Monday, April 29, 2013

Distortion of The Real

This video is my take on Jean Baudrillard's ideas of simulation. In it, I suggest that women are constantly manipulating themselves in order to appear more attractive to society. They put on a mask, as Baudrillard would say. In fact, a new survey has found that over 50% of women are not happy with their appearance without some sort of cosmetic. Nowadays it seems as if makeup is no longer used as a tool for enhancement but, rather, a security blanket that conceals negative feelings.

In my video I had originally integrated numerous clips such as cosmetic commercials, sections from the TV series Toddlers and Tiaras, and a news report that told of a mother who injected botox into her 8 year old girl. However, this was too much footage to edit down to a three minute video, plus it got to be a bit congested and choppy.

Instead, I decided to start off the video with makeup tutorials that swarm YouTube. These exist to help girls achieve certain looks that they are so desperately seeking. In addition, I also included a slideshow of female celebrities. We are constantly having images of "perfect" women thrown in our faces, so seeing these people in the media obligates us to attempt these same looks. The black and white clippings are of myself covering up what is real and putting on a mask in order to appear more attractive to society. The audio used are sections of songs by Fergie and Madonna, which I thought both fit very well. The audio that concludes the video is just a segment from one of Jenna Marbles videos in which she discusses what a girl's makeup says about her. Here's a link to Jenna's YouTube channel.

Finally, here is a link to my video which I have posted on YouTube. I should also note that the audio in this YouTube video is a bit different than the original, for some reason the audio seems a bit muffled on the clips of the female celebrities. This is not the case when I view my video in Quick Time. Hope you guys all enjoy!

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Bill Viola Convocation Reflection



Although Bill Viola is like super famous, I have to admit that he was quite the let down after the Lynda Barry Convo. I guess that was to be expected though since she was so darn good and entertaining. Anyways... I will sum up my thoughts on his convocation in two words: commencement speech. It totally reminded me of the oh-so-typical talk I heard when I graduated high school, and I'm sure what I will here when I graduate from Lawrence. He kept addressing us, students and talking about our "future journeys." He gave us a lot of life advice as well, such as learning from our enemies. To me it was all just a little too much and kinda weird. I also thought he was kinda corny, for he used phrases such as, "we are all artists because we are all creative."

Fire Woman (one of his works presented at Convocation)

I don't know, maybe I am just being a little too harsh because in the end I really enjoyed the message he was portraying. I enjoyed his insight on what creativity and inspiration are, and it was neat that he informed us on what inspires him. In addition, I was attracted to Bill Viola's work, and his video that he opened with, Fire Woman, was pretty impressive. In the end, I was able to get over his cornyness (I don't think that's a word), and focus on his message and his artwork. He truly is, as Rachele stated, a leader of artistic innovation.

Here is a link to his website.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Project 1 Reaction to "Simulations"

When given the task of capturing a photograph that explores the ideas of the hyperreal as describe by Jean Baudrillard in his book, Simulations I immediately thought of how women in American culture are a perfect example of what Baudrillard was writing about. Everyday almost all women in the United States start out their day by applying make-up and doing their hair in order to look more attractive and put together. They put on a mask in order to cover up their flaws or perhaps enhance their already existent beauty. However, in either case women are distorting what is real. Baudrillard uses the term "unmasked" to signify realness, and that "realness" is exactly what I tried to capture in my final photograph.

The first step that I took was to talk a set of 100 images to simply develop and expand upon some ideas I had running through my head. Here are 15 of those photographs which I have made available through my Flickr account. The first few are more literal in that I have no make-up on and my hair is messy. However, the silhouette images are more symbolic and portray the message that every girl is kind of in the shadows, for society sets unrealistically high expectations for women and their images. We never really see what women truly look like, and that goes hand in hand with what Baudrillard discusses in Simulations.

The second step was to narrow my 15 photos down to 6 and then print them on 8x10" pieces of paper. The following 6 images are the ones that I chose to print:

Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

Image 4

 Image 5

Image 6

From here I went on to chose 2 photographs that I would print on a scale of 17x22" and present them for a classroom critique. These are the two that I chose:

17x22" print #1

17x22" print #2


After viewing these prints I was really disappointed in how they turned out, for they were extremely pixilated. In the end I decided against both of these photos and ended up picking the following photograph for what would be my final image:
30x40" print

I like this image better because not as much of my face is visible, and I really like the whole "profile" look which I steered away from in my second 17x22" print. This final image will be printed on a scale of 30x40", and I am anxious to see how it will turn out. In order to get a preview of what the quality will be like when I print the final product, I printed the below image on an 8x10" print. I was happy with how it turned out, so my hopes are high for my 30x40" print. 

 8x10" preview


I also thought I would include my original of this photograph, just so you guys could see some of the alterations I made. Well, that's a wrap for this project. I'll keep my fingers crossed to see how the final print comes out!  


Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Sonja Thomsen Reflection

Sonja Thomsen creating Trace of Possibility
 
          Sonja Thomsen's Shifting the Frame lecture given yesterday left me with a mixture of emotions about her work. I did not enjoy parts of her work, yet most of her exhibitions really sparked my interest and were appealing to me. I liked the ideas and concepts behind her work, and I also thought that her interest in time, light, and the act of making could really lead her in a successful direction. Here are links to Sonja's blog and website.

          Sonja started of the lecture by discussing how she was influenced by Charles and Ray Eames' 1977  Powers of 10 film which depicted the relative scale of the Universe. She then went on to give the audience a brief background of herself which included informing us that she was a liberal arts student studying Science and Studio Art. After her undergrad Sonja went on to the San Fransisco Art Institute.

          Throughout her  lecture Sonja discussed several of her completed projects. The first one she mentioned was entitled, Permission to Wonder, in which she peeled away figures from a series of photographs taken by the ocean. Questions such as how small does the ocean make you feel and how long has the ocean been around ran through her mind as she made this series. As viewers approach these figures in galleries the images start to fade. Sonja argues that the same thing occurs in our daily lives.

         Sonja then went on to show a photograph taken on Lake Michigan by Harry Callahan. She mentioned that the lake "is really part of her visual consciousness" since she grew up in Milwaukee and saw it nearly every day. Ronni Horn also influenced Sonja's work. Horn's work, such as You are the Weather, take a lot of time, and Sonja feels the same way about her work. The artist then briefly talked about her photographs of mud puddles and of bodies of water. I feel as if anyone can go to Mount Rainier or Lake Michigan and take the photographs she did. These photographs were one of her projects that did not impress me.

          On the other hand, her sculpture piece entitled, Trace of Possibility did impress me. I like the materials that she took advantage of and how they felt heavy and light at the same time. It was really fascinating how the piece could be seen as both a cave and mountain, and I particularly liked how she portrayed perception and depth. Trace of Possibility was inspired by her time in Iceland which she found to be a place of contradictions. For example, she mentioned how the country is white with snow, yet black from all of the lava. This piece was impressive to me because it was Sonja's first sculptural piece and she was able to hire an assistant thanks to a grant, yet still physically engage with her own work as she completed it.


Lacuna 2009

          I will now discuss why I absolutely loved her project Lacuna. Lacuna is a collection of 75 photographs that she constructed into constellation. She mentioned that the word "lacuna" means "gap in knowledge," and that it is a metaphor about memory and aging. Throughout the piece there are images of landscapes, friends and family. My favorite aspect of the piece was that there was interaction amongst the viewers, and that the piece changed and developed as audiences came through and interacted with it. In addition, I particularly liked how she said that her favorite part of the piece was being able to take ownership of the piece. I think Lacuna is her best project for theses reasons in addition to the fact that the piece reflects her theme of relating to time and space.