Month: September 2016

So far, one of the main themes of this class has been on the definition of art. Allan Kaprow’s Happenings and George Maciunas’s Fluxus movement challenged the traditional definition of ‘art’ and sought to explore how far they can stretch art as something to be marveled. The most important lesson I learned from some of Kaprow’s Happenings was that activities that do not make very much sense on the surface, sometimes are not meant to make sense. The motivation behind some of these Happenings was the effect that it created on the participants and on the observers. The picture of people licking jam off a car hood immediately comes to mind. That looks unpleasant to me, and something I would not do myself, but it is definitely something I would stop and look at. I tried continuously to think about what kind of metaphor this act would represent, but nothing immediately came to mind. And then it hit me: sometimes the ulterior motive behind these acts is to just perform an art piece. These pieces were being performed for the effect that they created and not for anything else. It was very confusing for me, because I have never thought this way before. But in some way, it did make sense. People taking everyday objects, things that were unconventional to use in art, and utilizing them in interesting ways only for the desired effect on all parties involved. This goes hand-in-hand with the Fluxus movement as well; attempting to blur the line between art and life, and trying to make real life an art form in of itself. FluxKits gave everyone the opportunity to be an artist, with cheap materials that were easy to access, sometimes objects you had in your own house. They wanted art to be immersed into the environment and everyday life. And thus, creating an art piece that somehow involved daily life was one of my main goals coming in to this assignment.
Reading Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit only reinforced the fact that a very important aspect of art is the effect that the piece has on the performer or observer. Some poems were deliberately impossible, like ‘Throwing Piece’ (due to the nature of gravity) and Announcement Piece II (you cannot send a moving announcement if you are dead). But surely throwing a stone into the air as high as you can gives you some sort of feeling, whether it be futility or exhilaration.
So I wanted to find an act that the motivation behind it would be to have some sort of effect on the performer or observer, without it being an explicit metaphor for something. Looking further into Grapefruit, I found Walking Piece, in which you tried to mimic the footsteps of a person in front of you. The effect I thought this piece would give was a better view of someone else’s life, because you got to experience how fast they walked (if they were rushed or calm) and what they were doing. I liked this theme, so I wanted to create a similar piece, but on a larger scale because naturally, the city of Boston allows that. So why not get a better view of a city’s life, instead of a person’s life? So my piece became:

Sit in a crowded area for a day.
Observe each person that passes.
Count their footsteps.

This fulfilled both of my goals of experiencing daily life, and causing an effect on the performer (noticing the relative tempo of certain city areas). After presentation in class and some feedback, I tweaked the piece to:

Sit in a crowded area for five minutes at a time.
1) In the morning
2) In the afternoon
3) In the evening
Observe each person that passes.
Count their footsteps.

I like the idea of getting a general slice of Boston, and the multiple time frames with five minutes at a time gives me a similar effect to my original piece, but it takes up less time. The ‘one day’ time frame was just unreasonable and was unnecessary, so I removed it. The motivation behind that was due to the many impossible pieces in Grapefruit, but the time frame does not really add much to the piece.
DOCUMENTATION:
9:37AM Ruggles T station, area near CharlieCard machines
476 steps
-When there was one person, I could get into their frame of mind, which was rushed (for the most part)
-When there were two people, I could keep up with counting their footsteps.
-When there was a whole crowd of people, I struggled to keep up. I was just ticking numbers in my head very rapidly.
-While I was doing this, I didn’t notice that I was cold (I noticed this both before and after the time frame). I was only focusing on the people and the counting. This actually surprised me.
-There were periods of emptiness and periods of crowdedness, related to the bus schedule. Some buses were full but most were not.

1:22PM Ruggles T Station, area near CharlieCard machines
302 steps
-There were significantly less people here this time. I had to look around instead of focusing my eyes on the spot I did last time.
-However there was a somewhat continuous flow of people along the main passageways through Ruggles.

5:23PM Ruggles T Station, area near CharlieCard machines
568 steps
-A lot more people than the morning shift
-I sat down just as a bus arrived, a very large amount of people passing by in about 2-3 minutes. But after that, it calmed down
-Again, I didn’t notice I was cold, I only focused on the numbers.

ARTWORK #1: SCORE, PROJECTS      

Ilayda Hanci, GAME 1850

Tuesday, 27 September 2016                               

Daydreamer-Final

1. Bring one piece of material to draw on and a drawing utensil
2. Take 3 more people with you and, get into teams of 2
3. Start walking around.
4. Examine what’s around you and find an object to inspire from
5. Create creatures, shapes, monsters
6. Anything that is coming to your mind
7. Fold the paper into two and draw
8. Unfold the paper and create a story
9. As the second team creates one starting with the word “Then”
10. Gather up with your friend and read out the completed stories.

Artist statement

“To bring anything into your life, imagine that it’s already there.” – Richard Bach.

The final iteration of ‘Daydreamer’, gives the ability to look at any situation from a different point of view. I believe imagination makes it possible to experience a whole world inside the mind. In your imagination, you can travel anywhere without any obstacles. It can make you feel free, though temporarily, and only in the mind, from difficulties and unpleasant circumstances. It allows us to believe in possibilities that would not otherwise exist and it helps to connect us to a deeper part of ourselves. Something I’ve loved to do my whole life is to simply just imagine. Imagination can lead to amazing things. When you use it, you are no longer limited by external conditions. As you think about what would you like to experience, you can bring anything you want to your life. Imagination is your way to connect with Universe.  Since I was a kid, whenever I look up at the sky, I look for random shapes or faces in the clouds. This characteristic of me gotten even stronger when I grew up. Now, when I look to a branch, grass or to a leaf, I start to imagine and create different life forms like pixies, fairies, forest spirits or leprechauns. My imagination also changes according to my mood, when I am happy I imagine nice creatures, but when I am sad, I think about dark and dangerous monsters.

The inspiration for this score came to me when we went out outside to place a Happening in front of the Ryder Hall during the class time. For a part of the Happening we wrapped a piece of a nylon around a tree to make a straight line between two trees. As this is happening, when I looked at the leafs, suddenly, I imagined of a fairy sitting on the branch right above me.

I wanted to make a score that was easy to follow and play. I know not all individuals have artistic talents but I am encouraging them to simply just draw the things they see around them; a simple shape is enough too. The piece relates to a game we played on the first day of class where players write in turn on a sheet of paper, fold it to conceal part of the writing, and then pass it to the next player for a further contribution. This game is also very similar to Exquisite Corps in that it is a group effort, and a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. It is a bit different because half of the progression of the art is hidden from the artist as team mates create a story together while both teams can’t see the whole story.

A developed and strong imagination does not make you a daydreamer and impractical. On the contrary, it strengthens your creative abilities and is a great tool for recreating your world and life. I love imagining and creating things on my mind, and hope more people see the score and become inspired to imagine.

Documentation

Here are the instantiations of the score that I performed with my friends.

Buy a pack of Post It Notes

Draw a small character on each sheet

Walk down a street

Place a Post It on everyone who passes

img_3022

Essay:

A few different things inspired this piece. One was Yoko Ono’s Pea Piece in which she wrote to by a bag of peas and leave one everywhere you go. I wanted to create a piece that copied the idea of leaving something behind as you go throughout your day. Originally, my idea was to bring around a marker and put a dot on everyone I passed, but decided that may get me into trouble. Another one of Yoko Ono’s pieces that inspired me was her Tape Piece III. In this piece she encourages the reader to tape the sound of snow falling and use the tape roll as gift-wrap. I loved that this took a simple object, which usually has a certain use, and uses it in a completely different fashion. I decided to write a score in which the reader would take all of their professional documents and pieces of artwork, print them out, then use them as pieces of packing paper to send in packages. Gift-wrap is meant to be thrown away, yet a recording or photos are usually meant to be kept and preserved. I wanted to do the same thing and take a professional and personal thing and essentially have the reader turn them into trash.

I decided to combine these two scores into one. The resulting score was Post It Piece. I wanted to take the element of turning art essentially into trash from one piece and the idea of leaving something everywhere I went from the other. In this piece the reader takes a pack of Post Its (of any size) and draws images on each one. Once they have completed this, they must go out into the world and as they walk around, place the Post Its on unsuspecting civilians. This way people aren’t as prone to start an argument due to the temporary state of the object left behind.

I, personally, am not a huge fan of going out in public and interacting with many people I don’t know. I wanted to create a score that would help people overcome that feeling and allow them to interact with people in a light-hearted way without specifically conversing with them. Also, as a person with an artistic side, I love the idea of sharing my art with the world, without necessarily throwing it in people’s faces and asking for compliments. In some of the readings we’ve done in class, there have been mentions of artists that put something personal in every piece of art work and I believe drawing on small Post It notes and spreading them around is the same thing.

As I went around, I realized there were a few affordances that came with using Post It Notes. For one, they would not necessarily stick to people’s backpacks. It would fall off almost immediately, therefore I had to try and stick it to articles of clothing instead. However, when I did this people would notice and would give me unnerved and confused looks that eventually made me stop playing out the score.

The point of this score is to help the reader overcome the shyness as well as lighten up the world by adding little smiles here and there through unexpected art. It certainly helped me. At first I asked friends to help me, or even friends of friends until I realized that this wasn’t the point of the score. I decided to go out and try it in the real world, and that made all the difference.