Category Archives: Foundation 4D 2 – G6

Final Project, Research

4D II Project 2 – Individual Research

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  • Santiago Sierra
    • Santiago Sierra is a performance artists that has caused waves in his exploration of capitalism: the exploitation of workers and immigrant poverty. One of his most controversial works was when he blockaded the entrance to the Spanish Pavilion in 2003, during the  Venice Biennale. He only allowed entry to Spanish passport-holders; a form of discrimination. He has also questioned the nature of employment in art institutions – he paid a museum watchman to live for 365 hours behind a wall at MoMA. In another installation, he filled the Kestner Gesellschaft museum with 400 tons of mud (a reflection on the creation of a Hanover lake using unemployed people as cheap labor).
House in Mud (2005)

 

  • Maurizio Cattelan
    • Cattelan has done many controversial works commenting on the ‘readymade’, seemingly lackluster effort in many modern contemporary artists’ work. He has stolen an entire artist’s show from a gallery and tried to sell it as his own, titling it “Another Fucking Readymade.” However, his most controversial work was “All”, a Guggenheim retrospective.  He hung his work from the ceiling. However, what was hung was high-end, valuable internationally collected art suspended in the air from cables.
“All”
  • Guillermo Vargas
    • Guillermo Varga’s work is controversial for his installation featuring an emaciated dog. He featured the words “You Are What You Read” behind the dog, the letters spelled out with dog food. The controversy behind this work is that the dog died after the exhibition from starvation, but Vargas argued that no one who saw intervened by feeding the dog.
“You Are What You Eat”

What I have learned from all of these controversial artists, is that they make headlines and draw attention because they focus on work that is very of the ‘now’. What I mean by this is that within their given contexts, they exhibit and display work about things that they notice and observe about society today. Specific things that they want to comment on, the things that they believe are affecting society today. For example, Sierra’s work on immigrant discrimination and capitalism is something that has affected human behaviour and he creates a very glaring, obvious commentary through his performance art. What I have learned from my research is that they take aspects of life that surround people (e.g. contemporary ‘ready made’ art, capitalism) and bring it into the limelight. Such things make us (as the audience) uncomfortable because we choose to live amongst things that may be otherwise morally wrong, and to face it head-on through installations or performance art is forcing us to face it ourselves, that this is the society we live in.

Project

4D II Project 2 – Soundscape

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AN URBAN MESS

SoundCloud Link

ARTIST STATEMENT

“An Urban Mess” is a soundscape that draws you into the overlaying of sounds that exist in modern living. I wanted to create an auditory environment that evokes a scenario of being in a bedroom in the city, or in a very busy urban place. We tend to think of our bedrooms as a place of peace and quiet, but often times that isn’t the case. I noticed that the whirring of fans or the hum of air-conditioners combined with our constant laptop typing, phones, and outside noises we hear in our room combine to give quite a chaotic scene. My soundscape shows a contrast between what we think is ‘quiet’ in our rooms with true quiet – which I think is our breathing and our heartbeat. This piece goes from the chaos of a regular urban, modern life to something that we tend to forget we need in this time of noise and busyness.

CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT AND RESEARCH

I initially wanted to explore soundscapes in nature, like the ocean, or a forest, or a desert. However, while I was trying to think of ideas in my room, I started to realise how noisy everything was around me, even though I was in a space where I was the only person.

Watching movies that take place in city areas like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and The Devil Wears Prada helped me realise just how noisy everything was. I wanted to include city aspects like sirens, but also largely focus on what happens when we’re alone and seemingly ‘at peace’ in our rooms.

The largest part of my research stemmed from the in-class activity where we were tasked with recreating a zoom recording using other items (e.g tapping on a water bottle) to imitate/mimic a sound. My final soundscape uses much more organic sounds that aren’t hard to recreate, but the process educated me on how to use a zoom recorder. I learned about its sensitivity and how to operate it properly.

I also learned how to use audio-focused software; operating GarageBand to help me edit my soundscape. Layering and adjusting fade-ins, fade-outs and other aspects of audio was time-consuming but worth it, as I gained more knowledge of another software. A challenge for my project was figuring out the sequence and layering for my audio files, as I have a lot of different sounds that are going on at the same time. I eventually decided that I wanted to contrast a lot of sounds with true quiet. My version of true quiet is breathing and a heartbeat.

The effect that I was going after was making the listener realise the essence of true quietness in an urban world.

My Work, Project

4D II Project 1 – Alter Ego

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VIDEO

 

STORY LINE

The storyline of this film follows through the interview of a girl some people could describe as pathetic. Coming to a therapist to discuss her problem with mediocrity, the girl – who remains unnamed – talks about why she’s come in the first place. Outlining roughly the thoughts that go through her mind about her place in the world, we come to realise that she is someone who is characterised by a sort of ‘empty’ ambition. Immortality, fame, all the rest is what she wants. She wants to be the best, to be legendary.

However, she looks at everyone as someone or having something to be envious about. Making comparisons to piano players and painters, we don’t see any focus to her speech except wanting to be great. But she herself doesn’t know why she’s so envious of everyone. As a person, her character is one that is slightly paradoxical. Great ambition but without great aim, she wanders aimlessly in a mental wasteland of her wants – without any plan of action. Concluding with the very thing that plagues her, she ends with the futile realisation that no therapist can help her problem with mediocrity.

CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT/RESEARCH

Starting with the character of Antonio Salieri from Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, my research took me into not just visual composition, but the composition of time. The film is directed by Miloš Forman.

The film/play is directed as a ‘flashback’. That is, Antonio Salieri is the narrator, telling his own story from first person as the play/film cuts to scenes that relate to what he is saying. I wanted to do the same for my project, so I made the overlying narrative one that is a dialogue between me and a therapist – the character I’m playing has a problem with mediocrity (which is Salieri’s main gripe with life).

I had to look at stills of the film to see what kind of visual composition would work for me (see below) and I decided on the typical ‘interview–interviewee’ scene. But this would be overlaid with cutaways to different scenes (randomly chosen) to show the confusion that exists in the character’s mind. As a result, the film itself has thoughts and sequences that are slightly convoluted.

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My cutaway scenes have a focus on nature (and the world around you) to show contrast with the character’s insistent focus on herself and her own mind.

The above idea (about the odd structured randomness of my project) came from my professor after consulting with her about my idea. The cutaway sequences were initially going to follow what I was saying – illustrating the script (which can be seen below under storyboarding). However, her idea was to make it more interesting by being slightly confusing as well; the script and the filming are simultaneous and parallel in their characteristics. In that way, the film itself can also become a supporting entity for the character that I am acting out.

Challenges included trying to write a script that accurately incorporated Salieri’s traits, as well as organising the cutaway scenes to nonsensically ‘make sense’, if you will.

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STORYBOARD

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RESEARCH AND EXPLORATION

TASK 1 – List 5 characters from literature/fiction which whom you have a special affinity.

Ashitaka (Princess Mononoke)

Salieri (Amadeus)

Howl (Howl’s Moving Castle)

Azula (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

Aomame (1Q84)

TASK 2 – List 5 public figures.

Hayao Miyazaki

Alexander the Great

Jesus Christ

Wes Anderson

Haruki Murakami

TASK 3 – List 5 people you know or have known.

Ashley

Crystal

Theresa

Yuta

James

TASK 4 – Take two from each list and write a brief description of what qualities each person represents and what dilemma seems to typify them. Explain why I have an affinity to these characters. 

Ashitaka

His dilemma is the fatal curse he’s been inflicted with, yet he represents the will to keep on living (a difficult trait to persevere with). Ashitaka’s purity in his desire to celebrate the life that exists on the earth is something raw and beautiful.

Salieri

Salieri’s dilemma is the uprising of the young and talented Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (rivalry and threat) and he represents the very raw, very human anger, jealousy, and insincerity when it comes to matters of the self. Selfishness is what connects me to him.

Hayao Miyazaki

Miyazaki’s dilemma exists in the meaning to his works and the meaning to his life – which, ironically, he’s resigned to letting it flow as it may. I have an affinity to this great director because of his acceptance of the incidences of living.

Alexander the Great

His raw, powerful and roaring ambition of the ancient world. To be great and to be known, I want to experience the same successes, to achieve the same potency in history. Alexander’s hunger is what connects me to him.

TASK 5 – I have chosen Salieri. First person. 

In class, we were made to do an exercise where we wrote  a letter from the point of view (POV) of our character. In hindsight, we could also easily use this as a form of expository narrative for our video. The script for my letter is below:

God, 

I often wonder at the incidences of Your hand. Though the passing  of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is in the past, I am plagued. Was I not your instrument? Did you not come to me as a child, with my promise to devote my life, my music my work to you?  

…

To be stuck, rotting and rolling in this living corpse of flesh is agony, to listen to the timelessness of a man I disposed of; God, You truly have dealt Your best hand. I accept my fate. I will expire when your sentence has been complete. Yet, I pray You remember this – I will still exist as another god. Mediocrity is a passing bloodline, no matter how tragic. 

– Antonio Salieri

The letter, in effect, needed to be understood in the context of Amadeus. But as this project is entitled “Alter Ego”, I will not be acting as Salieri, but have some of his traits be part of my character. Analysing the traits of Antonio Salieri gave me these characteristics:

  • Selfish
  • Competitive
  • Self-centered
  • Manipulative/plotting
  • Pathetic (often self-pitying)