Art Outside the Classroom Walls: Elsewhere

The Elon Art Guild visited the Elswhere Artist Collaborative for their final Friday event of the season. The performance by Invisible, a local duo of artists, was funded by the Galucci family. With their help, Invisible created a performance using only the resources at Elsewhere. Using ice, toys, and sewing machines, a good crowd showed up for the 30-45 minute show. The performance was more about finding rhythm and sounds in every day objects than complex musical sounds. After the show, viewers were allowed to mingle and explore the bottom floor of Elsewhere. People chatted with the artists themselves and even children were able to play with the machines that Invisible amazingly put together. As I watched the show, I thought about how these two artists were able to publicize their goals in collaboration with Elsewhere and command a large audience to listen to sounds that they hear every day. Maybe we should pay attention to these sounds more often?

Art Outside the Classroom Walls: Student Juried Exhibition

Not only did I have the chance to view the exhibition opening, I also was able to work behind the scenes to set up the show. In years past, I entered the competition not knowing what to went on to put the show together. When I was able to see how much work went into it, I appreciated every exhibition so much more. The show was called "Kaleidoscope," and all students with all types of work were encouraged to enter the show. There were two jurors, Sam and Brandon (last names unknown). The viewer's choice award was given to Ellie Erickson, and the two juror's picks were awarded to Joanna Patterson and Ned Dibner. The exhibition opened Thursday, November 4, and will go through November 30. All in all the show was a display of the best artwork that Elon students have to offer. I hope the selection gets more and more fierce each year.

Musing on Your Experience

If I were to make a time capsule of my life at this very moment, I would focus on my experiences in the physical and emotional worlds. Right now, I feel alone. Alone not only because no one is here, but because I know no one is exactly like me. Most people are home with their families enjoying the presence of those who claim to know them most, but I have stayed in my apartment to wait for the work weekend to start. I also feel alone in my art making. I am trying to transfer my feelings of racial ambiguity into some form of tangible art, but no one seems to see a clear translation. I hope that I work this problem out by the time I graduate in the Spring. I know people say that this is a common disposition of many young artists, but it is so hard to believe it will go away.

Most of the past two years, I have been getting ill a lot. I don't know if it is because of my terrible allergies, or if I just have bad luck. Whatever it is, I feel like it has really taken away from my life. On most days, I don't feel like my normal self, but I get through it. The one thing that I have learned in the past couple of years is that a lot of hard work can truly pay off. Because I work on the weekends, I am going to get to go to London to study abroad. Because I am committed to my artwork, I have had the opportunity to become a leader in the Art Department. Because I have really worked on becoming a good friend, I have gained a lot of friends in return. Although I have had a lot of challenges, my life has been extremely fruitful. I know that I am more prepared than most to face the world after college than most people I know.

Soundscapes

Perri Lynch made this piece with what in mind? To me, it felt as though I was dreaming and my alarm clock came into my dream and gradually brought me into reality. When i listened to it closely, I hear a lot of distortion in the voices from the recording equipment. Adding in the sounds that seemed nearer or farther away made the experience more three-dimensional if that makes sense.

The first time i watched John Cage's piece I grew impatient waiting for something to happen, but then, I watched him talk about it, and he said "I don't need sound to talk or communicate." I believe that this is where the genius in his art lies. Letting the natural, unintentional sounds just be sounds and have them tell us about the world around us just as it is and nothing more.

Sound Exercise

1)heat

sniffle

click

click

fabric

pen

fan

paper

paper

sniff

voice

click

voice

hand on paper

breathing

hand on paper

pen

hand on paper

breathing

fan

knuckles

breathing

2)subtle

close

sharp

rhythmic loop

in and out

far away

humming all around

subtle

repetitive

loud in comparison

abrupt

rhythmic loop

drone

3)Surprisingly, I found this portion of the exercise much easier than it has been in the past. there seems to be some tie in with breathing or staying calm because it completely relaxed me to not think about the stressors of life, but listen to it happening around you.

4)I heard so many laughs in the last five minutes that I started imagining that my family and friends were right here with me. Before I knew it, i woke up. I fell asleep thinking about the sound of my mom and her best friend making dinner after a long day at the beach. I always used to sneak into the pantry to get a fruit roll-up...my mouth is watering.

Bodies and Interactions: Response

This project was extremely challenging for me because I did not want to live outside for 24 hours. Of course, then I concluded that was precisely why I had to do it. I feel like it was one of the best experiences of my life because it was in no way completely positive. In the end, I caught a cold, got pricked by devil cacti, and smelled like a dumpster. I had been camping before, so I thought that this would not be horrible at all! The fact was that everyone else around me could go inside whenever they pleased, I even had a few remind me that I could, too, if I wanted to cheat. It was so hard to not go inside and get a drink, or sit on the couch and relax. The body part of this project was definitely trying to be present in every moment of that 24 hours. I thought that I would have plenty of time to myself, but it turned out that I had barely any time to myself. The last 3 hours is the only time I can remember meditating and relaxing alone, and it is because of that 3 hours, where I found solace, that I wouldn't mind going out again.

I took the word interactions as literally as possible and enabled people to come sit with me, take part in spreading around bird seed, or eat a PB&J. I was a little appalled by hour scared people were to come and talk to me. Every once in awhile I'd say, "I don't bite," "why won't you look at me in the eyes?" or "I swear I'm not trying to sell you anything." These responses woke me up to the structure that people are used to, and how an intruder like me can make people feel utterly unstable! After that point, it became about how we are scared to look outside of our bubbles and reach out to other people. It saddened me, but at the same time gave me a sense of purpose and discovery. Like I said at the end of the video, "everyone should do it."

Project 3: Proposal

As I thought about everything we have studied to prepare for this project, it dawned on me that we may not consider nature as a dominant part of our lives because we are so sheltered from it. Therefore, for this project I propose two ideas:

1) Part of the reason that we are not aware of nature is because we can escape it so easily. We eat indoors, learn indoors, sleep indoors. Although this is quite comfortable, this is also sometimes unnecessary. I would like to be subject to the elements for one whole day. Rid myself of every unnecessary indoor luxury and remind myself and others that we may abuse nature because we have the choice to participate in it.

2) Another way of bringing us as a community back to nature is to bring it into contact with people unexpectedly. I see our greatest avoidance of nature on the paths at Elon. Around the college there are many brick walkways that sometimes are not even logical to walk on, but are used anyway because it keeps us sheltered. What if those walkways became one with nature once again? I would like to pour large mounds of birdseed in the middle of the major walkways around campus. This would include crossways, intersections, or in front of buildings, in order to attract nature and distract humans. Forcing people out of this pattern would prove that they have become accustomed to a luxury that is severely temporal.

During this project, we explored the trance that looped videos can create when the sound of the short clips repeats over and over again. I wanted to explore the responsibility to lead a "normal" American life that we feel in our country. Why is it that we must get up to feed the cat, take family vacations, or advance technologically? When shown at the same time, my videos hopefully create a sickening response that leaves the viewer feeling sort of lost and confused. I did not want to create an experience that mesmerized the audience because I wanted it to have a "call to action" or awakening affect.

When I showed the rest of the class my project, they did not know what to say at first. They noticed that it was obtrusive and off timing. I did this on purpose so that the message was sort of screaming at them and calling them out to do something about their ever day American ways.

Response: Passivity - An Ecocentric Paradigm for Collaborating with Natural Processes

In this essay, Adam Clarke exposes a sort of epidemic that has taken over society as a whole. The intense lack of respect for the naturally aesthetic and perplexing should bother us every day, but instead we ignore or even partake in the destruction.

To regain our rights in nature, Clarke suggests that we try a process as artists called passive collaboration. When one executes passive collaboration correctly there is no trace of manmade objects; in fact, the truths of nature that were there all along are revealed to the viewer. We can see examples of this attitude or approach to art making in the works of Andy Goldsworthy who understands that using so much as a knife in his artwork is vaguely intrusive upon nature.

I enjoyed how the process of passive collaboration was also referred to as re-enchanting nature. I like to think that this section of the essay calls for artists to reinvent themselves through nature in a non-destructive way. We must prove ourselves, not in the way that Robert Smithson did to the gallery world, but to nature in order to show that we can be a part of the cycle of the earth without destroying it. For me, the best way to understand Clarke's words is to be conscious of the materials I use and the marks I make, because they may have permanent affects on our earth. If I just use what is around me and my brain, I will be able to help bring out the spark of nature's cyclic beauty. This is of the utmost importance; after all, we will only be here for a short time, and then, the earth will just keep on turning.

Response: Approaches to What?

I feel like Perec is trying to awaken us to the fact that we, as individuals and a society, have formed habits and lifestyles that are free from question. He suggests that maybe we should investigate our lives for those habits and question them in order to break the mold and embrace our lives as normal or complex as they may be.

HABITS:

looking at myself in the mirror

running water while brushing my teeth

putting the right shoe on before the left

tugging at my shirt

going pee every morning when I wake up

sticking one foot out of the covers

sleeping on my back

smelling someone I know when they walk past me

holding my breath when someone I don't know walks past me

Documentation & Depiction Project

I ended up choosing my first idea about my leaky air conditioning. Every five minutes for a half hour, I rotated the image slightly clockwise. It started out as a red and blue circle that I swirled together to make purple. The water splashed so much more than I thought it would. It is interesting to see the darker splashes in the beginning of the project or the heavier water spots from when it began to rain. I am very happy with the amount of variables that I did not have control over. This was the first time I paid more attention to the process than the finished product. In fact, I think it is a way of cleansing and refining my art making.

Listening Exercise

Listening to the world around me seemed like something easy and simple. Today, I had an auditory experience around campus that surprised me quite a bit. My interior space was the weekly gathering of college coffee. This is not a conventional interior space, but it seemed appropriate because it was along the confined brick walk in Elon, surrounded by columns and conversation. The place was packed with people I knew, but I turned my back and listened to the happenings and be separate from the event. I have to say that the most challenging part of this exercise was not listening to everyone's conversations. Translating something I know as the English language into sound was so hard! I heard so many different voices and footsteps. My favorite sound from this location was the water pouring out the water cooler. There was a line to get water, so it became a rhythm that soothed and calmed me in the midst of so many people.

I sat behind Alamance building in a usual reflective spot on a bench. The wind here played a huge role in my listening. It seemed to carry sounds from the distance to me and whisk them away again before I could hear the words. I heard heals on loose bricks and a class on the grass doing a feminist lesson. The most interesting I thing I experienced, and this is perhaps why I like this location so much, was how the air conditioner kept turning on and off. As I mentioned in the project ideas, I have an air conditioner right outside my bedroom that does the same thing. I did not even realize it, until I almost fell asleep. I felt like Pavlov's dog because I was trained to sleep at the sound of the AC. I struggled to concentrate after that point when thoughts of my schedule and to-do list began to haunt me once again. I decided to retire 20 seconds early because 1o minutes seemed impossible.

9/2 Documentation & Depiction

BRAINSTORM: a) My first idea is to finally pay attention to the dripping air conditioning outside of my window that i wake up to every morning. I do not think it would be natural to sit and watch the drips from the AC, so I would like to sit inside and listen to them instead. The water will drip onto ink-covered watercolor paper and create a pattern and record of the event.

b) Another idea is to count how many times I sneeze during this current allergy season. Unfortunately, it can be up to 30 times a day. I do not know how to record this, but an idea will come.

c) I work at Red Robin (home of the smiling burger. how may i help you?). We pride ourselves on getting hot food out to the table in 10 minutes or less. On one of my days off, I would like to just sit and watch the kitchen and servers interact to get the food out in time. Each order is printed on a ticket with the time it was sent into the kitchen. When the kitchen is finished making the food, they stamp the ticket time and send the food out. I will collect the tickets, record the times, and actually see how accurate the "10 minutes or less" goal truly is.