duffel bag in hand, hoping no one realizes how young and over-excited I am). I walked into the lobby of the theatre and it was the other audience members, rather than posters, that let me know I was in the right place. While I don't mean to assume anyone's gender or sexual identity based solely on appearance, there is something incredibly comforting being in a crowd of other queer people and our allies. I waited in line only a few minutes, and was quickly ushered into the theatre, where I struggled to find the people I was meeting there. The theatre was larger than I expected (it was said that 270 people were in attendance) and the audience was quite diverse - it included academics from the U of S, high school students, and community members just interested in seeing a queer Canadian storyteller. After being introduced and welcomed by a few people involved in the conference, Ivan came on stage and I immediately appreciated the informal and relatable nature of their storytelling. After Ivan's performance we were rushed out of the theatre again, and encouraged to head over to a nearby bookstore for a signing event but the bookstore was much too small to fit even half of the people from the theatre.

Hendeca: 11 Sides

I recently attended the opening reception of the BFA grad class show, titled Hendeca: 11 Sides, at the Mackenzie Gallery on March 9th. The show featured work from the eleven BFA students graduating this year, and included work spanning many areas. As I walked towards the gallery and up the stairs, there were many people headed in the same direction. I've always found gallery openings to be a bit anxiety-inducing, although very neat, and recognizing so many professors and fellow students added to this. The gallery felt very crowded, which was a feat for such a large space - apparently over 450 people came to the opening reception. The huge number of people present, as well as the curious and congratulatory family members, greatly changed how the gallery space felt to me. I am used to going to galleries alone, and although I also went alone to the BFA opening reception, it was a very social event.

Of the eleven students showcasing their work, Joel Kovach was the only intermedia artist. His piece was an interactive video and audio work that explored queer stories and their relationship to the city. In the gallery, the artist statement was presented as a video on a large television with headphones attached so viewers can hear the audio. The artist's voice is distorted and his face is covered in wax. The piece featured twelve distorted videos of people telling a story related to queerness and their exact location in the city. The videos were on DVDs in a stack of drawers, with one DVD per drawer, and the audience could pick them up and play them on a TV. The TV didn't have attached headphones and during the opening I was worried the audio would interfere with nearby pieces and other viewers. However, there were also CDs that viewers could take and the album art included maps to the various locations in the city. Because of this, the art exists throughout all of Regina, and only part of it was situated in the gallery space.

Although there was only one intermedia student, one of the sculpture student's pieces incorporated projection and was intermedia related. The piece featured multiple plaster casts (presumably) of the artist's body, and a video of the casting process was projected on top of the plaster bodies.

The Work of Articulate Ink

(Photo courtesy of Saskatchewan NAC)

During the last week of February, I visited the Articulate Ink print show at the Dunlop Art Gallery. The show featured prints from the four members of Articulate Ink, all recent graduates from the University of Regina. Just outside of the gallery there was a type writer and a few other text and print items the audience could engage with. The addition of a type writer, magnetic words, stamps, and an old receipt printer added an interactive element not normally present in 2D art exhibitions. Prior to entering the gallery, I, as well as the people I was with, stopped to use the type writer. This allowed us to engage in a small part with the history and application of print, and gave the viewer context of the medium. This interaction gave the exhibition a performative aspect, relating it to intermedia art. I'm not sure if the interactive elements were chosen by the artists, the curator, or other people at the library, but either way it was a cohesive part of the show, and acted as a transition from library space to gallery space.  

Diane Morin's "Capteurs d’ombre"

During reading week in February, I visited francophone artist Diane Morin’s show capteurs d’ombre at Neutral Ground. Capteurs d’ombre is a video and sound installation piece that was located in the smaller gallery at Neutral Ground. I first saw the Unplanned Architecture exhibit, and I wondered where Diane Morin's work was located within the gallery. As it was my first time at Neutral Ground, I didn't realize that there were two distinct gallery spaces, and I wasn't sure what to expect. Upon entering the part of the gallery, I was immediately overwhelmed with the amount of darkness. A black wall was situated about a metre in front of the door which created a hallway. The black walls and lack of light made it almost impossible to see and I worried about bumping into something. In this hallway, the sound was the first part of the exhibit that was experienced, and because of the dark this sense was heightened. Once past the hallway, there were three table screens throughout the dark room that appeared to be lit from beneath. They show the outline of mechanical machines that moved slightly. Diane Morin is an intermedia artist who often makes mechanical art pieces, and capteurs d’ombre was no different.

Performance Reflection

When I first became interested in Intermedia, it was primarily due to my interest in performance art. Having done one performance in the past, for my Art 221 final project, I was excited to explore the medium further. In preparation to this performance, I had a very clear idea of the theme I wanted to convey, but no idea on how to do it. I planned to project still images onto a screen and interact with the screen in some way, but I was unsure if this would translate into a successful performance. At the last minute, I chose to incorporate charcoal, and draw my body onto the screen. Conceptually, I was able to insert my body into these spaces created around the exclusion of fat bodies.

I was uncertain about what sort of screen I would use, as I knew the weight of it would be an important factor. I ran into Jen outside of Neutral Ground over Reading Week, and she suggested stretching a canvas to use as a screen. As I don’t paint, I have never stretched a canvas and the idea hadn’t even entered my mind. With Jen’s helped, I stretched a canvas, but used an old bed sheet as opposed to actual canvas. I used a sheet because it was thinner and more translucent, which allowed for me to play with shadows. I was also happy to find that the fabric picked up the charcoal quite well, and allowed for successful use of the medium.

The images I chose to project included a beach, a lingerie store, a doctor’s office, the interior of a public bus, and interiors of two planes. Although I associate these places with spaces made unavailable to fat bodies, they are also places that generally cause people to feel uncomfortable in/about their bodies. This allows the piece to speak to the larger theme of fat oppression, while still being relatable to people who aren’t affected by fatphobia.

If I were to do this again, the biggest thing I would change is to make sure my canvas was stretched successfully and not warped. I do not feel that the warped canvas took away from my performance, but a successful rectangle would make my performance more gallery ready.

Closed Contact

Closed Contact is a a photographic series by Jenny Saville, in collaberation with photographer Glen Luchford,  in which her naked body is distorted using a glass pane.

Note To Self

Mary Coble's Note To Self is a 12 hour performance piece in which the artist has the names of queer indivduals who have died due to hate crimes tattooed on her body without ink.

From the artist's website:

Note to Self is a performance that deals with gay, lesbian, bi and transgender people who have died due to hate crimes committed against them. Coble compiled a list of 436 names of these individuals, through research on various websites, news reports and official and unofficial documentation. The list started and ended with the word “anonymous” to acknowledge the many lives that were taken that my list didn’t include.

During a solid twelve-hour timeframe these names were tattooed, with no ink, onto the surface of Coble’s body. She had these names inklessly tattooed on her body as a reference to the brutality of these murders; many of the victims had slurs such as dyke or faggot carved into their bodies.

After each name was completed, a Blood Painting was made by pressing a sheet of paper directly against the fresh abrasion. These prints were then places on the walls of the gallery. As the list of name compiled on her body the same list was mirrored on the gallery walls.
The first three hours of this performance was open to the public while the last nine hours were webcast so the audience could watch via the net.



Performance Proposal

For my performance piece, I will be taking the idea of the body and the spaces it inhabits quite literally. As a fat woman, there are many spaces that I am figuratively and/or physically unable to fit into, and I am interested in exploring this separation between body and surroundings further.

I will have the classroom set up in a theatre style, where I will perform at the front of the room (in front of the projection screen) and the audience will sit facing me. I have chosen the theatre-like set because while fatness can make a person invisible, it can also result in hyper-visibility and fat people are often on display.

The projection screen will be up, and in its place there will be another barrier on which something can be projected. I am considering using plastic, cardboard, plywood, or fabric. Plywood would be ideal, but it will depend on money and my ability to work with these materials. On this “board” I will cut out different shapes and project images or video on it. These images will be of places where I do not “fit,” and this is where the performance will come in. In a three to five minute performance, I will unsuccessfully try to get through the shapes I’ve cut out, in an attempt to occupy these spaces.

I will require plastic (or a similar material), a knife, the projector already in the classroom, and my computer. Set-up will take about ten minutes, and I will set up prior to the class. I will be dressed in my normal attire, but perhaps with a more extreme focus on femininity.

Video Self-Reflection

As I had never worked with video before, let alone video and audio editing, this project was a huge learning experience. As such, I found that the changes I made to my video throughout the creation process were out of necessity. I shot no more than ten minutes of footage and then edited it down to 1 min. 37 sec. This biggest thing that changed was my choice of audio. Originally, prior to submitting my proposal, I had considered having no audio. Looking now at how effective the audio was, I cannot imagine what this video would be like without it. I also had not planned doing such extensive editing the audio, but I feel that the way it starts out as coherent, but becomes more overlapped, louder, and overwhelming, was the most successful way to present this video. Without the dynamic audio, the theme and point of the video would be lost, and I feel that through this audio the overwhelming feeling of disconnect from one’s body is evoked to the viewers. I had originally intended for the audio to come from the television I was using, the TV’s audio wasn’t working. I borrowed speakers and an adapter cord from another student, and found that this made the audio even more effective. By having the audio come from a different source than the video, it was significantly louder and furthered the feeling of separation from one’s body that I was hoping to evoke.

Throughout the creation process, I chose to use a lot of my own equipment. I signed out a video camera from AV Services and upon getting it home, found that it didn’t have a memory stick. Frustrated, I decided to film the video using my point-and-shoot digital camera on its video setting. As I already had my own tripod, all of the equipment used while making my video was my own. Despite having access to the Intermedia editing room, I ended up doing all of my editing on my PC. I was very excited about using Final Cut Pro, but have never used a Mac before and was anxious about making a mistake. I also didn’t have time to do all of the editing in one sitting, and found editing on my own computer more time-effective. I edited the video using Windows Live Movie Maker and the audio using WavePad Sound Editor (as the Windows video editing software does not allow for audio editing) and added the audio over top as a “song”. Although I enjoyed working with WavePad, after seeing the in-class demonstration of Final Cut Pro I was very unimpressed with Windows Live Movie Maker. In the future I will definitely choose the better editing software over convenience and familiarity. When I presented the video in class for the critique, more equipment was needed than I had expected. The small television’s audio component was not working, and I had to borrow speakers and an adapter cord from a higher-level intermedia student. I think the most successful part of my video was the audio component, which features a combination of comedians, news reporters, entertainers, and anti-obesity advocates speaking about fat bodies.

While making this video, I was particularly influenced by Jenny Saville’s collection of photographs “Closed Contact.” In pressing her naked body against glass to distort it, Saville speaks to how easy it is to feel uncomfortable in, and separated from, your own body in our current society. This video also relates to other female artists who use their bodies in art and discuss fatphobia in doing so, such as Cindy Baker and Catherine Opie. This was my first time working with video and because of this I learned many things while working on it. The most important thing that I learned was that although editing is not as scary as I had originally thought it was, it is very time consuming and requires a great deal of trial and error.

Clay Play

I really like this video of Jody Greenman-Barber and her ceramics practice. Her Art For Lunch presentation started off the semester, and it's very interesting to see a ceramic artist employ other mediums and transform her practice into an art piece in its own right.

Proposal for video assignment

For my video project, I will explore the perceptions of the fat female body through the layering and overlap of images. Drawing inspiration from female artists of the 1970s (such as Dara Birnbaum and Joan Jonas) and Jym Davis’ White Space, I plan to use video as a medium to explore my identity, body, and how these signifiers of one’s self are perceived by others.

I will be filming my torso moving and, through layering in the editing process, will create a confusing overlap that I hope will stimulate the viewer to questions their biases and preconceived notions about fat bodies. I will use the smallest television set on top of a stool to create a personal experience for the viewer. The six-inch screen requires more focus from the viewers, and creates a more even playing field where the subject of the video is no more vulnerable than the viewers. The video will be in colour, and will include sound. I plan to overlay the video with some sort of public speech - either about politicized bodies, fat acceptance, or the anti-obesity movement.

I will be showing my video, from a DVD, on the small television from the intermedia office. My expected set up time should be no more than 5-10 minutes. I will use a video camera from A/V services, my own tripod, Final Cut Pro from the intermedia editing room, a DVD player, and a television from the intermedia office. The video will be about 2-4 minutes in length.

High art, low art, film, and video

I've been thinking about the two questions Caitlyn left us with last class: What is the difference between high art and low art? What is the difference between film and video?

The "film vs. video" question was something that was in my head a lot while reading chapter 2 of the textbook, and while preparing for my artist presentation. These are just my first thoughts, and I'm not familiar with either of these topics, but I'm interested in seeing how my responses now might differ from my responses after further readings and discussion. I will update this or make another post once I've done some more reading about these, but I just wanted to get my initial responses out there (even if they're totally off base).

High art vs. Low art

I think that high art refers to art that is accepted my art historians, critics, and curators as important contributions to the art world. In contrast, though, I think that low art is art that does not aspire to this in the first place. I think it's also possible that art originally made as low art can come to be seen as high art (as different mediums and themes come to be seen as more legitimate). When I think of high art I think of Renaissance paintings and sculptures, and when I think of low art I tend to think of art using new media.

Film vs. Video

The entire time I was reading chapter 2 my internal dialogue consisted of What's the difference between video and film? Is there one? Why is the textbook continually making the distinction? It's clear that I have no real grasp on either of these things, but I disgress. My first thought is that film is a field itself, and video is a medium used within the field of visual art. I think that film also followes a narrative, with characters, a plot, and development of the two. Perhaps one is also seen as a more academic style of art (I'm thinking here of ceramics vs. pottery, but that might be an overgeneralization).

Like I said above, though, these are just my preliminary thoughts.

In Your Arms - stop motion using jelly beans

A friend showed me this really incredible stop motion music video a few weeks ago, and I was reminded of it again during our video lecture last week. The musician is Kina Grannis, and the stop motion animation took 22 months and a team of 30 animators (whose names are listed here).