Lecture #2

Performer at Heart

Genevieve Erin O’Brien, even just in a lecture, was extremely compelling. I could tell she was a performance artist by the way she carried herself and spoke. The way in which she conveyed meaning to the audience was almost in itself a performance – confident and bold.

In her lecture she said that she wanted to “[have] everyone tell their own story, everyone has one.” I thought this was a fantastic yet simple statement to make. Her piece “The Monk Who Licked Me” seemed to illustrate this concept well. Although the people who got a free hair cut were just as equally “committing to peace,” they all had their different reasons for doing so. It could have been simply for the free haircut, it could have been because they saw someone else doing it, it could have been because they were and still are entirely devoted to peace and strive to create it in anyway they can. Regardless of what their reason was, by even participating, they were telling a story. Their very different and various stories told and shared helped to create an entirely new story – one that was looking for peace. Genevieve Erin O’Brien asked these people, “what is peace, what does it look like?” To this, and furthering her opening statement, she got a variety of answers. People define peace according to their own experiences and in a way, like the artist, perform and interact with the story they tell themselves. Genevieve Erin O’Brien mentioned that idea that like art, people have their individual relationships to peace and to war.

This idea made me think of my own relationship to art, peace and war. I have been surrounded by art more than war. Peace seems relative so I am still not sure where it fits into the mix. I know people in the military, but does that make me in any way closer to war itself? Or peace? These questions are ones I will and should continue to ask myself. I realize, though, that my answers are based upon the story I tell myself about what I’ve been through, what I’ve seen, what outcomes I project out of peace, art and war. I wonder if they are ever the same? The outcomes seem relative to those involved also.

Questions:
1) How do you deal with negative responses (and do they get physical) to your performance pieces?
2) What was the most surprising reaction someone had to the “Monk Who Licked Me” piece?

Lecture #1

Destruction in Art

During Dr. Rocio Aranda-Alvarado’s lecture, I was most engaged by her discussion of Rafael Montanez Ortiz, an artist both interested in the physically body and the destruction of art. Being the curator for the El Museo del Barrio in New York City, Aranda-Alvarado brought a much needed insight (for me) into the Latin (American) art scene. In her lecture, Ortiz became the trigger in discussing the notion that all artists engage in similar ideas, regardless of race. Body and physical destruction are some of those ideas.

Ortiz used his Avant Guard style to portray simple ideas. He was interested in public participation and interaction in his art. I was drawn to the work Ortiz did when he used a chair for a destruction performance. He bought a chair (to sit in) at a big event. Typically, these chairs were coveted. If you bought a chair, it was YOUR chair. After someone had been mistakenly sitting in it and Ortiz was verified by a waiter that he was the “owner” of the chair, he leaped into it, rolled around with it on the floor and just tore it apart. Aranda-Alvarado described people running away in confusion and worry after Ortiz’s unexpected performance. In destroying something as simple as a purchased chair, Ortiz comments of the ridiculousness of “owning” a chair and almost seems to claim that, in the end, it means nothing. It is probably even more entertaining to watch the chairs destruction versus just occupying it. Although, there is something interesting behind the fact that Ortiz actually had to involve himself in the possibly arbitrary act of purchasing a chair before he could destroy it.

Overall, Aranda-Alvarado, shed some light on ideas that many artists of different races share but focused on how Latin (American) artists did it well. I, personally, would like to experiment with producing art and having its destruction become a performance. The production of something can be extremely interesting and has the ability to similarly create thoughts in people. However, watching someone destroy something has the opposite effect. It makes us question why it was there in the first place, does it have a purpose. In Ortiz’s case, we ask if the chair’s purpose is being served? Its representation becomes the performance’s focus. The chair may represent high society, conformity and how money is spent. The destruction of the chair acts as a greater thought provoking art piece that it’s counter part – the creation of a chair.

Questions:
1) If you were personally at the performance where Ortiz destroyed the chair, how would you have reacted? Do you think it’s even possible to predict a reaction?
2) Who is your personal favorite Latin (American) artists and why?

Princess Peach Update #1

I bought a costume! I plan on using this as a basis for my costume and overall appearance. I want to add a bit of cardboard to the dress. For example, I plan on adding a big pendant to the middle of the dress for exaggeration. In addition, I want to stuff the bottom of the dress and maybe sleeves so it's extra poofy. The darker pink overlay will also be cardboard for exaggeration.

Here is the costume I bought:



The main cardboard will be on the head and hair. Here is the file to be printed out for Peach's face.

I'm not sure yet if I want to go with paper craft or just try to mimic the face on my own.

Cardboard!

Serious Game Proposal

I love the chaos in Jason Nelson's work. I have struggled with ideas for this project. I'm passionate about healthy living, whole living and am really interested in the concept of time, how much we use of it, how quickly it goes, how slow it can feel, how we are constantly moving, etc. I think living in America gives us this distorted ideal that we must be accomplishing, we must be busy and coincidentally - we must be stressed. I want to explore these notions of time in my game. I want time to effect my game a lot, the goal (as simplified can be in life) will be getting to a point of relaxation in the mess of images, concerns and daily activities. It will be finding a clearing in a way, from all the chaos. However, I want the player to feel like their never finished. Once that moment of bliss is achieved, instead of reveling in it, the game will move forward into more chaos. I picture lots of images, repurposed images seen daily as well as serene, original images and backgrounds I create on photoshop. These calmer images may be pictures as well. The start of the game will be sunrise, the end sunset (essentially to illustrate how much the player has missed in a day). I'll be taking pictures of both a sunrise and sunset.

Because it took me awhile to collect my thoughts, I don't have as much done visually as I would have hopped but I have been looking at Game Salad tutorials. I'm currently collecting images to repurpose.

I do want there to be a color scheme for everything though, even the images that are supposed to work you up and waste your time. I don't want there to be a strong contrast because I feel like, in life, the things you are told you should spend time on (although you don't want to, although those things won't fulfill you) start to blend in with the things you actually care about doing.

I'm thinking aquas, light greens, light blues, things that are supposed to induce a calm feeling but in the mix of flashing images and maybe loud music, the colors become stressful. However, when the player reaches a state of bliss and calm music is playing, the colors become homey and sweet.

For next week, I plan on mixing the tracks I plan to play throughout the game (one of chaos and one of serenity). I also plan to get a good start in laying the groundwork for all the booleans and for certain clicks, depending on which image you click on (one that is stressful or one that is calming) that will lead you to another screen asking you to do the same. The screens will sort of be random in that which one you click on may lead to serenity and may lead to chaos.

Here's a couple images I've been messing around with to create chaos:

Reading Critical Play Ch. 7-8

The part of Chapter 7 that really drew me in was the discussion of women's role in games. Whether it be playing them, imagining them or creating them, the text referred to the white male still dominating the state of play. I am wondering how this has changed in the last several years. I think it would be ideal to start putting a face on who created the game in the commercial aspects of PR, in magazines, promotion, etc. Although we normally wouldn't directly point to who made the game, if it is a rarity, it would be interesting to see the backstory behind some of the women who are making it in "a man's world."Why did they create the game? Was gender part of the story? We should be documenting trends, especially changing ones. If women are or are not a big part of constructing this gaming world, we should be documenting it. Same goes with a racial minority, etc.

Final

We're still working on finalizing it in widescreen, which should be up by Tuesday.

Artist statement: Our group used a highly digitalized and somewhat humorous game to illustrate a serious scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

What I did: I mostly worked on the post production part of the project. I helped with the initial selection of the clip and continued to help with the ideas and directions circulating the project. I cropped in photoshop to help combine several of the screen shotted images. I worked on the vibrating animation of Hal and definitely worked on trial and error light editing on Hal. The final video has lighting shapes produced by Serina and flashing effects done by me. I also added the headlights for the pods. I added the video to youtube and did the final editing after we, as a group finalized the clips and matched them up to the audio.