The reading for next week (due March 31)

Views from Above:  Locative Narrative and the Landscape can be accessed right here

Suicide

The women "performed" Jeremy's suicide map/score while the men bickered about how to document Emily's expression-book, and then everyone repeated the whole event again. The stop action had become action which had been looped to repeat. Next class we will repeat this class...:)

Video coming... it wouldn't load and I just ran out of time.

All this happened in the men's bathroom, after which the class divided into groups of men and women. The division having been suggested by the bathroom signs...

Then Erin volunteered to "do" one of Yuta's images... transforming the image from the realm of the photographic - the simulated - to the real. A moment documented | the image | re-inacted | the experience | redocumented.

Yuta brought in a package of still images taken with a Holga... creating multiples of each image/moment.

Yuta thought someone was going to take the packet home and create a new flat artwork from his instructions. Instead we started to follow his instructions as a group in class, creating improvisational results....

Jeremy created a topological diagram on "How to Commit Suicide", as an ode to Daniel Spoerri's "An Anecdoted Topography of Chance." Yes, the body images on the right side of the document are Jeremy's body....

Jesse came up with an interesting solution to the assignment, creating a collaged image made from strobe stop-action photography. A video made up of single images of stopping the action was the second part of the product. Muybridge-inspired action, what Muybridge couldn't do still-image. Just a wonderful riddle!

Shirley continued with her project "How to be Me"
which is a really great idea. David suggested that she have people have to get the wig and "perform/become her," document that and send it to her. Good project, check it out....

Emily photographed facial expressions, hers and others, and gave a set of instructions.

The result was that one team started to perform the expressions and another team was documenting the expressions... I don't have those images.

Class Documentation 3/3/08

It all started out normally enough... The assignment was to photograph oneself, using your own body as a map/score that would be given to someone else "to do". Therefore, the self-portrait map/score would have instructions that would be executed/performed by someone else. Simple, no?



So, Erin went first and she had converted "Where's Waldo?" into "Where's Erin?" , using her own biography to map her location (where she has lived, where she has traveled). We could find her by her red scarf....

Frida Kahlo at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

If you have never seen the paintings of Frida Kahlo - along with the extensive photo collection of artists working with and around her in the middle of the last century - this is a fantastic opportunity.  Well worth the schlepp to Philly.

Information here.

Design and the Elastic Mind

A very interesting must-see exhibit at MOMA.

Design and the Elastic Mind - information here.

The Armory Show

... is another great NYC art event.  

Information here

The Whitney Biennial

...opens on Thursday.  I always think the Biennial - love it or hate it - is a great opportunity to check in with new energy and interesting ideas.  I recommend going to as much of it as you can...performances, site-specific works, the whole shebang.

Interesting article in the NY Times and you can get the schedule on the Whitney web site.