ladyparts

Broad, Sweeping Assertions

You could say that my New Genre Art forms class is about kitsch and staging performances. It’s your call on wheather or not that fits the title. I know I have been talking about this class a lot lately, hey, it’s a three hour class that meets twice a week.

Here are some things I have been thinking about:

Blurb by Tao Lin about Tao Lin written by Todd Zuniga:

I like my book of poems. I like salmon. I want the salmon to shake
hands with the book, but I ate the salmon and now it’s in my stomach,
and my stomach has no fingers. The book is good, but I don’t care. I
want the book to punch the salmon in the face. Then I want the
universe to punch itself in the face.

This is the current dilemma of time and identity in art. We are confronted with things that touch us, but they are not related other than within our own minds. We are aware of this and it is depressing. Identity is composed of concrete memories with constants, but we are not sure if there are truly constants. But it doesn’t matter. We still ate the salmon, which did not shake hands with our book of poems (see above poem). Likewise, we still experienced something touching us, even if the significance of that touch is a result of what we have trained our minds to do. Thus, even if we can become aware and overwhelmed by time and identity, we continue to compose it.

This thought process causes people, humans, to make art. Out of our sorrow births metaphor. Contemporary artists are essentially wrestling with the question, “how can I communicate with people who use abstractions?” It is about communication. We are hungry for it because we think it creates, or adds to, our identity and perpetuates time.

I was thinking a lot about this on a ride home from L.A. on the Metro gold line. I tried to identify my criteria for the best piece of art I could make right now. This caused me to ask myself what I considered good art, which led me to ask myself what it is that I want to, am trying to, say. But this just made me unbearably aware of my existence/consciousness. I became aware that I am just like the tapeworm inside my kittens intestines. I have lodged my head into the wall of I-have-no-idea-what and am starving for touching/beautiful/significant moments. I gorge myself on them. This is all I do. Then I became utterly paralyzed. How can we go on and make art within this thought process; this hunger for identity (and not just roll over and hold someone)?

We cannot help ourselves.

It seems to me that kitsch touches on these dilemmas of identity and time, or rather, ability to conceptualize our relationship to the abstract notions of time and identity. Rather than contemporary artists who show their work in quite white spaces, people who create small meaningful/less objects, what we refer to as kitsch, distribute their products freely and overwhelmingly. There is no privatization or ownership of thought or idea. The image and/or object belong to everyone because it can be obtained for a reasonable price. Quality is not the objective, but rather, distribution. This is the contrast between high art and kitsch, the principle conceptualization of the self. Does thinking about your existence paralyze you and cause you to isolate yourself, or does it numb your brain and make you completely able to roll over, completely able to forget and move on. The lonely artist sitting in a studio, birthing the idea that will revolutionize our perception of the human condition is an icon of the elite, wealthy class. But kitsch just is the human condition, taking time and being itself. It does not continue into frustration, it feels warm and touched by the small plastic figurine of a lamb.

What is Good Performance Art?

Last night, at the end of the very heated class discussion, my friend Johanna asked, “What makes a performance piece good? Like with the lady who takes pictures with her mouth, why do people like Tom Waits go to her performances?”

The responses from fellow classmates, including myself, basically outlined that performance art, because of it’s inherent intimacy, a great deal of it has to do with the audience. If the performance matters to the viewer, the viewers respond and the piece is considered good. The artist is responsible for tapping into what matters.

This is somewhat depressing.
Why do we make things matter?

My professor said that there has to be an equal ratio of visual stimulation and conceptual stimulation. The concept has to be strong, but it also has to be beautiful.

I think this is what holds me back from all of the professors in the Art department, why they do not latch onto me. I lack the interest to keep that ratio equal, the concept is much more important to me. I have trouble with the homely details of the mediums I have experienced in art classes. Writing continues to be my strongest medium. This is not something that any of the professors in the art department at my school can relate to at all.

Do you think this is true of performance? When you think about the art that impacts you, what elements are present? Are there equal amounts of visual stimulation and conceptual stimulation in a musical performance? Let’s have it.

Racism (Live from Azusa Pacific University)

It happened November 1; I wanted to write about it then. But every time I sit down to close in on the words, I feel my limbs growing heavy and my mouth becoming numb. It all comes down to telling our side of the story, I guess, even if it is not our story to tell. I hate learning this the hard way, choosing words for situations that are far too vast and significant for shapes and prescriptions. It’s part of the reason I left global studies for art.

A number of bizarre events have occurred during my New Genre Art Forms class this semester. They possess a kind of sterility and gore similar to viewing the discolored and textured surfaces of a cadaver. There is no way to process all of the smells of the marinated-in-formaldehyde flesh, the feeling in your ears and eyes from the hum of the florescent light, or the strange impulse in your bones to assault your companions. My responses, thus far, fall into two categories: diatribes over-seasoned with profanity in attempt to avoid physical violence, or immobilizing fatigue—like chewing the entirety of a pack of eclipse gum just to taste something, but instead your tongue has become numb from the chemical flavor.

This is so hard to write because of the complexity, I still have absolutely NO IDEA how to process its dimensions. There are seemingly endless factors that I feel unable to wrap my mind around. I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS HAPPENED, let alone that I saw it. I am simultaneously overwhelmed with admiration—and hate.

With no further ado, I will recount some of the details.

As I said, this was the second night of the last performance pieces. There was about seven of us left to go (half of the class). The assignment was to perform a personal response to one of the following topics: global warming and the environment, American Idol, the war in Iraq, the obesity epidemic, OJ Simpson, reality T.V., stem cell research, Brittany Spears, Apple vs. Microsoft, the presidential election, opera, Rachel Ray, immigration, or Jena 6. Could be interesting, right? It was epic. This night made me feel some sort of purpose in being at APU.

My friend responded to Jena 6. She is the only African-American in the Art Department at my school. My school is 95 percent white.

Her tiny frame shaking, she walked out to the middle of the courtyard on the main part of the West Campus, surrounded by her classmates and a cluster of friends. Her face bore the iconic, racist American archetype—blackface—and she began to dance the choreography to Soulja Boy’s Crank Dat Soulja Boy on top of a wooden square.

I felt nauseous. Jenna, Matthew, and I had learned this dance one night and now it was here used as a representation for racist spectacle. Fuck dude. It was so intense. No one does anything that is actually trying to communicate an issue and push us to change in this class. I am still completely overwhelmed with admiration for her.

Later I found out that no one got it. NO ONE GOT IT. My professor told her not to do it because he didn’t get it. He didn’t know what blackface was! How is he a professor! An artist! A human being! WTF!

I corresponded a great deal with her about my feelings on the piece and it’s historical significance and necessity for the students at our school. We talked a lot. This is the most obvious and terrifying example of racism at this school, “Oh, I’m sorry, you need to cater to the white man’s needs, small insignificant minority.” We didn’t even talk about the pieces until last night! And another friend from my class had to bring it up and ask for a discussion! He was totally put out and blatantly avoiding the critique.

As you can guess, I said what I needed to say. And of course my professor turned red and did not address the real issue at all. He was vague and did not even attempt to address the racism at our school, which was the point of her doing the piece. Jesus! I mean how is this even possible? How can you not be excited about students really making art and trying to push their communities to see something that they obviously do not?

After class we were clustered in a group talking about our next project for class and the professor came up all red faced and wide eyed, “I hope you know I’m not picking on you.” What?!?!? How does that apply to the situation at all. What part of you feeling attacked by students calling you out could be classified as picking on the students? I do not understand this sentence at all. Showing a lack of response and/or ability to dialogue is not at all related to picking on someone. This was merely an attempt to belittle us and make it seem like we were a part of his discussion. This makes me very sad that he has no idea how to deal with these kind of issues or confrontations.

I can’t write about this anymore right now. There is too much that has transpired over the past two weeks. Maybe I will come back to it. Or if you have any questions, that may be an easier way to deal with it.

There is just too much to go into—blatant racism and sexism at a small Christian university—that is some deep shit dudes.

Virtual Exhibition

Here is the world-wide release of CONTACT ((how are you not myself)). I hope you take your time with the pieces and maybe even work out a way to listen to the audio pieces on headphones with another person (see photos below). Thank you for coming to this space and for all of your invisible interactions.

CONTACT ME

ALISHA AND I
Story written together over instant messenger
7:15

MATTHEW AND I
Live interview with sounds by Matthew Spencer
8:38

JENNA AND I
Live interview with lyrics from Joni Mitchell’s Woman of Heart and Mind
9:38

JORDAN AND I
Audio letters sent over the Internet
8:48

The Opening

Olympia

Tired, hungry, hot, I climbed the steep slope
to town, a sultry, watery place, crawling with insects
and birds.
In the semidarkness of the mountain,
small things loomed large: a donkey urinating on a palm;
a salt-and-saliva-stained boy riding on his mother’s back;
a shy roaming black Adam. I was walking on an edge.
The moments fused into one crystalline rock,
like ice in a champagne bucket. Time was plunging forward,
like dolphins scissoring open water or like me,
following Jenny’s flippers down to see the coral reef,
where the color of sand, sea and sky merged,
and it was as if that was all God wanted:
not a wife, a house or a position,
but a self, like a needle, pushing in a vein.
-henry cole

Contact ((how are you not myself)) time lapse from lady parts on Vimeo.

The opening reception was more than I could have imagined. I received very honest feedback and am very excited that people went through the entire exhibition and listened to each piece. Any fear that I had regarding accessibility was expunged by the variety of people all connecting to the concepts in the show.

Thank you for going there with me.