Thesis Progress

For my thesis I will be developing an interactive installation that will depict the experience of going through cancer in an attempt to demystify it. My installation will adapt some of the conventions of a board game, creating an life-size “ice-breaker” environment for the viewer. By introducing humor and the game concept, the viewer will relax and let down their guard, making them more receptive to the stories and information my project will communicate.

The installation will feature the experiences of myself and other cancer survivors, in the form of short Flash animations and textual quotes. These experiences, positive and negative, will be the vehicle to move the viewer forward and backward through the “game”, metaphorically trying to reach their goal of survival but facing setbacks along the way. The frustration of physically moving back and forth (or up and down, using steps) will support this idea. If they reach the “end”, the viewer will spin a “Wheel of Survival” to determine their Fate, reflecting the inevitable randomness that unfortunately always play a role in the outcome of this disease. The wheel will be an information graphic based on statistics, reflecting gender, race, and age, as well as different types of cancer. By merging these two aspects of the disease—the emotional experiences versus the hard facts and the medical realities, I set out to create a very personal work that will educate, empower, and give people a deeper understanding of this important issue.

Group Critique #2

Second round of Thesis critiques today, and I'm surprised yet again at all the positive feedback. Not all my crits this week have gone as well. My greatest struggle with this project has been trying to reconcile all the voices and opinions I'm getting from my professors and my peers. I suppose it's because of the controversial nature of the work-- cancer, life and death, these things have a way of dividing people into different factions. I've been getting so many conflicting suggestions from opposite ends of the spectrum that I find myself really confused as to how to proceed. For the most part, most people (inside and outside class) make valid points-- but how do I weed through all the voices to make the best decisions for my exhibit? I know I can't please everyone, but I'm concerned that I'm not leaving enough room in my thesis for my own ideas and instincts.

I'm trying to figure out the best way to integrate the emotions and experiences aspect of my work-- animations / videos, what-have-you... with the hard facts of the disease, the struggle to survive. My "Wheel of Survival" has gotten mixed reviews; some people think I should scrap it entirely and some people agree that is a necessary aspect of the story I'm trying to tell. I'm trying to find some way to make these two elements, plus the "game" element, if we can call it that, work together in the most logical and sympatico way.

I recognize, too, that the subject matter is very personal and sensitive to me, and that it sometimes makes it difficult for me to be objective. That's what makes it all the more important that I get meaningful feedback. I just want to avoid having to reinvent my project from scratch after every crit. Man, this is exhausting.

Group Critique #1

I thought our first group critique was really productive. A high level of consideration and professionalism was evident in all the works we discussed, and I was very impressed with the variety of different ideas people had. Each project had different compelling elements, and I felt like it was good for me to see what people are working on outside of my own concentration of graphic design.

For my part, I was really grateful to get such strong feedback from the members of my group and at the moment I feel very confidant about the direction my thesis is going. I have some concerns about the amount of space we will be given-- not so much that I won't have enough, because I can adapt accordingly-- but that we won't be given this information soon enough. In order to proceed with production, I really have to know how much space I have to work with. I also want to experiment with the "conventions" of board games to try to find an innovative way to design the "flow' of my piece.

To answer the questions Victor posed to us:

1) I think what we did today was a good model for what we ought to continue doing-- presenting our work (such as it is) and constructively discussing it, focusing on strengthening each others' ideas and presenting solutions to the problems each of us encounters. I think the atmosphere should stay relaxed and supportive, everyone should keep a flexible and open mind, avoiding confrontation when (inevitably) opinions or tastes may differ. I'm not too concerned about this, though, based on the vibe from the first meeting.

2) For myself, I tend to get very deep into my own work and I sometimes have trouble stepping back and looking at it objectively. Especially given the personal nature of my thesis (dealing with cancer) I will really benefit from a fresh perspective and hearing the intellectual and emotional reactions of my peers as I continue to work. I hope that in future group critiques people will feel comfortable offering more suggestions, so that my final work will be the product of many carefully-considered decisions based on collaborative input. I also look forward to helping the rest of my group fine-tune their own ideas.

The Experience Project

or experienceproject.com

This website is singularly devoted to the anonymous sharing of experiences. It provides an interactive online community for people to post their own feelings, thoughts, stories, and challenges for each other. The founder of the site, Armen Bjerkely, originally created the site as a resource for multiple sclerosis patients, inspired by his friend's diagnosis. Since then, the site as grown massively to incorporate 3,442,520 personal experiences (it's true-- the site has a counter!) divided into over 24 categories, which include Food, Sports, Relationships, Health, Pets, Food, Activism and many others. The site gives people the opportunity to anonymously make confessions (like PostSecret), challenge themselves to quit smoking or exercise more, share information about their health struggles, or just express their enthusiasm about cats.

The "about" section of the site has some bullet-pointed items that effectively sum up the principles of the site better than I can:

• Everyone has experiences to share.
• People are a product of all of their experiences.
• The more experiences we share with one another, the deeper the understanding between us.
• Everyone faces situations where talking with people who "just get it" can be incredibly powerful.

I strongly agree with all of these statements. In fact, these bullet points very effectively support what I have sought in my own approach to my art thesis. I think it is of vital importance for people to share the wisdom of their experiences, and also for others benefit from them by trying to relate more deeply. Talking to someone who "gets it" is indeed incredibly powerful, and I think the participatory aspect of this site makes it much easier to achieve. I hope that I will succeed myself in this respect.

First Year MFA Gallery Show

Overall, there were a large number of exhibits in the MFA show that piqued my interest. I sometimes find that I have difficulty appreciating the content of artwork outside of my own medium of graphic design, especially with painting and sculpture. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself drawn in to many of the pieces done in these mediums. The addition of the two portable walls was also a nice addition to the gallery, helping to divide the huge central room which normally comes across as really massive. Having rather small pieces hung on these walls also seemed like a good choice, making them seem more precious than they might have been if they shared the wall space with much larger works.

I'd like to start by talking about the Jian Chen paintings on the walls outside the entrance to the gallery. Intially, these artworks are dominated by the tremendous, stylized nude female forms which seem to be melting down the canvas. They were disturbing and rather striking, but I quickly found my interest drawn toward the small elements of the paintings-- specifically, the depiction of space. In one painting, the abstract white "abyss" that the art figure is posed in is peeling back, with the stitches coming loose, revealing a very mundane room with an outlet on the wall. This juxtaposition of neutral "art space" with a hint of "real space" behind it was really quite intriguing. In another work, she plays with space in a different way, juxtaposing the female form (artfully referencing Edouard Manet's Olympia) with a Macintosh desktop, complete with folders, icon dock, and Photoshop elements. Here, the virtual world of design clashes with an expressionist painting style, and again with a classic reference to fine art. I really appreciated this interesting exploration of space.

On the portable wall in the center of the gallery there was a sculptural piece by Kristin Melkin (I believe) that looked like white bones and shapes bending away from the wall. At first glance, it looked kind of cool (for lack of a better way of saying it), but upon getting closer I found the really amazing detail in the work. The shadows of the sculptures, reflected on the wall, were colored! It was almost impossible to see from the front, but the backs of the "bones" had been painted in green, blue, yellow, and red, and the reflected light from the room created a really beautiful colored aura in the space against the wall. Being able to hone in on, and execute this minute, nuanced artistic detail really struck me as being one of the most intelligent works in the show.

The large, high-res photographs on the right wall were astounding, and I was sorry to see that there was no label on the wall to indicate the artist. The artist had a series of photos in which the figures were flawlessly covered in black or white body paint and dynmically engaged in different activities-- posed with glossy black balloons, covered in a precise pattern of rounded rectangular white stickers, and being spattered with black drops of ink. The images were passionate, powerful and visually breathtaking. The high resolution of the camera work, the bold use of color, the vibrancy of the figures, and the careful attention to detail was nothing short of incredible.

There were some other works worth noting:

• Caitlyn Booth's panoramic landscape paintings were quite nice and did well to depict some quiet, alluring environments. They reminded me of the style and ambiance of Ed Hopper's famous Nighthawks painting.
  
• Erin Dunn's installation was interesting; I often fail to understand installations like this but I suppose it is meant to give us a glimpse into her life and her creative process. I am always excited to see someone exploring the field of animation at Mason Gross, given that there are nearly no classes that teach it, and I admire the work for that reason (and because I intend to have an animated element in my own exhibit).
  
• I enjoyed Summer Baldwin's various animal heads constructed out of cardboard, and then rendered through paint. There was something very amusing about these, and the "sketchy" aesthetic to the craft made it feel fun and inviting. I was impressed by the physical object of the moosehead, but also the attentive paint rendering of the other sculptures.
• Finally, the paintings of Eileen Behnke in the far corner room caught my eye. There was a definite graphic quality to the figurework that appeals to my own interest in comics and illustration. In her paintings, she includes subtle blues, purples, and reds into the color palette for rendering human skin, and it gives the figures a sort of surreal glow. To me, it did a good job of depicting her subjects in a way that called attention to the medium; the paint on canvas.

I was looking for works that relate to my ideas for my own thesis focus: pieces that had an element of sharing an experience using humor and interactivity. There were not a lot of examples, unfortunately, that did this: though there was an element interactivity in Erin Dunn's installation and some humor in Summer Baldwin's work. I plan to continue looking for examples of work I can draw on in developing my own Thesis Exhibit next spring.

A Horse Is Not a Metaphor

A Horse is Not a Metaphor

by Barbara Hammer

This is a great example of an artist trying to communicate about their own experience with cancer. The images are striking, Hammer exposes her naked self in the fetal position, highlighting her vulnerability and her feelings of desperation and loneliness. The music in the background is haunting and emotional, hinting at the pervasive sense of fear that is characteristic of the cancer experience.

I admire and respect the artist for sharing her experience using her art. I can certainly connect with it on an emotional level. That being said, this approach to the subject is a bit too depressing to me, and contrasts sharply with my own views on subjective positivity and humor. The aesthetic of this piece is very upsetting and disturbing, and if that is the intention then I can't argue with that. However, for me, part of the reason I want to communicate about this topic is not only to make people aware of the reality and severity of the issue, but to also bring to light the hopeful and positive aspects that do exist. I think this work fails to express this side of the experience, and so I think it only succeeds in showing a portion of what the experience may feel like.

7 Days in the Art World-- THE FAIR

• "The fair is significant from a prestige point of view. If a gallery is not admitted, people might think that it is not as important as another gallery that is. ...it could destroy their business."
• "The art is so demanding that the architecture needs to be nearly invisible." This is key. The placement of work in a space can really change the impression you get, and if the space is too demanding the work gets lost. Actually, this is a good metaphor for the text on a graphic designer's page as well.
  
• " 'Collector' should be an earned category... An artist doesn't become an artist in a day, so a collector shouldn't become a collector in a day. It's a lifetime process."
  
• "With young artists, you find the greatest purity. When you buy from the first or second show, you're inside the confidence-building, the identity-building of an artist... It's about buying into someone's life and where they are going with it." I never thought about it like this. There is no doubt that as emerging artists, we have a lot at stake at this stage in our careers, and the people who support us now will certainly be partially responsible for our success in the long run. From a curator's standpoint, this much be the most rewarding part of the experience.
  
• "Unlike other industries, where buyers are anonymous and interchangeable, here artists' reputations are enhanced or contaminated by the people who own their work."
  
• "Occasionally meeting an artist destroys the art. You almost don't trust it. You think what you're seeing in the work is an accident." I really hope nobody ever thinks this about me.
  
• Logsdail making a very funny comment about a collector: "_____ buys with his groin. It isn't my kind of collection, but it's a great collection. Very coherent." I can only imagine what this collection must be like.
  
• "We are going to have to set up a public foundation in order to compete for the best words. More and more collectors are opening up their exhibition spaces." This is an interesting perspective, coming from a private collector, not a curator.
• "Art collecting is an addiction. Some people might think I am a shopaholic who has graduated up from Gucci to Pucci to art." Collecting really is an addiction, and not just art. I've been collecting comics since I was 16, and sometimes (especially when I'm low on cash) I consider giving it up. What always stops me is thinking what it a shame it would be to ruin the consistency and dedication of such extensive collecting. But like any addict, I like to think 'I can stop anytime I want to!'
  
• "And artist entering an art fair is like a teenager barging into his parents room while they're having sex... gallerists are reduced to merchants, a role in which they'd rather not be seen by their artists." How true. Though I've never exhibited in a gallery setting, I know how self-conscious I get when a group of people are looking at my work and they're not aware that I made it. The heightened emotions and anxiety created by trying to read their reactions is almost unbearable, and I imagine it would be exponentially worse with money involved.
• "You can't use money as an index of quality."
• "If you do your own thing, you might be a step ahead of the market... You have to make the new work to sell the old work."
• "If artists are seen to be creating art simply to cater to the market, it compromises their integrity and the market loses confidence in their work."
• "What's great about a work often doesn't show up in a JPEG."
• "A great dealer does a good job for the collector but a great job for artists. A great adviser does a good job for the artists but a great job for the collector."

I didn't enjoy this chapter as much as the first two, but it was definitely informative. I really had no idea such massive art fairs existed, and the scope and complexity of the event is hard to grasp. Sarah Thompson gives us a very detailed glimpse into what seems like the madness of the fair.

One of the things that I found interesting is the celebrity status of many of the collectors, who are known purely for their patronage. They aren't artists, only lovers of art with loads of cash, and yet the author is able to recognize, say, 'The Rubells' family with all their eccentric little fair-going behavior. It strikes me as odd that these rich patrons have earned this status, essentially by buying their way into the field. It's not a bad thing per se, I just didn't really know about this facet of the art world.

As a designer, I think this world still feels foreign to me, because I am used to client-based work in which there is a specific goal in mind. In some senses it's easier for designers to identify when a work has succeeded or failed. I think for other types of artists, the value of their work may be hard to measure until an event like the Art Basel fair. Of course, this only takes financial success into account, but it does seem that this is a large determining moment in the sustainable future of an artist. It's hard to believe that your career could come down to simply having one or two influential collectors or curators buying your work. It really gives you something to think about.