A studio art course taught by Amber Frid-Jimenez on the use of computational methods and techniques to produce critical art projects about society and culture.
My project explores the narrative of the hidden space, and the tone and associations that are established by a space’s aesthetic components. Inside a quiet clearing of stones and a swing (tucked behind bushes on the corner of two well-traveled streets) is hidden an oddity: a large wooden box suspended above the swing and coated in soil. The box appears solid except for a translucent hole in in the top, which allows a diffuse light to illuminate the interior. The inside is viewed by kneeling on a cloth mat and inserting one’s head into the box. Inside the box is a model of the space around the box itself- a tree assembled from twigs and string supports a small wooden swing, in front of an arrangement of stones similar to the one in the real space. The tiny replica is an attempt to add an element of fantasy to the original space, through rescaling into a more extremely intimate enclosure, as well as through quality of light (the single diffuse skylight and a green LED that the viewer is instructed to turn on).
Here is the video documentation of my final project. I’ve uploaded it to youtube since the file size exceeds the maximum file size for the blog (if i were to compress it to a size small enough to fit on here it would look terrible, it’s about 9 minutes long). Thanks to Daniel for acting as camera operator for the project.
This experimental performance took place on Sunday May 2nd in Manning Chapel (without permission) at 10:30 pm. The performance is meant to be an exploration of the absurdities of religion, particularly Catholicism, and the effects of religious indoctrination.
Please leave comments on the video to let me know what you thought of it.
For more information about the project see the pdf I posted previously.
The Tree of Knowledge 5 May 2009, in Brown University’s Rockerfeller Library
Influenced by Bill Viola, Guy Debord, and East Asian Philosophy, my final VISA Project drew from questions of collective knowledge and our experience with it. How do we as students here in Brown’s ‘centre of knowledge’ – the Rock – understand what we do, what we study? What does it mean to understand or to know something? How does one reach such understanding such knowing?
Poem 1, placed around the rock to entice participation:
In our centre of knowledge,
Bring a mind and explore this
Brain
We share.
Start with a Josiah search for
Clarence Irving Lewis’ (opinions and an)
“Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation,”
And see what kind of knowledge you can [bring]
Leave with.
Poem 2, placed in “Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation”:
Theory
Smear me with it.
I want facts,
Hidden but also those which I can understand.
Teach me how the “secret life of plants”
Works, maybe then I
Will understand
Will know
My Plant life
My roots
Too.
Poem 2 with ‘edited’ page about knowledge:
Poem 3, placed in “Secret life of Plants”:
Down the branches,
I want to drift to the edge and back.
Now I know that,
I know how,
But still I am not sure.
Maybe aisle walk down this branch to the next.
Keep walking down (going up)
To Knowing.
Poem 3 with ‘edited’ page:
Path of ‘leaves’:
Final Display, including looped stop motion, comment book, and information sheet:
With influences as varied as Bill Viola, Guy Debord, and East Asian philosophy, my final VISA 120 art project draws from questions of collective knowledge and our experience with it. How do we as students here in Brown’s ‘centre of knowledge’ – the Rock – understand what we do, what we study? What does it mean to understand or to know something? How does one reach such understanding such knowing?
As within Bill Viola’s Tree of Life (1997) piece, I have chosen a concept that both digitally and physically engages people in a journey to explore what they already know. For me, this idea brings to life the notion of knowledge a priori vs. a posteriori, or what one knows prior to versus after an event. As with any piece of art, a viewer’s own mindset, opinions, and understanding of the subject matter will affect their interpretation. I explore this concept in detail by looping a video that displays different lines of a poem. At any given moment that viewers watch the piece – I’ve estimated I might hold their attention for a minute or so – they will encounter a new part of the poem. Thus the knowledge they leave with, or the ideas they take away, may vary from those of others.
From Debord, I found myself influenced by the notion of one of the Situationist’s fundamental ideals, the dérive. Debord writes, “One of the basic situationist practices is the dérive [literally: “drifting”], a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances. Dérives involve playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects, and are thus quite different from the classic notions of journey or stroll.” This “drifting” motion or wandering has its roots in multiple other philosophers, yet what my piece gained from this reading was the very awareness of ones action during this movement as well as the sense of play. I hope that the poems placed within the specific texts might have aided in awakening more “psychogeographical” senses, but I suppose that only the participant might judge this.
Finally, it was through my vague understanding of East Asian philosophy that I began to consider how I might represent knowledge pictorially. A tree, a natural creature that grows over time with the necessity of other elements (water, light, etc.), struck me as incredibly similar to our collective process of knowing. Again, our knowledge is fleeting in many respects, and as I depict in the stop motion film, decays, rises, repeats and continues living.
Thank you for participating & please leave any comments in the book found here.
On Monday, April 27th, 2009 at 12-2 p.m., Jina, Rhianna and I had 50 surveys completed regarding Faunce Arch Day (FAD).
The questions were:
1.On average, how often do you pass through Faunce Arch in a week?
neverrarely oncea few timesdailymultiple times a day
2.Do you ever stop to think about the arch as you pass through it?
YesNo
3.Do you think of Faunce Arch as a public space?
YesNo
4.Do you think Faunce Arch is underappreciated?
YesNo
5.Do you like the idea of ‘Faunce Arch Day’ to celebrate the arch?
Love itSounds FunThat’d Be OkayErm, what?NoThat’s ridiculousI hate it
6.Would you come to ‘Faunce Arch Day’?
YesNo
The Results of our Survey
According to our experiment of doing a survey under and nearby Faunce arch, most of the people tended to pass by the arch at least few times a week, most of them passing through the arch daily or even multiple times a day. More people never stopped to think about the arch as they passed through it. (31 didn’t and 19 did) A pretty surprising result as we were not expecting any people at all to have thought about the arch. Approximately 4 out of 5 people thought of Faunce Arch as a public space, and thought that the Faunce Arch is underappreciated. According to some people, doing our experiment(the survey), actually helped them rethink about and appreciate Faunce Arch more. Most people were either excited for or confused about the idea of ‘Faunce Arch Day’ to celebrate the arch, but no one hated the idea. 70% of the people who filled out the survey said they would or might come to ‘Faunce Arch Day’.
Our Final Conclusions:
It is important to note that the blue bars are from the surveys taken under Faunce Arch, whilst the red bars are the ones taken on the Main Green. Conclusions drawn from this survey:
• The majority of students pass through Faunce Arch with some degree of frequency.
• Although most don’t stop to think about the arch as they pass through, more than a third of them do.
• There is general consensus that it is a public space, although interestingly the fraction of students asked under Faunce Arch who see it as private (~1/3) is significantly larger than that of those who were asked on the Main Green (~1/6).
• The majority of students (78%) think Faunce Arch is underappreciated.
• There were mixed reactions to the idea of Faunce Arch Day, but the two most frequent responses were ‘Sounds fun’ and ‘Erm, what?’, suggesting that most people saw it either as a good event or else were just confused by the idea. There were also a fair number of people who thought it would be ‘okay’.
• Nearly twice as many people said they’d come to Faunce Arch Day as those who said they wouldn’t.
• Those who took the survey under Faunce Arch were significantly more willing to attend Faunce Arch Day.
After making some correlations between two of the questions, further conclusions were drawn:
• The majority of people who think it is underappreciated would come to Faunce Arch Day (and vice versa). There is no correlation between those who don’t think it’s underappreciated and wouldn’t come to Faunce Arch Day.
• The majority of students asked under Faunce Arch who think that Faunce Arch Day ‘sounds fun’ pass through it multiple times a day.
• There is no relation between those who think of this as a public space and those who think it is underappreciated.
• All of the students asked under Faunce Arch who pass through it daily think that it is underappreciated.
• Except the points stated above, there was no clear correlation between the frequency with which students passed through the arch and there answers on any of the other questions.
Daniel and I (The Cheez-Its) created a piece entitled “Navigation Animation.” The piece is an interactive game where the viewer uses the Wiimote to navigate a ball around obstacles (geometric shapes).
