3/23 Character Value.

In my meeting with Paul we talked about using my videos as a character representation of the American psyche.

The jock
the drama queens
the doctors
the family
the cops

By using the videos in this way they could represent the cultural values that are portrayed in the television that we watch on a daily basis. Since the films are so short, the images and sound has to work in a way that expresses an idea, the moment of peak interest that encompasses the mood of the different genres depicted.

Thinking of these videos as personalities might help to shape the character of the pieces and work as a whole. If presented together they could begin to have a conversation with each other and formulate a discussion about American Culture through the eyes of the television.

3/23 Anderson Gallery

3/11 Sanford Biggers

http://www.sanfordbiggers.com/

http://www.rovetv.net/sb-press.html

http://ofa.fas.harvard.edu/visualarts/sanford_biggers.php

Lotus

Blossom

Cheshire (sculpture)

Prayer Rug

One of the first things that stuck out about Sanford Biggers work was the similarities with the previous artist to lecture Hank Willis Thomas. They both made work that focused on race in American culture and both used popular iconic imagery in there work. Both Artists also used the haunting image of the slave ship in there work.

Biggers who spent a sometime in Japan is inspired by the different cities around the world. He hopes to show less cultural differences and more similarities between families all over. He links Japanese culture to African American Culture in much of his work. Since his work is so multicultural he allows his formal art training to be the translation for his work. Different aspects in the works speak to different people depending on there background. He works with symbols that contradict and that offer a dialogue/ conversation. Symbols that allow for questions that open up the work. For example by mixing Hip Hop culture with Buddhist thinking the work becomes more complicated and avoids the labeling of Hip Hop. His work and himself as an artist is always changing and evolving to avoid such compartmentalizing of himself and his work. Biggers was a great speaker and was really inspirational to listen too. He was down to earth about recycling ideas and reusing past projects to contribute to new ideas.

3/11 thats bs

As I am pulling imagery in for my second movie a few things have crossed my mind as far as subjects go. The nighttime drama that I shot last year was not as well defined as I had hoped when I was thinking of ideas this time around for my films. There are a million night time dramas. But what in reality makes up those dramas. The girl fights. That is the most exciting part of those shows. Reality isn't as much fun without them. So this got me thinking about the rest of my imagery. What about the shows, is so important and what in them is the core, that makes them interesting.
This relationship between imagery and sounds, this is where it can be interesting. This is where I can play with the Moment. That moment of peaked interest and excitement. This is where I can begin to start a conversation.

3/8 Pipilotti Rist

Swiss artist and filmmaker, Pipilotti Rist is a video artist, musician, and professor who's work focuses on the unpredictable, the fantastic and the surreal. Rist focuses her attention on work that invokes audience interaction and reaction. She often encourages viewer response in hopes of creating a conversation.
I first discovered Rist 3 years ago, but to be honest I did not look very hard to far into her work. I came across something that I had written about her recently. It was a very shallow semi review of her work. Looking at it now the only thing I had nailed about her was her name. Her work with video is unlike anything I have come across to date. It is fun, and full of humor. She works around the taboos of what is appropriate and shatters all premeditated thought.
Her work is often full of vibrant color and upbeat music which seperates her from many of the contemporary artists I have reviewed to date. Especially her recent film Pepperminta.

Selbstlos im Lavabad (Selfless In The Bath Of Lava), 1994

Closet Circuit, 2000

Himalaya Goldsteins Stube, (Himalaya Goldstein's Living Room), 1999

http://www.pipilottirist.net/

http://www.luhringaugustine.com/index.php?mode=artists&object_id=68

3/4 : relevancy

As I progress further into my work and research I am really starting to question how relevant my work is. For me it is current and not dated, but I am a college student with a old standard television. Most of the work that I am doing I feel like has been done before. Frankly in the late 80's and all through the 90's. I feel connected with my work, but part of me feels like I am in the wrong decade. Television is not what it was and broadcast has become something completely different.

Large heavy TV's have now become something of a relic, something to put in your basement, or give away to the neighbor next door going off to college. TV's now are things you hang above your fireplace or at the end of your bed. They keep you company in the bathroom, and help you cook in the kitchen. These are not your 60-70 pound mammoth screens. Television has evolved into something that is almost a part of us. It is on your mantle because you look up to it. It has replaced the scenic photographs and paintings with Dancing with the Stars and House.
My parents house 2/10

3/1 Orlan

http://www.orlan.net/

http://www.english.ucsb.edu/faculty/ecook/courses/eng114em/surgeries.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/jul/01/orlan-performance-artist-carnal-art

For me, Orlan represents the extreme. There is the obvious with the reconstruction of herself through plastic surgery in the 1990's, but its what she did with the surgeries that strikes me the most interesting. Orlan taped and broadcast her surgeries live to institutions throughout the world. She used the surgeries to sculpt her image into classical ideals of women according to the canon of art history. Orlan picked these women not because of their beauty but for the stories.. the anti-beauty- Diana because she is inferior to the gods and men but is leader of the goddesses and women; Mona Lisa because of the standard of beauty, or anti-beauty, she represents; Psyche because of her fragility and vulnerability within the soul; Venus for carnal beauty; Europa for her adventurous outlook to the horizon, the future.
These images of what it takes to be beautiful, or the idea or ideal beauty are gory and "carnal". Orlan uses this, she sees the whole process as a performance, or as a stage. She uses elaborate costumes to present a scene. Although this work was done in the 1990's, it for me represents the extreme of what can be and is transmitted on the Television.