Just an Update

Here's another silkscreen. Like the one posted before, but this wont be going in the book, just a print on its own on a single sheet of rice paper. Sorry it's a shitty image. Book is coming along slowly but surely, finished printing half the text, but the prints take a while because of all the preparation involved.

I'm very busy lately- 12 Dec is our exhibition in Das Bilt (really amazing little space) the student run gallery of HKU, 15 Dec the final evaluation. By Friday, I also have to write a response for my theory class concerning the article Art in the Age of Biopolitics (by Boris Groys) which is actually very relevant to my work at the moment. A brief writing on my art taking the form of performance up soon.
The BFA Graduating Exhibition/Reading applications (in March and May) are due soon as well. I can't believe we already have to decide what we want, I have an idea, but it's still so early. I'll let you know soon when the date soon if you'd like to come.

Phenomena

As the semester trucks on, I really want to take advantage of the facilities available to at HKU. So, although I spent a good two or three weeks, everyday, doing the drawings for the little animation, it will be put on hold temporarily for the more site specific silk silkscreen and letter press.

For the past 2 months I've been advised in a silkscreen course with the other exchange students. It was my first time doing this type of printing, and I've really enjoyed it although the process can simultaneously benefit from and exasperate any obsessive-compulsive tendencies I may have... I've included an image of "Phantasmagoric Gold" an edition of 10 prints. For this print I used the drawing/watercolor that I did by the same title; I scanned it and printed four different levels of contrast as four layers. Preparing the screen is somewhat difficult, but our instructor Hendrick, is both kind and extremely patient.

This past Tuesday was my first instruction in the letter press; totally awesome. It's just the tedious type of thing I like to do. There are shelves and shelves of all the different styles and sizes of fonts. The letters are small pieces of lead that you fit into each line you want to print; a group of lines is called a text block. You have a little map of reference to the placement of the letters in the drawers but often they are all mixed up and creating a text block is like completing a personalized backwards puzzle. Manuel, the book arts and letter press teacher advising me for this is one of the more excited and animated people I've met here. This upcoming Tuesday, I'll begin to print on paper.

So, right now I'm working on a book to bring these two disciplines together. I will be focusing on cellular imagery in both the prints and the text. I am trying to experiment with the materials I print on. On the image I have included, the cells are printed on a vellum-like paper, and the lines are printed on a really great (and therefore expensive) rice paper. I'm interested in layering the images with the different thicknesses of paper.

I'm trying to experiment with this project. Letting things happen as they will while trying not planning obsessively. In the words of Samuel Beckett, "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." Some words I've recently been trying to live by. More thoughts on that later.

Holy Shit, The Fourth

Marc showed me this video today. Watch it and be amazed:

http://www.studiodaily.com/main/searchlist/6850.html

Dream Night of 2/11/08 and Holy Shit Pt. 3

I dreamt of dancing; I often have dancing dreams like this, where I'm the only one doing the right steps and the other girls are messing them up and should I follow what they're doing because that's how you make the performance not look terrible if someone completely messes up? I was with old dancemates, and my old instructors. My hair was long in a ponytail that went down to my lower back.

I also dreamt of a plane crash; We were flying over a large canal and couldn't get any air and sank into the water. There was a fire as well. There were small children who I love as my own. I had my phone-cord purse with my cell phone, camera, Ipod and wallet in it, and I kept trying to take it with me when we evacuated even though they tell us not to. Finally I just left it because I was scared of what was going to happen to us.

And HOLY SHIT Part III.

I've been reading this book recently on blood cells, specifically red blood cells. The book is from the 70s but it's filled with these beautiful negative-looking images of these microscopic cells that keep us alive. Red blood cells are 6-8 micrometers in diameter. A micron is one millionth of a meter.

It's amazing how the processes and makeup of our bodies are all basically identical. For the most of us, our cells are all the same size and shape, moving in the same paths through our body almost effortlessly. The malleability and resiliency of our blood is quite amazing as well. There's so many things that could go wrong that don't because our bodies just work. For instance, there are some arteries in our bodies in which our red blood cells have to go through one at a time. It's so bizarre that all this is just going on inside of us right now. Think about that... And that ladies and gentlemen is a Holy Shit moment. Take a look at Red Blood Cells on wiki. And maybe I'll be able to post some quotes from the book I'm reading that blew my mind.

Animation. Coming Soon.

Ok, so this was going to be a post of the animation that I've been working on. I can't get the file to work on my blog just yet, but I'll tell you about it regardless: I am using about twelve frame per second, so this bit that I have so far consists of about 76 drawings; all by hand (without a lightboard ugh!) and then scanned into the computer for compilation. It amounts to a little over six seconds.

I've always had a respect for the tediousness of animators, (I quite love tedious drawings as you can tell) however I guess I really didn't know what it was like until I tried it. You never really know until you try.

I made another 80 drawings this week. My back hurts from hunching over my work! haha. And my animation isn't even close to as clean and consistent as some people I know. For instance check out Benjamin's animation. He's taking courses and has the proper tools mind you, but regardless, it really takes a lot of time, effort and precision to make a nice animation.

Utrecht hosts the annual Holland Animation Film Festival next week; the venue is right down the street from my place so I'll definitely check it out. The Holland Film Festival was at this place as well, but the films were all in Dutch. At least for animation, even if I can't understand everything I'll be able to admire the craftsmanship.

It's been too long.

Apologies for the long delay.

Some updates:

On my art: I have come to realize that I want my art to have consciousness - sorry that is put in the worst way possible. Rather, I'd like my art to evoke that feeling of consciousness. That is to say, this holiness or spiritual feeling that we get when we're having a revelation, or panic attack or de ja vous. This elevation what people can feel like when they experience God.

I need to make my own name for it...

For me, it is infinity. I suppose infinite consciousness. But that has too much baggage... I don't know, the name will come later.

But when Dr. Sacks was talking about this "double consciousness" that people can get, I really felt the connection. And it feels real. Like time in addition to the time that is literally there.

I know this is a very very high expectation and initiative for my work and myself, but this is so important to me.

This feeling is what I live for. When you remember a memory and it feels so real. Or look into the sky and realize that it's immeasurable and that you too are immeasurable, but relatively so much smaller. Or you hear that chord of a song, embedded with memory, but also the technical notes that are being played, that minor to major change, changing something in yourself. Old home videos - to hear voices from your past preserved. To hear your own voice and not to recognize it. To not even remember that that moment happened but to be give that moment in an image. To be reminded, to remind your neurons of a certain neuronal path. To replay it. To smell your childhood. Dreams.

This is what I want to do. I want my art to be that smell, that home video, that epiphanic pre-seizure lull, that voice, that infinity. Realness. (freewrite in journal on 6/10/08)

I'm currently working on an animation, there should be a post up this upcoming week with my progress in that.

Last week I was in London. I went to the Tate Modern, and saw a Rothko exhibition. Here are some thoughts:

"If people want sacred experiences they will find them here. If they want profane experiences they'll find them too. I take no sides." - Rothko

The feeling as if you are praying or wishing as a child and you truly believe that something will happen. The feeling is in a similar spot as when you are moved to tears but cannot cry and you're forced to hold it in this spot in your chest up to your throat.

But this is a transition moment; a feeling of the instant before being moved.

I am in a sanctuary. I am most in myself and am myself.

Why I am moved: (list)

-the size

-the effortless subtlety

-the depth of it (the color, the color against color)

I am being pulled out of myself into myself, forward, the painting literally moving me into it. The feeling is caused by holding on.

-the shape

-the shapes

The subtle violet reflection of me in a Rothko.

They are beyond the landscape.

As if standing before some holy alter.

This. This is what I'll do with my life. (response to exhibit on 10/10/08)

I will update more frequently. A lot is going on. A lot of thinking happening. A lot of art is being made. A lot of change. More images soon.

Holy Shit. Part 2

I decided to make this a continuous section of the blog. Because I am constantly finding things that blow my mind. This site is somewhat dumbed down, but still the concepts are amazing.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080930-st-universe-void.html

"mini-black holes are primordial leftovers from the Big Bang and affect space-time differently because of their close association with a fifth dimension." (if that's not a holy shit, I don't know what is)