Visiting Artist Lecture: Laurel Nakadate: March 23, 2011

LAUREL NAKADATE

Questions:
1. I am interested in the process of approaching strangers and inviting them to participate. What is your method?

2. Is it better to tell people what you intend to do with the collection of data or only tell them if they ask?

Response:
I just want to start out by saying that I have never been so inspired by the presence and words of someone in this field before. Every thought, emotion, experience, reflection, idea spoken by Nakadate was such turn on factor to my mind. I feel privileged to have to chance to hear this artist talk about her work in person. Only seeing her work live as photographs and films did not do it justice. It was her experiences and presence, the air she brought with her when sharing the work that made them so powerful. The personal and private connection she has to the work cannot be described. I am in love with what she had to say about meeting strangers in all her work. As I am dealing with working with strangers in my work, it was quite insightful to her how she approached the matter. Some of the things she said were, "meeting someone in the real world, who has no agenda and has the willingness to spend time and create something together is priceless. Mutual contribution. It is an honor to be trusted, open and vulnerable to experience, being chosen, and the thrill that comes with it... telling stories that I wasn't suppose to tell." All those things are so true and I feel so at one with those words. All those things describe my thoughts and emotion that I have for my own work. It is truly eye opening to go out into the world, meet someone for the first time and be invested with their trust, time and exchange of ideas and thoughts. Loneliness harbors in every corner of the world and it is to easy to get lost, but to be chosen and granted the chance to know someone, exchange facts; it is truly priceless. I feel that thrill and high when I interact with my strangers and have them tell me their life stories. Then telling those stories to others, not exploiting but just learning and experiencing vicariously through others.

Another aspect of her work that I definitely relate to is the desire to look and find people who are "virgins" to experiences and free of expectations, but stored with the yearning to experience and be released. Someone questioned why she only chose men who weren't very fit, awkward, old and lonely. Her reasons are completely rational. They render the most genuine reaction and engage with no agenda or expectations. The beautiful of experience of the "first times" can never be recreated. It is free of manipulation. With my current work, I feel that I enjoy coming across those who have never been photographed or approached to be photographed before. It is such a thrill to see their expressions and intriguing, questioning exchange of interaction. They are hesitant to inquire information upon the experience, perhaps fearful that it will taint their own experience. I respect her dedication to her work as well. She said, "Photography keeps us company and protects us. Excessive documentation of life's vulnerability and rawness reveals and preserves our being." It is so true. Especially her Crying Piece of 2010. A "deliberate participation in sadness" did not ruin crying, it allows for less fear of sadness and being alone.

I think something that I would like to try in the future is "walk around in public and wait for them to talk to me, be chosen by strangers." The mutual desires to create a story together and spend time is the epitome of raw human kindness. The last thing she said that stuck with me was this, "It is a danger to think everything you make has to be perfect. Mistakes and accidents are beautiful and nothing could ever be completed without them." Mistakes and accidents must be thought of not as a product or end result, but essential components and steps to perfection. She also said, "the world is amazing. The world is not a perfect set or stage, but if you allow the thought that everything can and will work out; the world is a beautiful place."

*Thank you Nakadate for your charged words that give me more confidence to trust my participants and allow their contribution to create the work and shape it. I will keep this is mind always try my best to refrain from editing and formulating.

I know for sure that order and formulas and mediation of my work have always been my weakness. I have learn to loosen my grip and allow for the work to shape me. I no longer create molds for my work to settle in, but for the work to establish their own expandable perimeters for me to explore within.

alexandre singh: lecture questions and response

Visiting Artist Lecture: Alexandre Singh: November 16, 2010
"Your work is all about language, narrative and evocation. Recently you performed at Renwick in New York, holding a fascinating lecture on dreams and imagination. That night, for a moment, I had the feeling you were like Mercutio telling about Queen Mab... I describe this thought pattern as “tangential logic”. In the systems of collages presented in the Assembly Instructions, as in the performances, I meander through ideas and suppositions that digress quickly from their departure point; sometimes they meet back up with a previously discarded sequence of ideas and flow off in another direction. Sometimes they just run into dead ends. I guess I could also call them academic daydreams." -Luigi Fassi

-These are the three words that Fassi chose to describe Singh's work. I wonder which three I will come up with.
"It’s all part of a plan, and it’s something I’m conscious of not only in my writing but in all the work that I’m making; that each work is a stepping stone to the next work, and to the next, each one more ambitious and more challenging to bring into being." -Fassi

-This is an important excerpt from Fassi because it is important to think of each work as part of something larger, rather than being solely a product of a final state. If one thinks of it as being an important by-product, then taking all the by-product and combining it into a better end product; that is the magic of not knowing what the end result will be. I am learning to embrace this thinking process.

[http://www.moussemagazine.it/articolo.mm?id=471]

I really enjoy the fact that Singh has many of his journals scanned and uploaded for me to see. Fassi seems to be quite accurate with the words he chose to describe Singh's work. What fascinates me is being able to 'turn page after page' and see how Singh's idea flow from thought to thought. I am curious to how he will present this information as a coherent piece of work.

1. How do you go about organizing these pages of thoughts? Or how does your filtering process work to narrow down and focus from all these pages?

2. Do you think it would benefit the viewer to look through these notes before viewing the 'edited' work? Are there any effects on how the work will be perceived or are these pages irrelevant to the final product of your work?

Site for which the journal pages were founded:
[http://www.preromanbritain.com/alex/notes03/large-36.html]

artist entry: week 12: november 15

Robert Bergman: photography: a kind of rapture

interest and relations:
An element of Bergman's work is the lack of identity and information to the individual, but something that substitute that element is another element; the subject is identified with original, individuality in expression. Bergman is able to place himself to the same level as his subject. He is able to make his subject comfortable and at ease to be able to capture them with these introspective feelings on their faces. Their expressions are rich in the eyes, the pose, the facial features are emotional landscape to read, decipher and relate. The lack of identity and information makes the expression relatable to anyone, the feelings do not belong to just an individual, but expansive to those who wishes to engage. I like a point that Bergman made, that we must not assume that we know these individual due to their look. We tend to jump to conclusion that by being presented these individuals portraits, we know who they are. We must look past that. Bergman pointed out that, "They're the life-size faces of people most of us usually overlook, or think we have all figured out." I think sometimes, as a viewer we tend to do that, think that we have it all figured out. A portrait of someone does not mean that the artist has completely handed over the person to the viewer. The artist merely has only opened the door to the individual for the viewer.

biography:
It's part of the Bergman creed: no titles for the photographs, no identification of the subject, no information on the location. Just the year, just the close-up.

"And at first glance, Bergman's photographs may not seem that different: an emaciated man looks pensively to the side; an old woman with frizzy gray hair stares directly at the lens, directly at us. These photos all have something in common, and it seems to be the usual commentary on class.

But among these subjects, according to Bergman, "there's a housewife, there are three artists, there are two actors, an affluent owner of a bar; there's the son of a millionaire and the granddaughter of a billionaire."

Still, you can't tell who's who — and Bergman won't say. He makes a point of including very little information in his photographs: no captions, no titles, no names. He doesn't even include the scene. The photos are tightly centered around the face, and that's what makes them slightly uncomfortable: They're the life-size faces of people most of us usually overlook, or think we have all figured out."

quotes:
"It is my aesthetic stance. I don't want you to have any escape from simply reacting to the art," Bergman says, dancing slightly in his black nubuck shoes. "Telling the location sets up false assumptions. It undercuts your ability to understand and interact with the art. It subverts what I am trying to do." - Bergman

"When I first saw his photos, I was actually kind of amazed by the strength of the images and the extraordinary use of color. It's beautiful and saturated," Greenough says. "In addition, I admired his ability to put his subjects totally at ease and to capture them with these introspective feelings on their faces."

images:





review, artist & gallery link:
http://brooklynrail.org/2004/05/art/bergman
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120283879
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/12/AR2009101202981.html

idea entry: week 11: november 11

word of the week: HAPPINESS

I'm not sure there's an image to visual portray happiness. I think it's one of those things that when you come upon it, you will feel it, breathe it, and live it. It's indescribable and too many parts of it are intangible. If you close your eyes and let your thoughts go, I believe you can see it in your mind for a brief moment.

quotes:
"The basic thing is that everyone wants happiness, no one wants suffering. And happiness mainly comes from our own attitude, rather than from external factors. If your own mental attitude is correct, even if you remain in a hostile atmosphere, you feel happy." -Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

"When heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on any man, it will exercise his mind with suffering, subject his sinews and bones to hard work, expose his body to hunger, put him to poverty, place obstacles in the paths of his deeds, so as to stimulate his mind, harden his nature, and improve wherever he is incompetent." - Meng Tzu, China, 3rd Century. BCE.

"If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias in his garden. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that has rolled under the radiator." - W. Beran Wolfe

"People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within." - Ramona L. Anderson

annotated source:
"Csikszentmihalyi's big discovery is that there is a state many people value even more than chocolate after sex. It is the state of total immersion in a task that is challenging yet closely matched to one's abilities. It is what people sometimes call "being in the zone." Csikszentmihalyi called it "flow" because it often feels like effortless movement: Flow happens, and you go with it. Flow often occurs during physical movement - skiing, driving fast on a curvy country road, or playing team sports. Flow is aided by music or by the action of other people, both of which provide temporal structure for one's own behavior (for example, singing in a choir, dancing, or just having an intense conversation with a friend.) And flow can happen during solitary creative activities, such as painting, writing or photography. The keys to flow: There's a challenge that fully engages your attention; you have the skills to meet the challenge; and you get immediate feedback about how you are doing at each step (the progress principle). You get flash after flash of positive feeling with each turn negotiated, each high note correctly sung, or each brushstroke that falls into the right place. In the flow experience, elephant and rider are in perfect harmony. The elephant (automatic processes) is doing most of the work, running smoothly through the forest, while the rider (conscious thought) is completely absorbed in looking out for problems and opportunities, helping wherever he can." (Haidt, 95)

[Haidt, Jonathan. The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. New York: Basic, 2006. Print.]

What does it take for us to engage ourselves into this state of "flow"? It seems quite easy to enter into the state. Do something you love and let your thoughts be submerge in it. However, it is not as easy. Don't deny it, but even when we are doing something we love, our thoughts drift away from the task, away from the current location, away from the moment. It is not because we do not love or enjoy what we are doing, but we tend to take on too much at the moment even if we are not available to do everything we wish to do. (Example, you are at work, sitting in the office, but your mind thinks of the dry clean that needs to be picked up, the fridge is empty and needs to be filled, the dog needs to be walk, the meeting tomorrow. Your mind is capable of adding all these task to your to-do list, however, just relax, you are not able to do those things at the specific time. Why not let the body take care of it later. Check off the to-do list with both the body and mind as a unit of one, instead of letting the mind do it on its own, because the body still has to do it, again later. Why not do it once and for all?) We cannot enter into that state of "flow" if we are split in terms of the location of our mind and our body.

summary:
I more I think about the driving force of my project, the more I think of the my own search for understanding of something that is as fleeting and intangible as shooting stars, contentment. I am in constant search for my own peaceful state of mind. I am frustrated, sometimes, at my own lack of ability to be in the moment, to be both mentally and bodily in the same place. It has prompted me to extend beyond myself. By studying others, I hope to learn something about myself. From where I started with photographing people in their space, doing their thing, it was too indirectly. I had hope for the individual to uncover something about themselves that they had not realized. I gave them the chance to analysis themselves, but the result was not very focus.

With what I am doing now, I believe it to be more direct. I am asking them straight on to identity their state of mind. The physical locating of their body is visual available, the portraits capture the individuals where they physically and bodily are. The writing helps me to locate where their subconscious has taken them. All of this brought the idea of happiness to mind. I was told that happiness was being in the moment. The experience of contentment was being both physically and mentally present, both in sync with one another. This is harder done than said. Because our minds are drifters, our subconscious is the elephant that loves to roam and graze. And the rider sometimes has trouble steering the elephant and keeping him at a stand still.

simon tarr: lecture question and response

Visiting Artist Lecture: Simon Tarr: November 9, 2010
"Simon Tarr made his first movie at the age of eight. The strip of film was fashioned from sandwich bags taped together, with spaceships drawn on it. The projector was a shoebox with a lamp in it, the lens was a magnifying glass on the end of a toilet paper tube. The film premiered on the wall of his bedroom, where the film melted after a few seconds.

Since then, Simon Tarr’s films have been screened on every continent (yes, even Antarctica) in hundreds of film festivals. His prior eleven films are available on DVD from Netflix and Amazon, and as digital downloads from QuarkNova.com. He has performed his live VJ shows at conferences, festivals and clubs from Tokyo to New Orleans and everywhere in between."

1. How is done? Is there an equivalent conversion for elements from the music DJ to a video DJ? Is the only difference the visual element?

2. With all the technology and knowledge that you have come up with, why not mix multiple movies instead of using only clips from Nanook of the North?

Three words: spontaneous, bold, indifferent

Tarr's lecture was not as informational as I would have liked it. I only learned of how he did what he did, but his explanation for the drive or what he enjoys about the aesthetic that is present in his work wasn't told. I was more interested in why he portrays the content that he did, in the way he did. I was please to hear of his methods in working, "hunting and gathering", it is certainly a journey working in that way. The outcome and the product is unpredictably and I am learning to work in that way now too for my project. What I wish Tarr had done, was also explain to the audience the reason he chose to incorporate the combination of footage that he did for each of the shorts he showed.

I was not very fond of the sound that accompanied the pieces. The visual elements were too chaotic and ruthless. I understand and enjoy the abstraction, but I feel even in abstraction there is a flow, I did not feel a sense of flow in some of the pieces. The visual imagery for some part was rather eye-sore.

The performance piece with Nanook of the North was probably the strongest piece shown and the most intriguing piece. The technological aspect was absolutely fantastic. I really enjoy the way a movie can be broken down into so many different elements that can then all be control separately and on the fly, the sound, the text, the visual clips, the color, the speed, and repetitions, the scale, the transparency, the transitions, etc. I cannot imagine the numbers of fingers it would take to control all those things simultaneously. It is so exciting to know and see that everything is happening within seconds, controlled right there on the spot. I think with that kind of progression in technology, I felt the pieces performed could be more engaging and more in-tune with the audience. I feel that the psychology of color, sound, and imagery can be played better to fit the audience. If the performer can gauge the audience in what works and what doesn't, it would be more successful. There needs to be an action-and-responds kind of analysis. What seems to perk up the audience should be taken advantage. Certain crowds might enjoy a more tranquil show while others need loud sounds shocking aspects and up beat dynamic visuals to evoke a response. Tarr definitely has thought about that when he talks about whether he should be seen or un-seen during the performance. I feel if he was seen and in a position where he could watch the audience's facial expressions, it would benefit for making a show that causes the most response from the crowd, if people seem bored with an imagery, spice it up and wake them up with something new. I guess the "energy" that he spoke about just was lacking that night. I have no doubt that the energy does exist, just not the other night.

artist entry: week 11: november 08

Chad States: photography: men at their most masculine

interest and relations:
State's process in this work interest me because of his lack of specificity. Even in the proposal, State chose to intentionally state his project in a way that welcomes a wider range of subject than the project title would thought to have addressed. The lack of predictability falls on the subject's definition of masculinity as well as how the subject chooses to present it. I enjoy seeing the effect of control being given to the subject by the artist. States says "I want them to construct their identity for me, not for me to decide what I want from them. Because of this, every shoot is different, with different desires on the part of the subjects being manifested in the shooting process." I am learning to embrace the nature of unpredictability in my work as well and to make unexpected elements work. I also love seeing the subject reveal a bit of themselves to me, something else I enjoy is the surprise the subject experience learning something about themselves that they did not know of before. I want to see the honesty. It is somewhat a win-win situation for the subject and the artist, myself. The honesty that they bring to the project only only helps them to find themselves and in a way help me find myself through that.

biography:
"Men at Their Most Masculine" was a photography project Chad States began by posting "Are you masculine?" on Craiglist in search of folks who identify as masculine and why. I intentionally leave it gender-neutral so males, females and transpeople feel free to respond. The intention was to showcase a range of people who identified as masculine and photograph them on their own terms in to inspire discussion on masculinity.

One thing I did notice through the project was that masculinity was mostly seen as an innate characteristic, something the subject possessed regardless of outward appearance."

quotes:
"I am interested in using photographs to challenge definitions. I am attracted to undefined grey areas where perception can not always be trusted; areas in which the photograph proves everything and nothing simultaneously. The subjects of my investigations vary as do my methods of investigation." - Chad States

"The quotations that are the titles of the photographs come from the subjects during our initial email exchanges. If they are interested in participating in the project I ask them why they consider themselves to be masculine. I then use the resulting answers as the titles. In this way the subjects are given more of a voice and it often adds another layer to the photographs." -Chad States

images:

Liz, “When I wear men’s clothes I feel comfortable and confident in how I look on the outside which now matches the inside.”

Luke, “I am masculine because I abandon women after taking their love. Because when you study Freud, you don’t let him study you. Because I study philosophy, not literature.”

Greg, “I feel most masculine when I am lying in bed naked.”

Dex, “First off, I’d say I’m masculine because of how I feel inside, who I am, and how I carry myself. In a lot of ways my masculinity is tied to my male gender role and how I want to project that and be perceived by others.”

Mike, “I want to show that, despite stereotypes, gay men can be masculine too.”

review, artist & gallery link:
http://www.chadstates.com/
http://www.50contemporaryart.com/gallery/2008-exhibitions-June-Chad-States