mIn our contemporary art history class tonight there was a really great exchange, not surprisingly the question of “what is art” came up, as it always does. (what other disciplines spend so much time trying to define themselves?) This discourse was largely around the supposed dichotomy between social practice, and studio practice as models. I came home and started thinking about what is common between art forms that are not questioned as art now. And it occurred to me that one element is presentation in one way or another that frames them exclusively, either a white box scenario, or a ticket bought to experience them in a venue specifically dedicated to their “performance”. I am not suggesting that these parameters exhaustively encompass everything "generally accepted to be art", just that work presented in these ways tends to be more easily(or set up to be) engaged with as “art”. What these contexts have in common the more I thought about it, was less about what they include, and more about what they exclude, they exclude distraction.
What if we/I/one were to go to an event, say a protest, festival or some other public event, (or for that matter just a busy place like a shopping mall, or sports event) and offer people either blindfolds or sound blocking headphones to experience the event. by excluding sound, or vision could we intensify the senses left in tact? Would this be a way to replicate the expected context of art, so that a “common” experience could be similar to the experience of art? Could this be a viable strategy to highlight the art in everyday experience?
It seems to me this would be like offering a live sound or visual performance.
Type rest of the post here
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Live Recordings
Sunday, September 23, 2007
first project
Ok, well the first project i am going to be working on came because of the day I took this picture. I had been called back in for a second mammogram.... really scary and lonely feeling. For any of you who have never had a mammogram, you have to go into these tiny 4x4 rooms with a curtain on one side and change into a hospital gown, and then just sit there in this little room with the curtain closed, and people moving around out side of it until they come to get you. They put some stuff on the wall and some magazines in there, but it is really surreal, your are already stressed, and you feel like a lab rat-like your own reality is suspended in this place. On this day when I went into the sadly familiar little room, I found this (in the photo). It was made on the glass of some inane framed print there. It was all made out of weird medical stuff (obviously all the components had some adhesive quality). I felt so great, so connected. I didn't feel so alone. I understood that it was other real people who just like me had been in this room, feeling much the way I did. This little work was like a message through time from some "her" to me.
I got the idea from this is; to go to places where one might be nervous to make, and leave little works, made from materials available there. My idea is that maybe just once someone else will be heartened and feel less alone like I did when I found this.
So far I am thinking about the grey hound station, especially in the bathroom. The court house, and the police station. I will also just do it where ever I happen to be if I feel nervous.
Does anyone have any suggestions, or stories about places that make them nervous-stressed?
Also, if anyone else would like to do this too, that would be great! and if you would or could send me documentation-photo or written, I would love it!
