The End

The end of a very busy semester. Somebody should have warned me not to take 2 classes with Santi in the same semester. He has kept me very busy, but I have to say I have learned a lot. With Art211 the projects were all meaningful to the topic of the class and brought it all together for me. And nobody can say the classes weren't interesting. I was very well entertained in every class. I admit that in some of my other classes I've been watching the clock waiting for the last minutes to pass. I normally have a bit of ADD, not ADHD, not the hyperactive part, but the drifting attention part. But in this class I was always 'there' right up until the last minute and often was surprised that it was so late when class ended.
I started out this semester with a dark cloud hanging over me. My mom had just died at the end of July while I was in Australia so I couldn't even make it back for the funeral. She'd had Alzheimer's and had been declining for a couple of years so really I had been losing her gradually over a long period of time but surprisingly that didn't make it any easier to deal with her finally being physically gone. I guess deep inside I, like my father, was still harboring some hope of a miracle saving her at the last minute. How silly us humans are.
I started the semester feeling like I'd now have a lot more time to work on assignments for classes because I wouldn't be helping take care of my mom, but that I didn't really feel motivated so much anymore. I was hoping that the cloud would lift as I got back into school and maybe it has a little but I still don't feel quite normal yet. I think we don't allow enough time for grief in our society. When we lose people we love we're expected to be sad for a little while but at the same time we're expected to be back to everyday normal activity the next week. For me, I was in the middle of a film studies class in Melbourne so I had to keep going, keep working on my film to get it done by the end of that week, so no time to grieve really until later. My nephew filmed the funeral for me so I could see it when I came back. That's the footage I used in my video art piece so it was very personal for me. I guess this sense of loss I'm still feeling has made me look back over life and realize how fast it has all gone by, how your kids grow up right in front of you and you may love who they've become but you still find yourself often missing them as little kids. I'd love nothing more than to be able to go back in time for one day and spend it with my kids at their ages then. Sad that I want to hug my 5 year old when he has been replaced by a 21 year old and that I want to visit my 3 year old daughter, a time when she was a sweet little girl. As much as I love her sharp wit these days I'd love to visit her back when she was all innocence and carefree attitude. And my biggest regret when it comes to video is that I didn't get my mom on video very much at all. Somehow I never noticed that she was avoiding the camera and I didn't go out of my way to get her on tape, concentrating more on getting the kids preserved on video. So, the longest bit of footage I have of my mom is this one of her in her coffin being carried to the grave....a sad thing to have to say.
This class has helped me to pull out a little bit of the creativity that I've been squelching for years while working mundane jobs. I was artistic when I was young but I got sidetracked by practical things. Now, when most of my friends are planning their retirements, I'm accumulating new debt to get more education. How absurd is that? It's doubtful I'll live long enough to pay off the student loans, especially since I have a parent plus loan I took out to pay for my daughter's first year of college that's in deferment along with my own, but I'm having fun experiencing college, sucking in as much knowledge as I can, and trusting that I'll end up better off for it in the end.
One other thing I've learned this semester-I'm not capable of going without sleep anymore.....no matter how much coffee I drink.

Video Art- Human Race

Embracing Deconstruction-Performance Art

Paul Allen gives inside stories about Microsoft

 Paul Allen's new book Idea Man came out recently. In it he tells his version of the development of Microsoft and its progress as a company. This past week he was interviewed on 60 Minutes, revealing how one day he overheard a conversation between Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer in which they were discussing how they could go about diluting Pauls share of the company down to almost nothing. This was while he was fighting a battle with stage 4 lymphoma. He walked in on them and they realized he had overheard their conversation so later that evening Steve came to his house to apologize.

You can watch the clip from 60 Minutes here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7363070n&tag=topnews

In his book Paul Allen reveals that Microsofts strategy was to closely watch the competition, quickly seize their ideas and run with them, making them seem to be their own. This isn't exactly surprising news since that seems to be the strategy that Microsoft was built on, scavenging ideas from any possible competitors and putting them out as fast as possible. It worked with windows and the mouse so why not keep doing it?

My Life in My Hands-Xerox Project

I started thinking about how I could relate xeroxed parts of my body to who I am as a person and it made me think about the interaction of my hands with objects during different aspects of my life so I decided to make a sort of tree of my life with branches of my hands and different items that have some meaning to parts of my life. In a way I felt like this was acknowledging the fact that I have a bit more life experience than most of the other students, something that often makes me feel a little out of place or out of time. I was going to explain all of the items on my tree but I think I should leave it up to the viewer's imagination. These are the objects on the tree: band-aid, rain poncho, car, joint, mascara, baby pacifier, baby bottle, condom-one opened, one in package, losing lotto ticket, screwdriver, laptop hard-drive, dice, white-out, pain medication, assorted bandana's, hot sauce packet, super-glue, pop rocks candy, a mini-light. At the top I have my eyes in their glasses mounted on my open hand with two hands covering the area where my mouth would be if the open hand were my face. You could take this as an expression of shock but to me I think it's more an expression of how I've gone through most of my life being a quiet observer, not saying a whole lot, so I'm watching but not contributing my voice. This is something that I'm working on changing even though it has kept me out of trouble at times.

Leigh Bowery

In 1988 Leigh Bowery did a show in  Anthony D'Offay's Gallery in London in which he was dressed in varieties of his ostentatious outfits and makeup and simply spent time interacting with himself and a lounge chair. He did this behind a glass that was mirror on his side so that he didn't see the audience watching him but only saw himself. While this was going on random street sounds were playing. This gave the people watching him from the other side of the glass the feeling that they were like voyeurs watching him primp and pose for himself in the mirror, things that most people wouldn't normally do in front of an audience. Watching the videos of his performance made me wonder what he was thinking when he was doing it, wondering if he became so self absorbed that he forgot there was an audience watching him or if the fact that he was on display for others to watch him was always in his mind and influenced every move he made. I also wondered if it would have influenced him at all if instead of not being able to see the people watching him if there had been maybe a small tv on his side of the glass that would show him the people watching him and their reactions. Would he have then played to the audience and would that have changed any aspect of his performance or would he have done everything exactly the same? From the opposite perspective I wonder if he had been able to see the audience and if they had known he could see them would that have caused people to react in different ways to what he was doing? It would be interesting to me to be able to see what people's reactions were at the time. I think someone should have been video taping the people viewing the performance. Since it ran for days I would be curious to see what the average length of time was that people stayed and watched and if very many of them returned to watch more than once. 

The Shock Value of Art-Orlan

Orlan likes to go for the shock value of art. Her work encompasses many things that people would find shocking, especially conservative Americans. She uses her own body in her art in ways that many people might say is degrading and irreverent. I'm pretty sure the Catholic Church would not like her at all. She is expressing herself and her work definitely provokes a reaction in her audience. I think the one area of her work involving surgeries might be considered by many to be a little over a line between art and absurdity. Of course, it is fairly shocking to have surgery done as a work of performance art. But for her it's kind of just an extension of the use of her body in her art. Some though, would see it as a desperate cry for attention. If a person were to go sit on a street corner or other public place and proceed to hammer nails into their feet or saw off a toe it is very likely they would end up getting locked up for a psyche evaluation. If that same person were to do the same thing in a gallery with witnesses and a camera rolling and call it performance art, does that make it art? One might say that Orlan did not cut off any appendages but many would see the things she did have done as a mutilation of a type. It's all a matter of perspective which is influenced by ones own moral values and life experiences. I choose to believe that a person has a right to do what they want with their own body and if they want to offer up themselves as an expression of art then they should do it. Some will see it and view it as art and others will see it and view it as shocking or possibly disgusting. Either way it will get attention and illicit a reaction and if provoking thought and reaction is the goal then it is a success.