While looking around for an object to call to peoples attention, I had noticed some plants underneath benches that randomly grew out of the concrete. Although this was not good enough for me until I stumbled upon a small plant in the designated smoking area with a cigarette next to it leaning upwards as if the plant was actually smoking. This was a tiny object that I wanted to call a lot of attention to and so I first started out by trying to create a large mass of white yarn to look like smoke coming from the cigarette, with red surrounding the plant and the cigarette to show how harmful it is for you even though this plant is the last one standing. After having that go completely wrong while I was presenting it and the whole thing fell apart. I had decided to just create my original idea. So I went back out to it and sat around for fifty minutes and wrapped one layer at a time, a mass of red yarn surrounding the tiny green plant and its cigarette. Since I had done that, people have been stopping by and asking why the plant has a cigarette and what I was doing. Since the plant is so tiny and in such a hidden place, I was relieved that everyone could see it from the front as well as behind since the yarn wrapped around both the front and back legs on the left side of the bench. The red allows the yarn to not only look good next to the green like on christmas morning, but also draws a lot of attention due to the brightness and randomness of it.
Monday, February 25, 2013
PROJECT NUMERO DOS:
(I tried to sum up my explanations as little as I could)
WOOD:
1.) Ring around the Woodsy
The reason behind this piece is simple, all real wood comes from trees which are living creatures who have their own lifespan and a way to tell it. Every piece of wood that hasn't been tampered with, I've noticed had those rings throughout the whole piece. I wanted to emphasize this by collecting many cut pieces of wood and trying to connect those rings they have. Kind of like connecting the dots. I created a physical piece because it shows part of the trees life span more than any other method. Each has their own unique story to tell.
2.) Now that's sturdy!
For this piece, I decided to use a simple picture rather than the video of my roommate and I staking the desks. I wanted to show the woods true form which always consists of structure and strength. It takes a lot to knok down the actual tree itself. This is continued in its new life as (most of the time) furniture. Although it's not as sturdy as the tree itself due to the lack of roots, the furniture itself is still strong. The desks are holding up everything I had covered it with along with everything they are filled with, yet they do not fall. This also shows that you can transform wood into another structure after making it into a specific piece of furniture. Don't try this at home though!
3.) Ouch, and you think a paper cut is bad
All of my life I've gotten many splinters from wood. For this video I was going to give myself a splinter on purpose in order to show this, and ended up accidentally giving myself one from the video of me trying to knock down the tree. I wanted to show this because all wood has fragments that are tough, including the outer bark and all. There are other items that can give us a sort of splinter, but wood is the main one. I wanted to show just how tough it is for me to get a splinter out because of it being so small compared to the original tree. I'm drawing by trying to relieve me of this object which ends up taking a longer time to get rid of. Splinters are not fun, so I do not recommend you trying to give yourself one.
4.) Nothing weird, just getting to know you
One thing I have always noticed about wood, was the textures and how they very. I wanted to show texture of wood and how it leaves its mark in a different way from just tracing a tree. In order to do this I thought about wearing my whitest tube socks so the marks would show and I wouldn't get cut. I basically picked out three trees and rubbed both of my legs against them. The funny thing is, that I have always wondered if the trees themselves could feel anything since they are living creatures, and the very first second I go to rub my legs against one of the trees, a girl laughs as loud as she possibly can making it seem like the tree was laughing as well. After doing this for about ten minutes, I had decided to stop and see the marks left on my socks. The different textures didn't show as much as the wood shavings and the dirt they held. Plus I had received a few amount of splinters by doing this. If you look at the socks though you can see some of the dirt scraped through with thick lines showing the texture of one of the trees. Whether or not it was a good one, the trees left their marks on me.
5.) Budge!
This project I had created was to again, show how strong wood really is, especially when it's still attached to the tree. Here I took a video of myself trying to push a huge palm tree down with just my bare strength. I only wish I could make the sounds a bit louder because you could really hear my heavy breathing after all of this. I tried using all my strength, pushing with my hands, with my back, and nothing worked. The wood was too strong for me to push down. In the end I just kicked it and gave up after my great defeat.
6.) Cover your ears
This final project on wood, I had decided to do something a little different and showed the sounds side of the wood. Meaning I wanted to expand on the fact that wood is a solid object and makes a lot of noise that we normally forget about. I thought about doing this because of listening to construction workers and working in wood shop. In the video I start out hitting the board on the ledge as hard as I possibly can, then getting softer and then louder again. By doing s, I tried to show the different pitches the wood has and can make repeatedly, with ought breaking. I love pieces where objects and actions just repeat or drag on and so I wanted to do the same with this video.
Eradication:
1.) Childhood Memories
When thinking of eradication, one of the first things that popped into my head was the thought of eradication of the mind. Having an aunt that lives with Alzheimers, I've always thought about how our brain erases memories throughout our brains daily without us even noticing. Some memories go so deep that they are erased completely or forgotten. Especially about things we did days ago on a plain old boring day. This brought to my attention those old memory games I used to play when I was a kid. You would have to memorize where the word or picture was and find it as fast as you possibly could. That is why I drew my own memory game. I had drawn it in a little kids, simple cartoon style to emphasize it being a game as well as making it harder for me to figure out which is which because you can't see through the back of them. Playing it I had realized that I was right, and my brain was not able to draw out the exact location I left myself. I played this a few times but only decided to show me playing two times because each time it was the same.
2.) The art of smashing things
This was a simple idea of mine after viewing a half crushed animal cracker on the floor. I wanted to show the eradication of food in a different process rather than just eating the breadstick. Here I had set everything in the place I wanted it and slowly counted down and stepped on the breadstick with more force each time, driving it into the paper. I was drawing out eradication with my bodies weight as well as its movements. Even though the food did not erase completely, the particles broke down more and more to show its own form of erasing.
3.) All scary things will soon be gone
Much like last semester, I wanted to do another make up piece. This time I didn't cake it on and drag it out as long. I wanted to show this because of the process it takes everyday to doll yourself up and have it just eradicated through steps as the day drags on. Whether it's waterproof or not, makeup wears off like everything else you cake on your face. To show this in a shorter amount of time I had sped the video up and did the whole thing in one sitting and then rewinding it to give the sense that its being erased by the very tool that made the mark. By drawing the marks, eradication is clearly easily seen.
4.) The Incident
One of the saddest moments of a college students life is to lose money, whether they are buying something nice for themselves or not. I chose to show a video of myself taking out 80 dollars from my bank account in order to buy myself a very expensive Bob Dylan vinyl record. I started out with the bank and a picture of my wallet and the money to show how I had the money at the time. After this I showed "The Incident" where I bought my album from the record store owner and then showed a picture of my new amount in my wallet as well as my cash spilling out and running away from the wallet. This whole video is done as if it is a commercial warning people to watch out for something very serious because I think the eradication of ones bank account is very serious yet funny when you think about it in this specific way. That is why I chose to put in all the words and the change leaving in the end. The eradication of my bank account just multiplied the store owners.
5.) Holy Eraser!
This is not water! Although it involves water, I wanted to show eradication a bit more clearly by showing inked water leaving the cup through holes and draining down the sink, erasing from the top side. By adding the blue ink, I allowed the water to be seen a bit more clearly. I drew by poking holes in specific places to not only show the holes I poked, but to also show the different levels you have to poke in order for the water to drain a specific way. It was best shown in a video because it shows the time laps of the water leaving rather than pictures which take forever.
6.) Shaving off a few pounds
About two years ago, I had lost about 60 pounds going on a raw food diet. That is the number one eradication Americans want for themselves is to have the fat disappear off of the, and lose weight.
Since it is not possible to show this time laps in this time frame, I had decided to take a series of pictures of me shedding the clothes right off of my body like how fat sheds off of it. I put on many layers, layering the bigger and stretchier clothes on top to make my body appear bigger. I had an unhappy looking face on the whole time to emphasize the struggle during this process. There I just stripped down until I had one layer left. Although this video had not been blurry when I made it, after uploading it on youtube, the part where I took my pants off had mysteriously blurred, probably due to youtube. This works in a way showing how people are normally private about their weight. But other than that it is a very straight forward video that shows the eradication of clothes as well as weight.
Transparency
1.) What privacy?
I had created this transparent tape backpack in order to bring attention to privacy. Normally people don't go around saying, "Hey! Guess what i have in my bag!" Most of the time we are reserved with our belongings. That is why I decided to make a transparent backpack and put normally hidden items in it . This included:
1.)Tampon and Pad
2. Pills
3. A Small COndom
4. A I love Justin Beiber picture
5. A Phone number
6. Social Security number
7. And a stuffed animal
I wanted to exploit this and bring it to everyones attention by drawing out the bag and layout.
2.) Through the Looking Glass
I wanted to create something physical for this project to show how transparency is like our eyes or when we wear glasses. Looking closely at the picture, you can see the tiny transparent square in the middle in front of everything, zooming in on the even tinier squiggles. I wanted to show how our eyes perceive us and how they are like a magnifying glass. There's a reflection there, yet you can still see straight through it unlike the mirrors surrounding it.
3.) Your Never Too Old to Play with Bubbles
Recently, the other day I was washing my hands and accidentally created giant bubbles out of the soap. Because soap its own unique form of water, it is transparant. However, it's in it's own expendable form. I wanted to show this in greater detail by placing the camera right underneath me and show the bubbles forming right over the camera. I also wanted to how how this type of transparency plays with color and light. If you look really closely, there is always a rainbow type pattern in a bubble. Because of this along with the shape of the bubble (like a funhouse mirror), sometimes bubbles portray different colors than what is seen.
4.) Now you see me, now you don't
Each of these pictures represents a series of transparent projects that I had created and wanted to put together. I wanted to emphasize the fact that we are not always aware of our surroundings and so I wrapped some everyday items the girls in Ponce always visit. I even noticed how some of the girls did not even notice the transparent tape around the vending machine slot and kept asking each other why it wasn't working until they finally noticed the tape about 5 minutes later. I wish I had caught that on tape. But it shows how little we pay attention at times.
5.) Tracing paper, taste the Transparency
For this specific transparency project, I wanted to focus on how transparency allows objects to overlap as well as mix together. In order to do so, I had created six peace sign hands, all identical, and colored them specifically one color. I then had placed them in a variety of different patterns to see how much the transparency would allow the colors to mix while the forms were overlapping. The colors themselves did not quite mix in as much as they showed through the other side besides the purple and the blue one. But in each picture it is easily readable, that transparent objects can easily overlap one over the other and show up through the topside.
6.) A little too close for comfort
Transparency and distortion. Although it is true that a lot of transparent objects distort figures by magnifying or just leaving everything looking the same, I wanted to focus on how most items distort the figures. I have noticed that tracing paper is a good example of a cloudy type of transparency that doesn't show the object quite clearly. I decided to take a few pictures with it and see how deformed it made my face since it wasn't clear. In the first picture, I had wrapped it around my face making me look like a demented creature that could have possibly been associated with Harry Potter or Surrealism. The transparent paper wraps to the curves in an odd way that makes it seem as if my face was jagged and more boxy. In the second picture I decided to stick my tongue out and lick the paper which made my tongue the actual color it is. The rest of the colors in my face are drained away due to the paper. In the last picture I had decided to get the transparent paper wet to see if it would distort my face still. This time the colors bled through more clearly along with the light, making it seem like half of my head was gone. Transparent objects will do that to you sometimes.
Tape:
1.) Now that's what I call sticky
Before:
After:
Video:
I have always wanted to create a duct tape dress and sought this project as an opportunity for me. Although, rather than having the dress in a normal fashion, I had decided to put the sticky side up and stick to things I pass by. I chose to walk around Ponce and St. George street because I not only wanted to experiment and see how dirty the places really were, but to also create this performance and see everyones reactions. I wanted to try and hide the fact that it was tape by making it into a dress, yet show it was tape by the sticky side being up. While making the video, I wanted to give it a sort of funny sense by adding in instant replays as well as effects and sounds. Because when you really think of it, it is a funny concept. Especially when I started sticking to benches and everything else because it was hard to get up due to the stickiness. It was also pretty funny when I was able to hug an actual person and see the reactions of people.
2.) Rundown
I had created these series of duct tape shadows In order to further expand the chalk and tape outlines we see in crime scenes. I had decided to fill them in rather than leaving them an outline because it shows more experimentation with the tape itself and shows it as its own material. I drew my friend Ashley over and over again. Once in the the middle on our hallway in the dorm, another in the middle of Ponce, and the last on the stairs in the student center. Each had been removed except for the one in our dorm which is still there today.
3.) Opposite day
For this part of the project, I had decided to use tape in order to play around with words. Iv'e noticed in most cases that police always have banners or tape that says "Caution: Do Not Cross". I wanted to play around with this idea a little bit by drawing out the words with the tape. Instead of forming words that we already know due to the ways we were taught, I had decided to add on and take away from the words to give them a new meaning. Such as the first one. That was my own recreation of the caution tape but instead I had created the word cross out of tape instead of do not cross. This continues with the fire alarm where I taped the word "pull" and next to the exit sign where I taped the words "do not", next to it. Each picture I had decided to tape the exact opposite of what it was saying to have people notice it and stop and think. Especially with my favorite one, the one with the chair. I wrote stand instead of sit and I found a girl standing on the chair when I walked back into the hall and she was looking up at the celling for something, because she thought the chair told her to do that.
4.) All wrapped up
For this project I wanted to give tape a more 3D approach like the duct tape dress. I wanted to show that tape is a material capable of doing anything you want it to do, especially creating objects. For this I decided to wrap a series of different items to show the different shapes and textures you can make with the tape. These items I had wrapped included a bracelet, hanger, water bottle, and a non slip shoe. Because it is so sticky, it is a great adhesive. Never underestimate the power of tape and what it can do!
5.) Sturdy, or not to be sturdy. This is the question.
For this project I also wanted to go along with a 3D type approach, but a little bit differently. Working with water and noticing how it made paper stronger when you wet it and then stacked it to another piece made me realize that water mixed with paper wasn't the only item that could create something sturdy. I had also noticed that tape was similar when I made the sticky duct tape dress. The more layers of tape, the sturdier it got. Believe it or not, for this project I spent a good fifty minutes just tearing off pieces of tape and stacking them one on top of the other. The more tape I added, the stronger it got and harder it was to bend and rip. That is why I took two process pictures to show just how structured the tape got as well as sturdy.
6.) Follow in my footsteps
For the last and final project for tape, I had decided to show tape in a more formal and emotional way. When I think of tape, I think of the straight lines they make. This made me think of roads and airplane paths and so on. All tape comes in little rolls that are just straight lines that overlap one over the other. I wanted to kinda show my thoughts through tape by making my own path in my dorm hallway. This path consisted of different sizes of arrows that started out big, then got bigger, and then smaller as it approached the door. Originally I had no clue what I wanted to do at the end of the path until I started making it. The arrows reminded me of peace signs due to the three specific lines that are within a circle. To me, they look like arrows. And so I thought of the idea of this being my own path to share with others. The arrows lead me out the doors which lead out of Ponce in a way. This leads to peace. The piece of me starting my own new life once I graduate college and walk out of those doors. I also considered it to be somewhat like the afterlife. For the video I performed me creating the piece as a performance until a huge group of girls walked in the hall and messed with my camera. There I decided to show some of my performance as well as the camera taking its own walk along the path and leading it out through the doors. Tape is sort of like the bread crumbs of Hansel and Gretel in this case.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
FIBER
1.) Human Hair
Before:
After:
The idea behind this experiment came from my painting class. I had noticed that most brushes are created out of horse hair and so I wanted to take that further into consideration and see if my own hair would act the exact same way as the horse hair. Infact, it did. After I carved the brush out of balsa wood and attached my own hair at the end, I used it as a normal paintbrush. I had gotten it wet, then dipped it in acrylic paint, and then painted, cleaned it off with water, and repeated the process till I created a picture. I had noticed that it had painted the exact same way, as well as dried and everything the same way. Therefore, I had created a duplicate of a regular paintbrush. I wanted to further explore this idea by creating more paintbrushes out of different fibers.
