Friday, March 20, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Tropical Malady
Tropical Malady is a Thai film directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Weerasethakul defies the grid in the sense that the narrative does not follow a strict chronological order, nor does it obey the restrictions of a particular genre.
Tropical Malady is about 2 men who develop a romantic relationship. The first half of the film is relatively straightforward, but there is some foreshadowing of the ambiguity and mysteriousness to come. In the opening scene soldiers pose for photos with a dead body they found in the wilderness. Later a naked man is seen running through the area where the soldiers found the body. The identity of the dead person or mode of death is not revealed, but the soldiers spend the night with an older couple and their grandson, Tong. Keng is attracted to Tong. It becomes apparent that Keng has been involved with many men, and he seems to be the pursuer in the relationship with Tong. Tong is a bit shy or naïve. The relationship progresses. Keng stops wearing his military fatigues, but Tong is sometimes seen in the city wearing fatigues. Tong’s grandmother takes them to visit a cave, where they are invited to crawl through a small, dark tunnel that could be deadly. Tong wants to go, but Keng balks and they leave the cave. The film segues into the mythical second half, as Tong walks away disappearing down a road into darkness. Keng is a soldier again and is hunting a monster that has been killing cows and villagers. The camera follows the soldier closely through the jungle, giving the impression that he is being pursued. It becomes apparent that Tong is the monster, a werewolf-like human/tiger creature. The soldier catches up to the ghost and they wrestle in a way that is more playful than combative. This scene takes place in a grassy area that appears to be the same place where the body was found at the beginning of the film. Shortly after the wrestling scene Keng discovers the body of a dead cow, foreshadowing his own death. Time is conflated and confused as shots of Keng perched in a tree appear both at the beginning and toward the end of the jungle sequence. At the end, Keng ends up crawling on all fours and the monster appears perched on a tree branch, while Keng is on the ground below.
I see a gap or crack in the shifting of rolls between pursuer and pursued that happens during the second half. Between the action, there are many longer takes of the dark jungle environment. Interspersed throughout the jungle sequence are illustrated, storybook images and a narrated myth. As Keng faces difficulty in the hunt a monkey tells him that either he must kill the beast or let it kill him and become a beast himself. In the end, while on the ground below the tiger he says, “I give you my spirit, my flesh and my memories. Every drop of my blood sings our song. A song of happiness. Do you hear it?” My interpretation of this statement is that Keng is surrendering himself completely to the relationship with Tong. He has transformed from his former promiscuous lifestyle to a deeper relationship. Rather than turning away from the unknown darkness, as he did in the cave, he gives himself up to it.
Tropical Malady is about 2 men who develop a romantic relationship. The first half of the film is relatively straightforward, but there is some foreshadowing of the ambiguity and mysteriousness to come. In the opening scene soldiers pose for photos with a dead body they found in the wilderness. Later a naked man is seen running through the area where the soldiers found the body. The identity of the dead person or mode of death is not revealed, but the soldiers spend the night with an older couple and their grandson, Tong. Keng is attracted to Tong. It becomes apparent that Keng has been involved with many men, and he seems to be the pursuer in the relationship with Tong. Tong is a bit shy or naïve. The relationship progresses. Keng stops wearing his military fatigues, but Tong is sometimes seen in the city wearing fatigues. Tong’s grandmother takes them to visit a cave, where they are invited to crawl through a small, dark tunnel that could be deadly. Tong wants to go, but Keng balks and they leave the cave. The film segues into the mythical second half, as Tong walks away disappearing down a road into darkness. Keng is a soldier again and is hunting a monster that has been killing cows and villagers. The camera follows the soldier closely through the jungle, giving the impression that he is being pursued. It becomes apparent that Tong is the monster, a werewolf-like human/tiger creature. The soldier catches up to the ghost and they wrestle in a way that is more playful than combative. This scene takes place in a grassy area that appears to be the same place where the body was found at the beginning of the film. Shortly after the wrestling scene Keng discovers the body of a dead cow, foreshadowing his own death. Time is conflated and confused as shots of Keng perched in a tree appear both at the beginning and toward the end of the jungle sequence. At the end, Keng ends up crawling on all fours and the monster appears perched on a tree branch, while Keng is on the ground below.
I see a gap or crack in the shifting of rolls between pursuer and pursued that happens during the second half. Between the action, there are many longer takes of the dark jungle environment. Interspersed throughout the jungle sequence are illustrated, storybook images and a narrated myth. As Keng faces difficulty in the hunt a monkey tells him that either he must kill the beast or let it kill him and become a beast himself. In the end, while on the ground below the tiger he says, “I give you my spirit, my flesh and my memories. Every drop of my blood sings our song. A song of happiness. Do you hear it?” My interpretation of this statement is that Keng is surrendering himself completely to the relationship with Tong. He has transformed from his former promiscuous lifestyle to a deeper relationship. Rather than turning away from the unknown darkness, as he did in the cave, he gives himself up to it.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
My work is about identity. I want to understand how people define themselves outside the common one-line identity tags of race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, social class, nationality, home of origin, current living place, body type, or profession. What does it mean to be an individual human?
I am an object maker, as unfashionable as that may be. If not making work at the studio I am baking, knitting or in some way creating objects.
In studying identity I ask myself how much personal information I should reveal in the work. All art is inherently about the maker, but how much personal information is appropriate to expose directly?
I am an object maker, as unfashionable as that may be. If not making work at the studio I am baking, knitting or in some way creating objects.
In studying identity I ask myself how much personal information I should reveal in the work. All art is inherently about the maker, but how much personal information is appropriate to expose directly?
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Email at the University is like a 9-5 racquetball game. 9:10 hits and my Inbox is flooded. All day messages keep flying toward me at various angles. There is lull for lunch and a rush after. Nearing 5:00, the pace slows. Then there are the professors who do their emailing at 11:00 at night. I swing and serve as quickly as I can. Reply, archive, delete, delete, spam, star, reply, archive, compose, label, archive, delete, label, reply all, archive, delete, delete, delete...
reading through my blog postings from a few years ago, i miss the vulnerability and humor that i expressed then. now i'm always writing "appropriate" things. blogs about personal stuff are hard to focus. who is reading it? i do want to express myself, but i don't want something i say on a whim that will negatively affect my career. i could limit the readership to the people i invite, but that would feel a bit claustrophobic and cowardly. i've only had 23 visitors in the past month, so it's pretty safe to write whatever. maybe i should put a disclaimer on the blog.
my head is so full of academic seriousness, i'm incapable of saying or doing anything creative. :-p
my head is so full of academic seriousness, i'm incapable of saying or doing anything creative. :-p
Friday, January 30, 2009
Boots: Take 1
I bought these boots when I lived in New York. I worked in a grey cubicle on the 30th floor of a building on 3rd Avenue. My cubicle wasn’t next to a window, but I considered myself lucky because I could see the window from my desk. Just a little bit. I could see sky and the 30th floor of some other buildings.
I’d been looking for boots for months and must have tried on hundreds of pairs. I wanted some that didn’t wrinkle at the ankles and were tight on my calves. These ones fit the ankle requirement pretty well, but there was a gap at the top between the boot and my calf. So, I paid the $200 and then took them to a cobbler in Astoria. It was a long walk from the part of Astoria where I lived. I had never been to that area before and, it was dark out when I got to the cobbler’s. He was an old man with a thick accent. He seemed not only from another place, but another time. His whole shop was like stepping into a Greenfield Village exhibit, but finding it full of soul. Anyway, I left my boots there for a week to get the tops taken in and an extra layer put on the bottom to protect the soles. I can’t remember what those are called, but the women in my office told me I should get them so that my boots would last longer.
Once I picked up my boots from the cobbler, the tops were tight and as a result the ankles wrinkled. I was so upset. Why aren’t there any boots that fit right?! Are my legs that weird of a shape? God!
I never wore the boots with skirts because I was so self-conscious about the wrinkly ankles. They reminded me of 80’s slouch socks with clunky heels awkwardly hanging off the bottom. Or of my mom’s ancient riding boots that she had kept in her closet with rolls of yellowed and frayed newspaper in them since she went to college before I was born. But I did wear the boots with my grey or black slacks (I had a brown pair of ankle boots for my navy slacks). My legs looked so much longer. They made me taller than all the women in my office, except Kimberly, and I was eye-level with my boss. I found excuses to escape my cubicle to go downstairs and walk the long marble corridor that connected the 3rd avenue building to the Lexington avenue building. No one was ever in that corridor, just the clunk-pat, clunk-pat, clunk-pat, clunk-pat of my heels. At lunchtime, I walked on the street between the buildings, past construction workers sitting on the sidewalk, backs against the cement wall below the Dress Barn shop window. I felt like my grandmother walking past whistling construction workers on her lunch break from the Dublin uniform factory in the 1940’s.
Now that extra layer on the bottom has long since worn through and I haven’t replaced it since I don’t wear the boots anymore. I tried wearing them twice when I lived in Berlin, but walking on well-worn cobblestones was difficult and the distances were too long for heels. Now, the square toes are sooo not cool and who wears heels that high in Ann Arbor anyway?
I’d been looking for boots for months and must have tried on hundreds of pairs. I wanted some that didn’t wrinkle at the ankles and were tight on my calves. These ones fit the ankle requirement pretty well, but there was a gap at the top between the boot and my calf. So, I paid the $200 and then took them to a cobbler in Astoria. It was a long walk from the part of Astoria where I lived. I had never been to that area before and, it was dark out when I got to the cobbler’s. He was an old man with a thick accent. He seemed not only from another place, but another time. His whole shop was like stepping into a Greenfield Village exhibit, but finding it full of soul. Anyway, I left my boots there for a week to get the tops taken in and an extra layer put on the bottom to protect the soles. I can’t remember what those are called, but the women in my office told me I should get them so that my boots would last longer.
Once I picked up my boots from the cobbler, the tops were tight and as a result the ankles wrinkled. I was so upset. Why aren’t there any boots that fit right?! Are my legs that weird of a shape? God!
I never wore the boots with skirts because I was so self-conscious about the wrinkly ankles. They reminded me of 80’s slouch socks with clunky heels awkwardly hanging off the bottom. Or of my mom’s ancient riding boots that she had kept in her closet with rolls of yellowed and frayed newspaper in them since she went to college before I was born. But I did wear the boots with my grey or black slacks (I had a brown pair of ankle boots for my navy slacks). My legs looked so much longer. They made me taller than all the women in my office, except Kimberly, and I was eye-level with my boss. I found excuses to escape my cubicle to go downstairs and walk the long marble corridor that connected the 3rd avenue building to the Lexington avenue building. No one was ever in that corridor, just the clunk-pat, clunk-pat, clunk-pat, clunk-pat of my heels. At lunchtime, I walked on the street between the buildings, past construction workers sitting on the sidewalk, backs against the cement wall below the Dress Barn shop window. I felt like my grandmother walking past whistling construction workers on her lunch break from the Dublin uniform factory in the 1940’s.
Now that extra layer on the bottom has long since worn through and I haven’t replaced it since I don’t wear the boots anymore. I tried wearing them twice when I lived in Berlin, but walking on well-worn cobblestones was difficult and the distances were too long for heels. Now, the square toes are sooo not cool and who wears heels that high in Ann Arbor anyway?
Friday, January 23, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
I read Goffman's "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life" for my performance studies seminar. Although dated, the book makes the point that we are all performing all the time. In the "Communication Out of Character" chapter, he talks about people switching from front stage to backstage activity, and refers to the backstage as the place where people are out of character. If we are performing all the time, perhaps we are simply performing different characters, none being either in or out of character. If the out of character person is also a performance, is there a true self? Perhaps our true natures are expressed when we most believe in our performance.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Poe - The Man of the Crowd
Benjamin - The Arcades Project
Baudelaire - The Painter of Modern Life: The Artist, Man of the World, Man of the Crowd and Child
Jenks - Watching Your Step: The history and practice of the flâneur
Phantasmagoria
a: a constantly shifting complex succession of things seen or imagined b: a scene that constantly changes
http://www.merriam-webster.com
The Flâneur
A man who strolls around a city observing the phantasmagoria. He sees himself as other, separate from the goings on that surround him. Baudelaire's painter is a flâneur. Jenks mentions "Baudrillard tied the flâneur to the armchair in front of the TV set." Perhaps the equivalent now is the Internet surfer.
I appreciate Jenks' observation that the flâneur is inherently male and that the position of women in public is quite different than that of men. He maintains that women only go out in public with a function, they do not stroll. I disagree with this statement because women do stroll as much as men (at least during daylight hours). However, at this point no one does much strolling at all in the USA. Everyone is busy and walks with a purpose, if they walk at all. There is no time for strolling. Rather than move our bodies and observe the world around us, we sit and consume a mediated version of the outside world through TV and Internet.
In Poe's story the narrative voice is the flâneur. He appears to have very little interaction with the people around him. The flâneur exists in the space between the office and the dwelling. Benjamin discusses the development of private individual places of dwelling that serve as refuges from the work space. The dwelling contains objects evoke nostalgia for a better, past world. He observes traces of individuality in the public realm. Now iPods and cell phones prohibit aural observation and create more distance between the stroller and his/her surroundings. Public space is becoming ever more privatized. Portable music devices perform a similar function to the collections Benjamin mentions serving as refuges in the time of Louis Philippe. Listening to one's personal music collection, while on the street creates and interior space that evokes feelings, memories and a sense of identity.
Over the past semester I sought to incorporate a sense of play into my art practice. Some of the artists I most admire (e.g. Alexander Calder, Tim Hawkinson, Vik Muniz and Ann Hamilton) walk a fine line between work and play with the art they produce/d. I believe that this sense of play creates a magical quality, which in combination with intellectual investigation, generates the best art. Baudelaire writes, "But genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recovered at will - a childhood now equipped for self-expression with manhood's capacities and a power of analysis which enables it to order the mass of raw material which it has involuntarily accumulated."
Benjamin - The Arcades Project
Baudelaire - The Painter of Modern Life: The Artist, Man of the World, Man of the Crowd and Child
Jenks - Watching Your Step: The history and practice of the flâneur
Phantasmagoria
a: a constantly shifting complex succession of things seen or imagined b: a scene that constantly changes
http://www.merriam-webster.com
The Flâneur
A man who strolls around a city observing the phantasmagoria. He sees himself as other, separate from the goings on that surround him. Baudelaire's painter is a flâneur. Jenks mentions "Baudrillard tied the flâneur to the armchair in front of the TV set." Perhaps the equivalent now is the Internet surfer.
I appreciate Jenks' observation that the flâneur is inherently male and that the position of women in public is quite different than that of men. He maintains that women only go out in public with a function, they do not stroll. I disagree with this statement because women do stroll as much as men (at least during daylight hours). However, at this point no one does much strolling at all in the USA. Everyone is busy and walks with a purpose, if they walk at all. There is no time for strolling. Rather than move our bodies and observe the world around us, we sit and consume a mediated version of the outside world through TV and Internet.
In Poe's story the narrative voice is the flâneur. He appears to have very little interaction with the people around him. The flâneur exists in the space between the office and the dwelling. Benjamin discusses the development of private individual places of dwelling that serve as refuges from the work space. The dwelling contains objects evoke nostalgia for a better, past world. He observes traces of individuality in the public realm. Now iPods and cell phones prohibit aural observation and create more distance between the stroller and his/her surroundings. Public space is becoming ever more privatized. Portable music devices perform a similar function to the collections Benjamin mentions serving as refuges in the time of Louis Philippe. Listening to one's personal music collection, while on the street creates and interior space that evokes feelings, memories and a sense of identity.
Over the past semester I sought to incorporate a sense of play into my art practice. Some of the artists I most admire (e.g. Alexander Calder, Tim Hawkinson, Vik Muniz and Ann Hamilton) walk a fine line between work and play with the art they produce/d. I believe that this sense of play creates a magical quality, which in combination with intellectual investigation, generates the best art. Baudelaire writes, "But genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recovered at will - a childhood now equipped for self-expression with manhood's capacities and a power of analysis which enables it to order the mass of raw material which it has involuntarily accumulated."
Sunday, July 06, 2008
tillmans show
I went to see the Wolfgang Tillmans show at Hamburger Bahnhof.
The video of peas boiling was fascinating, inspiring. A mundane act translated to the screen rich with texture, color and movement. The work in the show is so varied - compiled text messages, photo prints taped to the wall with scotch tape, large scale abstract color photos hung from clips, photos of newspaper clippings, short videos of colorful everyday processes - it's clear that Tillmans lives a full life with his eyes open. Although he takes his artwork seriously, his creative process flows organically and playfully from what he observes.
I also enjoyed the Alicja Kwade sound installation - several speakers at head height, arranged in a circle, playing a collage of clips from The Wizard of Oz and other children's classic films, all women's voices saying things like "It's beautiful", "Oh my god!" and sighing. Cutsie innocence becomes sexual. Her other work reminded me of Thomas Demand's Gold Standard exhibit at PS1 in 2006. Both present non-precious objects as valuable. Stacks of coal bricks wrapped in gold foil aren't particulary thought provoking or visually interesting.
The video of peas boiling was fascinating, inspiring. A mundane act translated to the screen rich with texture, color and movement. The work in the show is so varied - compiled text messages, photo prints taped to the wall with scotch tape, large scale abstract color photos hung from clips, photos of newspaper clippings, short videos of colorful everyday processes - it's clear that Tillmans lives a full life with his eyes open. Although he takes his artwork seriously, his creative process flows organically and playfully from what he observes.
I also enjoyed the Alicja Kwade sound installation - several speakers at head height, arranged in a circle, playing a collage of clips from The Wizard of Oz and other children's classic films, all women's voices saying things like "It's beautiful", "Oh my god!" and sighing. Cutsie innocence becomes sexual. Her other work reminded me of Thomas Demand's Gold Standard exhibit at PS1 in 2006. Both present non-precious objects as valuable. Stacks of coal bricks wrapped in gold foil aren't particulary thought provoking or visually interesting.
Friday, May 11, 2007
the curly-haired kids with the soap-bubble smiles shout Happy Mother's Day from their secret mattress leaned against a trash can world. thanks, i smile. and then, man-on-the-side-of-the-highway-collecting-trash orange flowers insistently downwarddogging their blooms toward the sky, pressing up and fluttering.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
the drops of rain were spaced out and pattered on my face as i walked down the street with the rainbow of flowers. houses nestled among the greenness and the concrete. the man in a lilac pinstriped suit with matching shiny purple loafers and a black felt cap put some stuff in his sedan. the mini brown boy with the close cropped hair protected me from his dog with the smiling tail. i looked away as a squirrel ran out to meet a moving car. then the both disappeared. the wide smiling young man with the funny square blond beard and rolled up jeans cycled past as i looked for a gap in the traffic. he was smiling at me. the black man breaking apart a tree trunk section with a wedge and a mallet. "hi" i said timidly. "how you doin?" he answered and kept chopping.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Three chance meetings in one day! And 2 of them gave me rides. Such perfect timing. It feels like I'm in sync with the Universe today, or maybe it's just because I live in a small town. :-)
Yesterday evening everything clicked too. A friend had a free ticket to "The Painted Veil" at the Aspen Film Fest, so I went along. Afterwards we were hanging out in the lobby drinking free wine and bourbon when a woman offered us 2 free tickets to the next show-"Pan's Labyrinth"! My eyes are fried today after 8 hours of computer time in the office and then 4 hours of film.
This afternoon I had a real Aspen moment sitting outside a coffee shop sipping and overpriced too small cappuccino. The dyed blond boob job dangly earring 40 something (adoptive?) mom was sitting with her exposed cleavage oozing out of a sheer black bra and her made up 11 year old accompanied by their pet Savannah mix cat that looked at acted like a baby cheetah on a 1 ft leash. "Oh my god! What an adorable cat!" admired the passersby. "The markings are soooo amazing! What kind is it? How old is it? What kind is it again? Savannah and what? Oh wow!"
Yesterday evening everything clicked too. A friend had a free ticket to "The Painted Veil" at the Aspen Film Fest, so I went along. Afterwards we were hanging out in the lobby drinking free wine and bourbon when a woman offered us 2 free tickets to the next show-"Pan's Labyrinth"! My eyes are fried today after 8 hours of computer time in the office and then 4 hours of film.
This afternoon I had a real Aspen moment sitting outside a coffee shop sipping and overpriced too small cappuccino. The dyed blond boob job dangly earring 40 something (adoptive?) mom was sitting with her exposed cleavage oozing out of a sheer black bra and her made up 11 year old accompanied by their pet Savannah mix cat that looked at acted like a baby cheetah on a 1 ft leash. "Oh my god! What an adorable cat!" admired the passersby. "The markings are soooo amazing! What kind is it? How old is it? What kind is it again? Savannah and what? Oh wow!"
Friday, December 29, 2006
Another day in front of a computer with my back to the mountain village sewage plant that's buried under mound of dirt. Amazing how I can make an incredibly beautiful part of the world sound like a shit hole.
It seems that mid-winter is when I'm always down and trying to figure out my life, rather than living it. The trapped no-future feeling coincides with cold darkness. At least the darkness here isn't nearly as thick as in Berlin.
It seems that mid-winter is when I'm always down and trying to figure out my life, rather than living it. The trapped no-future feeling coincides with cold darkness. At least the darkness here isn't nearly as thick as in Berlin.
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