Filed under: Performance Art
For the performance piece I was inspired by a massive spool of bubble wrap hanging out in the hallway of my office. I thought to myself, “How cool to be all wrapped up in that stuff”. So that’s what I did. I went around NYC wrapped up in my personal bubble. I was thinking about how while New Yorkers are always surrounded by hundreds of people, we also have a way of knowing how to put ourselves in our own little bubbles. I figured I’d take it to the next level and see how/if people responded.
I had but one rule:
Do not speak directly to people about the bubble wrap outfit. If asked, merely hand them a note card with “This is my personal bubble.” typed on it.
Aside from that, I went on with business as usual.
I got reactions across the board. Everything from rolled eyes to “You express yourself guuuuurrrrllll!”, from “I love your dress, did you buy it?!” to utter repulsion (“what people won’t do for attention these days”)…
Filed under: Random
So, I subscribe to The Observer’s Very Short List and today’s golden nugget of information led to Nate Kensigner’s blog. I think it’s very appropriate for this class. The 30-yr old photographer shows parts of NYC that you may not know otherwise.
From VSL:
In a city as well traversed and celebrated as New York, it might feel like there’s not a picturesque sight left unseen. Enter Nathan Kensinger: This 30-year-old photographer takes powerful pictures of unexplored and surprisingly beautiful places you won’t find in any guidebook.
Kensinger publishes two photo essays a month on his Web site, and the affection and respect he has for these forgotten places are apparent. Whether they’re depicting the stretch under the Coney Island Boardwalk, littered with fake sharks, deck chairs and love nests, or the abandoned 1917 Wrigley Building on Staten Island, covered in bright graffiti, Kensinger’s pictures are striking, and often quite moving. Our favorite? The photographs of the Jewish Machpelah Cemetery in Queens, which houses the remains of magician Harry Houdini; covered in weeds, many of the tombstones have had the names and dates washed away, leaving only blank slates. As Kensinger notes of the abandoned cemetery office that stands near Houdini’s grave, “The once beautiful building is now home to a large family of pigeons.” Now that sounds like New York.
http://kensinger.blogspot.com/
Filed under: Public Art
I had a lot of fun with this project. Although the actual execution of the installation wasn’t exactly as I had planned, people’s reactions surpassed my expectations. And in the end, that’s what matters (to me, at least).
I had initially envisioned taking my long strips of paper and wrapping them around tall tree trunks so that about 10 ft. of tree trunk would be completely covered in the paper. Upon realizing that a spool of paper at Staples is about $17 and only 5 yards long, that original vision begrudgingly dissipated. [note: 2 min. after buying the Staples paper, I headed over to ITP to prepare. Noticed a massive spool of paper hanging out right next to the women's bathroom. Awesome.]
As you’ll see in the video below, I ended up just taking long strips of paper and hanging them on one side of the tree. One strip of paper said “Poet-Tree” on top and displayed a written poem, while the other piece of paper just said “Poet-Try” on the top and was left blank with sharpies attached to it in hopes that people would stop and give poetry a try.
Success!
As expected, a lot of people did a second-take as they strolled by, but kept on walking. A few stopped to read the Poet-Tree, and while the first couple people needed a little coaxing, I later bowed out of the picture entirely and people started to throw their words onto the Poet-Try tree.
A few notable moments:
The first girl to write on the strip of paper ["I believe in the victory of love" (M.M.)] was with a friend. They came by right as I was wrapping up the taping process. She spotted the markers and asked if she could write something. I said yes, of course, and she asked if there was a certain theme/form to which she had to adhere. I said it was totally open free-style and that anything goes. Suddenly she starts spilling her heart out to me…getting into how she had broken up with her non-boyfriend (long story) the night before and why is love so complicated and how do you know when to hang onto something or if it is really love, etc. etc. In the middle of her emotional stream she goes, “wow, I don’t know why I am telling you all of this!”. Ah, the power of poetry (even just the idea of it).
In general it was fun to see who actually grabbed a marker and went for it (I think only 2 men participated…hm). Some people got really excited about it, some thought it was funny. Quite a few people took photos and at least three people mentioned that they were tweeting about it. Sweet.
But my most notable moment is this: I decided to grab some lunch about halfway through. I realized that this sort of invited the possibility of someone stealing the sheets of paper, but hey, that would have just been part of the experience. Plus I was extremely hungry. Before I left, I noticed that all of the sharpies had fallen to the base of the tree. My dental floss/duct tape hanging device proved ineffective. My growling tummy clouding my judgment, I figured people would probably steal the Sharpies while I was gone, but again…it’s all part of the process.
I returned an hour later. Markers were not by the base of the tree. I sighed and mentally shrugged my shoulders. What are ya gonna do? It is NYC and I sort of expected people to take them. BUT WAIT! I walked around the tree and all three markers were hanging beautifully on the poem! Someone had taken the time to re-string and re-anchor them. Little things like that get to me and my heart seriously melted for a moment.
Anyway, check it out:
Filed under: Audio
For my audio tour I decided to gather sounds from the 9th St. Community Garden. Upon listening to the files at home, my instant reaction was to add surrealistic components to the piece. I wanted a lion’s roar, a crashing thunderstorm, horses going wild, etc. BUT, I knew this would all be a little ridiculous w/ no context. Therefore, I decided to have a tangible text accompany my audio piece. The text is five “found” diary entries from a woman thousands of years ago. The entries indicate that her village is undergoing some sort of apocalyptic experience.
Here are the entries:
2 September
Although people dismiss my observations, it’s been different lately. The air smells cool and the wind whispers warnings but I fear I am the only one listening. The children still play, the festivals drum on, but I know something’s coming. Something larger than me, my family, and my village.
Watching my little Jonah play with his peers this morning, I could have sworn I heard the breath of a beast beneath the hum of our small community. But perhaps Richard is right; maybe the insomnia is creating these illusions.
7 September
I knew it. It’s as if nature is turning against itself…or at least against us. Things are reverting to their elemental wildness. The rain won’t stop. I am trying to quiet my intuition but it’s screaming: disaster, destruction, the end.
Already houses are flooded, trees are losing root and joining the raging rivers. Where do you go when there’s nowhere to escape? We wait. But for what?
8 September
Four elders, two infants– gone.
Horses are going crazy. Mysterious mayhem.
12 September
My own Jonah in the middle of the night. Tree struck by lightning crashed through the roof of his bedroom.
Nothing
can describe the emptiness…the unexplained evil of these days.
16 September
Nearly everything is demolished now. What was once such an abundant, beautiful community teeming with joy and trust has been ravished by the Gods. What did we do to deserve this?
I can hear it in the distance.
The silence.
The absence of all that once was.
I can only hope that one day the beauty of this place will live again. Tonight I surrender to the flood.
Soon this shall be a place with no name.
Listen:
Filed under: Public Art
Public Art
Last class we were asked to find something on the street and use it as inspiration for a public art installation. Finding stuff on the street is one of my favorite NYC things to do, actually. You should see the stuff I’ve collected (and now have in my apt): tiger figurine, ninja turtle figurine, tiny bell, eggplant magnet, etc. SO, limiting myself to just one thing on the street was a challenge.
I came back to class with the following:
A nicely whittled stick
A lost gardening(ish) glove
A poem entitled “Happenstance” written by a guy on the street
A billion cool ideas seeped in and out of my mind while considering possible art installations. The issue with most of them: $$, time, general lack of resources. For example, I’d love to erect a giant “wailing wall”-type structure in the middle of some large corporate building plaza (similar area as “tilted arc”). I would call it something like the Wishing Wall though and small pieces of paper and pens would be provided, encouraging passersby to write their wishes/hopes/dreams on a piece, fold it up, and stick it in one of the nooks and crannies of the wall (made out of stone). Clearly, this is not possible for this project…but an idea nonetheless.
What I’ve actually decided to do is this:
Take a long piece of paper (around 10 feet long) and with thick magic marker, write a poem on it (exact poem yet to be determined). Then I will take the strip of paper and wrap it around a tree trunk (exact tree location yet to be determined).
Poem inspired by the Happenstance poem. Wrapping poem around tree inspired by whittled stick; instead of whittling away at the bark though, we’re adding a new layer.
Potential part II of installation (inspired by glove and the act of pitching in):
A tree next to the poet-tree (cool how that sounds like “poetry”, eh?) will have a strip of paper of the same dimensions wrapped around its trunk. But, this strip of paper will contain only various/random words scattered on it (maybe with these words on the top: Poet, try!). There will be several Sharpie markers hanging from strings attached to the tree branches. The hope is that people will grab a sharpie and jot something down on the sheet of paper in response to one of the words. The end result would be something like “citizen poetry”…people off the street contributing their own piece to one massive poem.
Filed under: Random
http://significantobjects.com/
I came across this site during one of my midday “I have no motivation to work” cyberspace jaunts. I am now in love with it. In a way it reminds me of Ilya Kabakov’s “Monument to Lost Glove” that we discussed in class yesterday. Giving meaning to lonely little knick-knacks whose tales have whithered away throughout the years…
So…this site: The contributers (some heavyweights among them: Susannah Breslin, Claire Zulkey, Lydia Millet, and the New Yorker’s Ben Greenman, etc.) take these random tchotchkes, or otherwise forgettible/forgotten objects, and give them a new, completely fabricated story. This makes the objects significant. I love seeing how these various objects inspire textured narrative.
Anyway, thought it may interest you guys. I have subscribed to the site and will be bidding on…everything. Toy toaster? Yes please!
From the site:
THE IDEA
A talented, creative writer invents a story about an object. Invested with new significance by this fiction, the object should — according to our hypothesis — acquire not merely subjective but objective value. How to test our theory? Via eBay!
THE PROJECT
- The project’s curators purchase objects — for no more than a few dollars — from thrift stores and garage sales.
- A participating writer is paired with an object. He or she then writes a fictional story, in any style or voice, about the object. Voila! An unremarkable, castoff thingamajig has suddenly become a “significant” object!
- Each significant object is listed for sale on eBay. The s.o. is pictured, but instead of a factual description the s.o.’s newly written fictional story is used. However, care is taken to avoid the impression that the story is a true one; the intent of the project is not to hoax eBay customers. (Doing so would void our test.) The author’s byline will appear with his or her story.
- The winning bidder is mailed the significant object, along with a printout of the object’s fictional story. Net proceeds from the sale are given to the respective author. Authors retain all rights to their stories.
- The test’s results — photos, original prices and final sale prices, stories — are cataloged on this website. The project’s curators retain the right to use these materials in other venues and media. For example: Maybe we’ll publish a book.
THE CURATORS
Rob Walker’s 2008 book, Buying In, and Joshua Glenn’s 2007 book, Taking Things Seriously, examined — using very different approaches — the manifold ways in which all of us, whether we realize it or not, invest inanimate objects with significance. But “significance” is such a hazy concept… so they agreed that it would be both interesting and fun to set up an experiment in which significance was artificially cooked up under controlled conditions and applied to insignificant objects.
Filed under: Photo Assignment
In looking for my “subject du jour”, I walked around the Flatiron District/Chelsea/Union Square for about an hour. I didn’t know exactly what I was searching for, but I knew I sought a gem. A sparse few walking hurriedly along the sidewalk were giving off that gem-esque vibe and as the sun started to sink so did my hopes of finding my new New Yorker. Somewhat distraught but determined to meet this unknown someone, I headed over to Union Square Park. As usual, people speckled the grass, even at 8pm. One man sitting alone struck me. There were several people sitting solo, but something about his posture, calm facial expression, and overall aura seemed to position him in an entirely different realm. Julia’s mission: break into that realm.
I walked onto the grass, plopped right next to him and started chatting. He was more than happy to have a companion.
His name is Nemanja, age 29, originally from Serbia. He was chowing down on some Indian-ish food in a plastic container. He would cup a small portion of nan in his hands, scoop some of the bean/curry/veggie mush into the bed of bread and consume. My first comment was about how incredible his meal looked. He said he had made it at home, offered me a nan, and for the rest of our 1.5 hour chat, we scooped and ate mush out of the plastic container together (and it was delicious).
Here’s a quick rundown on Nemanja:
-Grew up in Serbia and started playing the guitar when he was 12. Instant love. He’s been a musician ever since. To him, music is the most natural thing in the world. Nemanja is very spiritually in tune (continually referred to how important it is to embrace and share your inner light, how love is all there is in the universe, the significance of people’s vibrational frequencies, moon, magnetic pulls, and so on…) and spoke at length about the “small things” in life and how that’s what really matters. He mentioned that within the past couple of years he had gone through a dramatic spiritual shift and was living a life of truth, gratitude and love.
-He has moved around a bit (Serbia, 5 yrs in Amsterdam, an unplanned spiritual quest in India, NYC here and there) but has been in NYC for 2 years now. He recently married a Japanese woman (they met in Union Sq. Park!) and they’re expecting a baby in September. They currently live in Prospect Park
-Thinks the most exciting thing about NYC is the feeling of urgency when it comes to people’s creativity and ideas. He said it’s almost as if people move here ready to burst…or if they don’t move here with their head full of innovative thoughts, the wave will eventually hit them. He described NYC as a city that makes you feel like you need to be doing something creative/different.
I could go on and on, but here’s what really matters:
Nemanja lives in the now (we discussed Eckhart Tolle at length). He focuses on one thing at a time. Notices patterns, symmetry. He said he’ll even go around and cup his hands around his eyes and look at something very, very closely; creating a lens or set of blinders so that he can really drink in one small thing at one particular moment. Like a child, he’ll partially cross his eyes at night time to see fuzzy lights all around him. He talked about how wise children are and how we should use them as an example and try to remember what it is that we’ve lost…
He is very zen; takes his yoga pratice seriously, breathes deeply, takes the time to stop, look, think. He rarely steps back to look at the big picture or get caught up in the potential chaos of NYC. He’s a very “close-up” kind of guy. He’s curious and revels in everyday wonderment. He also loves, loves, loves, nature. Because of this, and the fact that he thinks New Yorker’s don’t smile enough, he doesn’t think he sees himself here permanently. NYC is not “home” to him, but an amazing place to experience and eventually pass through.
He said that New York is a very “sincere and straight” city. As in, artists come here with egos and ideas of instant fame, when in reality NYC tends to erode at the ego first, humbling the artist/person, and then builds up a different kind of character.
He also said something along the lines of how once you find peace and light in the inner world (aka: within yourself), the outside world will reflect that. At one point he reflected upon the human body and commented that although beautiful, it is merely a “vessel for growth” (or, in his quirky accent, a “wessel” for growth).
In my photos I tried to capture things in NYC that Nemanja would look at at see as something special. Things he would choose to focus closely on; things that spark thought. You’ll notice most of my shots are close-up or [attempted to be] symmetrical. This is in an attempt to represent the deep thought/peaceful essence directed at whatever he is contemplating or experiencing. These photos are how I envision NYC is through the eyes of this fascinating, introspective character…
