Installation self-reflection.

The concept for my installation came about when I thought about wanting to have an installation that was interactive. I wanted to create an installation that involved the passersby. At the same time I wanted to make sure it was something that was not to demanding. The idea of setting up glass jars and sticks to make a melody seemed perfect because people walking by would not even have to stop. One concern was that the glass would get knocked over and break which was a safety issue. I decided that I should build some kind of frame to contain the jars. I ended up making a very simple frame that consisted of two plastic tubes, one on each side, running along the glass with piece of wood to keep it straight, at the proper height and in place. I found the tubes lying around and Darcy at the woodworking shop had scrap wood to spare along with the tool necessary to create the frame.

I collected glass jars from residence of different sizes, cleaned them out and removed the labels and glue. The final step was to create the melody. After attempting to do Yankee Doodle, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star proved easier. I wanted to use a melody that had a simple rhythm because it would be too difficult to create timing because even if I spaced the jars appropriately, each person would play it differently and might not be able to interpret the song. I spent about two hours pouring water in and out of the jars to get the proper notes and melody. One challenge that I did not expect was the problems that came with having different sized and shaped glass jars. Initially I figured that I could control the note with water but it made it difficult to match the notes because the glass would resonate in different ways (kind of like a different instrument). Some jars that had bizarre shapes would appear to resonate with two or three different notes making it confusing. If I were to do it again I would have started collecting glass earlier so that I may collect the same jars.

When I was unable to get table I became stressed. I was trying to figure out how I could build some sort of table easily and elevate it high enough. As I was walking through the school I noticed an elevated ledge in the hallway connecting the education building to riddel center. This ended up being even better than tables because my piece fit nicely into the space. I was very satisfied to see my piece come together and have so many people participate.

My installation was constructed out of concern that people might not participate. You could participate without much effort or even stopping. To my surprise people actually ended up stopping to involve themselves and more than a few actually took it to another level when they started drumming on the jars which was not the intention but actually even more interesting to me. I was surprised and happy to see so many people participate enthusiastically. Almost every time I walked by the installation, people would be participating. It was a nice feeling to approach the installation and be able to hear the sound of the glass resonate even before I was near it or could see it.   

Cultural Events

RAEKWON CONCERT AT THE DISTRIKT

A hip-hop concert was among one of the events that I frequented. The headlining artist was Raekwon from the hip-hop collective Wu-Tang Clan. Wu-Tang Clan is a nine person hip-hop group that topped the rap charts in the 90’s and has established without question the largest and strongest cult following of any hip-hop group. Their first album is my favourite album of all time so I was excited to go to this event. The show took place February 26^th at the Distrikt.

One thing that I experienced during this show that stood out for me and I did not expect was the opening acts. There were about 6 to 8 opening acts that were locals who only performed for a short amount of time. I was not aware of the vibrant hip-hop scene of Regina until this concert. What I really enjoyed is one of the MC’s who began to speak about supporting local talent and keeping the scene alive. He was an older artist who clearly had been involved in the hip-hop music scene for while and the sincerity of his passion and dedication was felt as he spoke. It was kind of sad to see that not many people showed up for the opening groups and that the people who did show up were not paying attention or drinking at the other sections of the bar. This appears to be a common dilemma for opening acts. I stood close as I wanted to show some respect for the artists. As the show progressed, more and more people showed up until Raekwon walked on stage and people from other parts of the bar began to rush towards the stage. I have much admiration for Raekwon as this is the second time I know of that he has come to Saskatchewan to perform. He hails from New York and not many American artists do Canadian tours crossing the prairies. He had a really positive vibe and kept saying how good of a time he was having throughout the show and it was felt. He had a drink in his hand and cheered the drinkers in the crowd. “Who out there gettin’ they drink on tonight. I know I am so let’s have a good time y’all. Support real hip-hop!” He was also really generous to share the stage with another Canadian rapper who Raekwon had signed to his record label. The Canadian rapper whose name I forget was praising Raekwon for supporting Canadian music and helping him out.

I have to say that I was a bit disappointed because as he is part of a 9 group collective, the members in his group were not present to rap their parts of the songs. As a result, he would sing the other members’ parts or cut the song short. I still enjoyed hearing my favourite songs like “Ice Cream” by Raekwon and “C.R.E.A.M.” by Wu-Tang.

PASS THE HAT COMEDY SHOW AT THE EXCHANGE

Pass The Hat is a monthly comedy show that features mostly amateur local stand up comedy. There were also some out-of-towners as well as professional acts that work in television or have solo shows. In total there were about 10 stand-up acts and the show was about two hours. There was one MC hosting the show who spoke briefly between acts making jokes, commenting on the preceding act and introducing the next act. The show progressed from comics who were more amateur with a smaller amount of stage time to comics whose acts and stage persona were more refined with more stage time. It was easy to distinguish the amateurs because of multiple factors. They had notes that they frequently paused to look at, they stuttered and mixed their jokes up, lack of confidence and stage persona and sometimes were even asking the audience to have pity for them as it was their first time. What was interesting is that although these beginners’ acts were unrefined, they were sometimes funnier than the later refined comedy acts. Some of the later acts were confident, well spoken, clear and concise but extremely boring and unfunny. This was interesting to me because it demonstrated that content is sometimes more important presentation. I would compare it to watching a typical Hollywood comedy/romance to a gritty underground low budget cult film. One of my two favourite comics were a young guy who had notes, stuttered a lot and lost himself in his train of thought. He made jokes about dealing with his stereotypical Asian dad and dating. He imitated his dad with an Asian accent which got a lot of laughs. He also generated a lot of laughter by his own incompetence. He stuttered so much that it almost became his persona and appeal. The other comic that I quite enjoyed was a woman in her early 40’s who had worked in the television industry and it was clear that she had much experience performing stand-up comedy. Her material was almost exclusively sexual in nature. She spoke about being horny and wanting to get laid. She touched on S&M a bit and on buying multiple sex toys to which she said her friend reacted by saying; “What are you gonna do with all those toys, gang bang yourself?” to which she said she replied; “Well I hope that if I was going to rape myself that it would be consensual.” She said all these things with total conviction and without apology. She was definitely my favourite act of the night.

THE LIVING SKIES STUDENT FILM FESTIVAL AT THE UNIVERSITY OF REGINA

The entries of the living skies student film festival were mostly from students who were in the film production program. I recognized films from people in second, third and fourth year. There were also a few films from Regina high school students and film schools from elsewhere like Vancouver and Montreal. It was a two day festival and I frequented all screenings but did not go to the gala as I was only interested in seeing the films and did not want to pay the 15$ cover charge. The screenings took place in the Education Auditorium 106 and when I arrived I was surprised to see such a small turnout. As a film student I am curious to see what other people are creating and would think that everyone else in the program would have the same attitude. Many of the people who put in submissions did not even show up. In total there was about 15 to 20 maximum throughout the screenings.

The first day consisted mostly of high school student short films. Most of these films were shot on low end digital cameras with low production value. (poor quality of sound, lighting, exposure, even image framing and editing in some cases.) Following these films were films made by university students. They comprised short documentaries, narratives and experimental films. This continued the following day with more screenings. There were a couple films that impressed me including one narrative about two students trying to write a screenplay for a short film. The setting is simple but what made it an interesting film was the use of comical interaction between the two and it was well shot and acted. Another film that I found interesting was an experimental film about a social worker and her client. I would say the film was experimental because it does not follow a linear narrative. All we see is a conglomeration of scenes going back and forth between the social worker in her office talking about the client and the schizophrenic client doing various things. The story slowly unfolds giving us information implicitly which I thought was done very well and had a great sense of drama to it.

On the other hand some films were so corny that they made me cringe. The dialogue of these films were almost comical they were so bad. In one case we see two lovers talking about how their relationship has deteriorated and this film is extremely overdramatic without the acting skills to back it. Another cringe-worthy film was about a clean freak arachnophobic mama’s boy who chases a spider around the house trying to kill it eventually setting the house on fire. Once again it is overdramatic and corny.

UNIVERSITY OF REGINA BFA GRADUATING SHOW AT THE MACKENZIE ART GALLERY

As the title of this show indicates, artworks of graduating students were featured at the MacKenzie Art Gallery. I was interested to go see this show because I am curious to see what new young up-and-coming just-graduated students are doing. I am interested to see how an education may have developed their skills and/or formed their styles. Works on display consisted of many different mediums such as charcoal and ink drawings, oil paintings, pottery, sculpture, film, installation and mixed media.

My favourite piece was 16 large charcoal drawings, about 70-80 centimetres square I estimate, of the artists’ family members. She had done four for each family member. The drawings were very crisp, detailed and powerful because the faces were drawn so large. The skin of the faces contained a surrealist texture of what can be compared to crumpled paper. In the next section was an installation of a bunch of what appeared at first to be miniature parachutes hung at varying heights made out of some paper-like material and died in pinkish purplish colour. This created a visually appealing effect that I inspected closely and enjoyed its use of space. In a smaller segregated area was another installation consisting of four or five papier-mâché bodies placed on the ground with a video projected onto one of them of what I interpreted as the artist nude in a bathtub making the papier-mâché sculptures. The projected body appeared to be intended to fit within the frame of the contour of the papier-mâché body it was projected on. This piece covered addressed the topic of depression through the metaphor of the feeling created by having one’s body wrapped in papier-mâché. The theme of depression was also visited in another series of work further along where black and white ink drawings of large black hostile masses were contrasted with small vulnerable human figures. The black visually representing depression.

There were a few people who were at that section of the art gallery when I was there and I picked up on their conversations that some of them were acquainted with the artist. From this I assume they had come to see what their friends were doing and support them. After only seeing 5 or 6 artists’ works the expo appeared to end. I was confused as I thought that there were supposed to be 11 artists in total. I walked around the gallery for a bit but it appeared that the expo was only in the area I had previously been. After returning one more time I was lucky to see some people walk through an emergency exit where the expo continued. Aside from some really nicely made clay pottery that were said to be urns for cremation remains nothing else really sparked my interest.

NEUTRAL GROUND/SASKATCHEWAN FILMPOOL FIELD TRIP

On Wednesday March 21^st the class visited Neutral Ground art gallery and The Saskatchewan Filmpool located downtown. There was an art exhibition at Neutral Ground which we spent time looking at. Works displayed consisted mainly of installations by artists Tamara Rusnak and Stacia Verigin. Tamara’s installations incorporated a variety of materials including papier-mâché, wood, wax, basket weaving materials among others. She seemed to be more inclined to use found/recycled and natural materials. Her installations appeared abstract in nature but as she spoke about them, she revealed different kinds of thoughts and feelings that they evoke for her. A large rounded papier-mâché ball that stood on naturally shaped wooden stilts evoked humour for her. Her installation of an intestine-like long chain of a variety of materials laying on the floor and then climbing up the wall and back down again to come full circle to her represented instinctual feeling. The relation was between this feeling and the installation was the popular “gut feeling” because the work evoked a bodily process resembling the intestines or “guts”. The works of Stacia were much smaller in contrast and consisted mainly of plaster cast fingers and hands. One interesting sculpture of hers was a shark or fish-like figure where two hands placed palm to palm formed the mouth and individual fingers pointing outwards running down the creature to form its vertebrae and fins. This was a very visually interesting work to look.

There was also another installation by an artist named Jamie Drouin where we see plates stacked and placed on a low but elevated door sized board with what appears to be some kind of motor. I had difficulty appreciating this work because its lack of visual interest but later on I discovered that this work was an audio installation where a motor was placed to create a low frequency.

After this visit we went to The Saskatchewan Filmpool. The film pool is a film co-operative which provides an impressive amount of resources for people interested in pursuing media production. This was the first time I payed it a visit and I was impressed indeed. They had a whole room filled with all kinds of film equipment and cameras and lights etc. They had a room with an elaborate animation set-up, rooms for editing and sound production. After this we went to the downstairs space where we saw Chrystene Ells working on a puppet animation project with some U of R students. She discussed with us the project she was working on and spoke about her experience and the film industry a little bit which was interesting.



Self-reflection of eating hot peppers performance

The concept of my presentation arose when I thought about what I would like to do as a performance. The first thing that came to mind was the idea of testing myself physically, to put myself in a stressful, strenuous or maybe even temporarily painful situation. I felt inhibited to do a performance and so putting myself in this kind of situation would force me to express myself against my own will. I would be the subject of whatever activity I decided to do. The activity would do the performance for me; I would simply be the reaction to whatever it is I decided to do.

The idea to eat spicy peppers eventually came about. My next question was to find a way to make this a more dynamic performance. How could I involve the audience or use other media formats to enhance the performance. I thought about getting a member of the audience to get me a drink and from this evolved the idea to have live video footage projected in front of the class of that person. This required some kind of wireless camera that could connect to the classroom somehow. Eventually I realised that the most practical solution was to use the internet to connect the filmed image with the projected image. This would be possible through the website Ustream. From an Ipad, Iphone or laptop I would have an audience member signed in to my Ustream account and stream a live feed with the help of their integrated webcam. On a second computer connected to the class projector I would go on Ustream and search my account where I could view that live feed.

My concerns prior to my presentation were that there would be technical difficulties or that the peppers may not be spicy enough to create the intended effect. I was nervous also because of the imminent pain I was about to encounter. I wanted the effect to be created of someone that is suffering and the tension created by the anticipation for the audience members to return with my drink. It was hard to tell if it turned out how I expected it to because during my performance my attention was completely focused on coping with the pain. I was not completely aware of my behaviour but considering that everything went pretty much according to planned, I was satisfied.

Overall it was an interesting experience. Now I know what it feels like to eat two jalapenos and one hot summer pepper in a span of five minutes. The feeling was more painful than expected and if it were not for the need to do a performance I probably would not have done it and will probably never do it again.

Still photographs of video project showing methods and materials used.

Performance – Body - Spaces you inhabit proposal

My performance will consist of me in front of the classroom with a stool set up in front of me with three fresh chilli peppers on top. I will begin my performance by eating a chilli pepper. I will then address the class when saying that I need someone to go out and buy me a drink or provide a glass of water to fill to help assuage the burning sensation created by the chilli pepper. I will provide another student with a video camera that is somehow connected to the projector in the classroom. With the camera, that person will follow the person with the glass as they go out to get me a drink. The intended result will be to have me in front of the class suffering the effects of the chilli pepper while suspense is created by the anticipation of desperately wanting a glass of water and being able to see the progress of the journey to bring me water projected on the screen behind me. Participation may also be asked of a student prior to the performance to handcuff me and hide the key and told only to retrieve it after a countdown of five minutes. The difficult part about this presentation will be trying to find a means to project a live feed from a wireless camera onto the projector in front of class.

Experiencing the body, self-reflection

Since the writing of my proposal to the completion of my project, many changes have taken place. My initial intent was to use green screen to create an illusion of movement through space with the body. This was the premise for my project which has remained the same despite the final project being different than the proposal for it.

Initially, I wanted to create the illusion that as the image more closely approached the subject, the viewer would sense that we are entering into the body of the person. A green screen was set up with lights to illuminate it. A test shot was taken with the materials to see if the effect was achievable in the editing room. After spending some time editing to quickly create a rough version of what I wanted to do, I realized that the effect was not as powerful as I imagined. I realized that it was not such an intimate exploration of the body as I wanted. Because I was using green materials such as fabric and cardboard, it was the materials being explored, not the body.

I was getting really frustrated and as me and a friend were playing around with the materials, I came up with the idea of separating the head from the body to put more emphasis on the body. I often think about how sometimes I feel disconnected from my body. By this I mean that I feel like I do not have control of my mind because it thinks without me choosing to think. When deep in thought, I often I am thinking about something while my body does something automatically without even being conscious of it. This disconnection between mind and body is often the result of stress, confusion or inattentively.

To create the effect of disconnection I decided to take two different shots where in one, we block the body with a green shirt to create a floating head and in the second shot, block the head to create a headless body. We made sure that in the first shot the head stayed above the mid line in the frame. In the second shot the body stayed below the midline so that we may combine both shots without them interfering with each other. The movements that were recorded were random and so we were entirely sure how the outcome would look. Co-ordination between the two shots would go against the idea of disconnection because we wanted disco-ordination, disorientation. The editing was fairly simple and the end result proved better than expected. The head and the body are moving randomly in different directions which make for a visually interesting interplay between the two. I feel that it creates a good sense of confusion and that the message of disconnection between the mind and body is clear.

I feel good about the end result. I am quite interested in different aspects of creativity such as painting, drawing, music, films and writing but this is the first time that I have been able to represent this idea. The concept of consciousness is something that I have been thinking about for a long time and so it was satisfying to be able to express it through this project.

Experiencing the body

My project for this assignement will consist primarily of the use of green screen, a video camera and editing to create an illusion of movement through space. The effect that I intend to create is a vortex like experience where the camera continues to move in forward only to enter another image continuing this effect. A good example that is similar to my intended outcome is the music video by The White Stripes“Seven Nation Army”. Along with the green screen, I will have other green coloured materials and objects such as construction paper and clothing. I will hold, manipulate or wear these objects while standing in front of a green screen. The person manipulating the camera will begin from a long shot and physically bring the camera in forward towards me as I am holding or wearing a“mini-green screen”. As the camera approaches to the point where the green object is taking up the entire image, I will appear in the next image once again holding another “mini-green-screen” thus repeating the effect creating the vortex. I will create the video with editing software and project it in front of the class which will only require a screen projector connected to computer or a DVD player connected to a TV.

High Art vs. Low Art

Just when I thought their was enough categories in the field of creativity, I have now been made aware of high art vs. low art. Terms that lump a large spectrum of entertainment and media into a category that is then denigrated entirely by it's contrast to the superior "high art". So what if a cheeseburger is not a filet-mignon or a comic book not a fresco. I don't necessarily like the Bee-Gee's but they displayed enough creativity, innovation and song-writing ability to not be lumped in with low-art. I never took art history so I don't know much but walking through the Louvre I realized that looking at the tourists was of more interest than the paintings themselves. People with their schmancy cameras going from painting to painting taking photographs not once stopping to observe the detail that cannot be observed from google images. And if all these paintings are on google then why bother taking pictures? I wonder to myself if these people will ever bother to look at these pictures if they never took the time to observe the painting in real life. It appears to be a example of the social phenomenon of clinging to high culture through high art.