Time-Based Artist Response Assignment

When I saw Ori Gersht's video of Big Bang (exploding flowers) I was immediately drawn to it. I loved the way he combined violence and beauty. You're so focused on all the different colors of the flowers and how the light catches tiny pieces as they fall. All of his work, though diverse, has themes of beauty, life, violence, and death. Though some of theses themes are hidden in the story behind the image or video, Ori does an amazing job of bringing those contrasting themes together. 

For my project I wanted to take those 4 themes Ori uses, and put my own spin on it. I chose to use the human body as a representation of beauty and life. I applied paint, and scratched/rubbed it off, to represent violence and death. The scratching and rubbing did prove to be quite painful, and after it left behind little pieces of paint on her skin, it reminded me of a decaying body, aka the "death" theme. Originally, I wanted to make a video, but I went back to my roots as a photographer and chose to take pictures during each layer of paint, and after each time I scratched it off, as well as before I even applied the paint to her skin. 

I believe my project relates to Ori's work because it deals with the same 4 themes that he tries to convey in all of his projects, whether they're videos or photographs. When you look at Ori's work, you admire the beauty of it, but once you look at it for an extended amount of time I believe it starts giving off a more sorrowful mood. I think I've accomplished the same effect. When I look at my images I recognize the human body, and how the skin has no blemishes, it's pure and beautiful, but as more and more paint is being put on and taken off the beautiful skin disappears and you're left with "blemishes" and debris left over from the scratching.

Ori Gersht

For the time based artist presentation & response assignment I want to research Ori Gersht. I really love his style, he engages themes of life, death, violence, and beauty. And I really like the contrast of those themes in his work.

I have a few ideas on how I would respond to his work. I want to try to incorporate themes of life, death, violence and beauty in my photographs. I was thinking of photographing a woman with paint and other debris covering her body, the woman would represent life and beauty, and the "dirty" paint would represent decay or death. Time would be represented by the amount of paint increasing. The other idea I had was to buy a bouquet of flowers and photograph them in many different places that you wouldn't normally see flowers; in the street, in a car, in a busy store, the flowers would represent the beauty in life, and seeing the flowers in strange places would be a reminder that everything must die at some point. As time goes on you'll see the flowers start to wilt, get dirty and lose petals.

Performance Art Assignment

For this assignment I wanted to do something a little personal. So I filmed myself getting ready in the morning, because no one ever really sees the process that some people go through in order to look "presentable". You always see people as they chose to present themselves to you. Unless you live with that person for an extended amount time you won't ever get to see them in their "natural" state.

For me, getting ready in the morning is a hassle. I hate that because I'm too insecure with my appearance I have to get up super early every morning just to change the way my hair looks and put on makeup. Everyone should feel confident enough in themselves so they don't have to change their appearance. The makeup companies are just using our insecurities to sell us products that we shouldn't have to use. We shouldn't have to alter our appearance in order to feel good about ourselves.

I put the definition of insecure at the beginning because it's a word that gets used a lot, everyone is insecure about something. And the two other quotes are from two songs that are about being insecure, and trying to accept who you are.

The whole point of my video is just to show people the daily "ritual" I perform in order to feel somewhat confident or satisfied.

Abstracting Place

For this project I chose my bedroom, because bedrooms are a very personal space and I really wanted to be able to show my room from a different perspective. I didn't try to collect specific types of footage or sound, I just turned my camera on and went for it. Even though I took this footage during the day, my room isn't very bright, so I tried increasing the brightness in Final Cut Pro, but I added a little too much and the footage came out looking grey, and almost foggy, but when I played it back I really liked it. The grey-ish tone made the footage look old, and when I layered another video of my rat on top of it, I thought the grey was perfect. I didn't want to manipulate my footage a whole lot, I really like the effect of layering, so that's what I mainly focused on.

I think because my footage was so dark, my finished video gives off a really eery feeling, and the spinning motions almost make me feel dizzy. Over all I get a really uneasy feeling about this place, aka my room. When I was in the process of editing, the sound was the last thing I added. And I almost like my video being completely silent, but I think the slow clicking of the TV with the faster spinning of the video contrast each other, the sound isn't edited (except for being layered with another sound) and just repeats, and it makes me feel like something else should be happening, like there should be more going on.

Sonic Space

For this project I didn't really have any idea of what I wanted to do with all of my sounds, I collected 13 sounds, and used all of them. Most of the sounds were from doing things I usually do every day, like taking vitamins, filling up a water bottle, feeding my pet rats, turning on lights and shutting doors, the rest of the songs were from things I heard naturally around my house, the dogs barking, cats meowing etc.

At first I didn't want to manipulate any of the sounds, but I ended up reversing a few of them because I like the way it sounded completely different from the original sound, and I didn't really want any of the sounds to be recognizable, so I built them up creating an overwhelming sense of anxiety (at least thats what I felt after listening to it.)

I think this piece sort of represents my mood throughout the day, it starts off with only a few sounds until it builds and builds, and after a while it gives me a headache from all the different sounds going off at once, and it's hard to concentrate on just one. Until finally each sound drops off and I'm left with the noises of my rats in their cages. So overall, it's like a map of my day through different sounds. And when I listen to it I get headache, just like the headaches I get throughout each day.

Sound Preview!

Deep Listening..

I decided to do my listening exercise while I was waiting in Ovalwood across from the auditorium.
It was about 9:30pm, so most people were already on their way home. At first all I heard was the fan systems going on and off, and then as I kept listening I could hear faint knocking sounds, maybe coming from the fans, I thought I kept hearing people talking far away, but I couldn't tell. I also thought I hear someone walk in the far right door and then turn around and walk out, I even thought I saw their leg. (I think I was just freaking myself out). I heard the ladies who work in the cafe putting things away, I could hear the wind swirling around the building, and through the trees. And then I did hear footsteps and keys jingling, it was security checking all the doors. My listening experience was really creepy, especially because I was alone, at night, and it was storming.