Rough Installation Tests

I've been testing different options for the projections of performances, and I'd been playing with projecting on to objects that are in the videos.  It looks slightly interesting, but I definitely think the addition of other set pieces is important.  I think it would help to add a new sense of 3d and 2d space together like what's happening with the stool, but on a more complex level.  Plus there aren't quite enough objects that are visible on camera to really have a rich space if I only used those objects.  The projections are way more interesting when the wall it's projected on is really obscured by objects that the projections can be partially viewed on.

Saddle Gals, Book Licking

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOepQSpi2qk

So I'm having issues with adding the videos to the post again, but here's the link to a new video.  It's another alphabetical book licking thing, but it's more focused on showing the act of licking, which is pretty effective I think.  I've also been trying out things with lens filters so there are sort of interesting areas of focus which I think is good for the video.  Also color is a new thing for these, I feel like it fits the softcore aesthetic that I'm looking at.  I'm intending to upload this video to a porn website to further insert it into the context that I'm referencing.

Fore edge videos, and sleep performance book

I mostly finished editing the shorter clips (some of them have black screens for too long at the end).  But, I've been considering what I want to do with them, and the grid that the blog set the videos in the last post was pretty interesting to me, so I made two videos in which I explore some of the videos being played simultaneously.  One is a standard quad split, and the other is a little more random.  I've also been making some progress with the book that I'm making for the sleep performance, but I'd prefer to look at it printed, so I'll bring that on Tuesday.

The two split videos aren't showing up in the search again, so the links are here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Hv1Icyd5Sw&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoS84OdcSbc&feature=youtu.be

More Videos

I've been working on refining these videos, I've still got some more that I'm editing, but these are some of the pretty good ones that came out.

More videos, and stuff I'd like to do with them

So there are a lot of videos here, two of them, the page turning and the page animation are videos that I meant to upload last time around, but forgot to.  I made 2 loops from the book tape videos, they could just be animated .gifs at some point.  And there's another video that I shamelessly downloaded from my instagram.  

In thinking about how I'd like to present these shorter videos and loops in an exhibition setting I started thinking about them being part of the installed performance space.  So that in the gallery a version of my usual performance space (painted tile floorpiece, shelf, stool) that you can see in the past videos, plus monitors (or ereaders, if I can manage) cycle through these videos.  I think since I reference these videos as a sort of porn, and the performances are to some degree about fetishism, or intimacy, they should be viewed as a singular(ish) unit.  I'm also still interested in the notion of projecting the performance videos onto the installed performance space during the times that I'm not performing.

Books/Projections

I was working on the first video for my independent study with John and ended up playing with some projections and book pages which I thought was interesting. I ended on these projections using the tape from badly repaired library books. These are the most interesting to me and I'm hoping to do more with them (maybe a large scale artist book).  I don't know if they should stay projections, just because of how fragile, and relatively uncontrolled the whole thing is, plus I think separating them from the tool making them sort of adds to the mystery of them. There are a few more videos that I couldn't post here:

 https://www.youtube.com/playlistlist=PLmkgGsdYglDDAeEAdEeiKnibSOUCWj7up

Sleep performance book: proof of concept

I know that I mentioned making the stills from the sleep performance into a book and I just wanted to share a rough estimate of what it will look like.  I'm still compiling the dictionary terms (1509/1807).  But generally this will be it.  The still with the caption underneath it.  I don't know if I'll keep the figure numbers yet.  I actually don't know the page size because I might be using lulu or something to print.  Nothing about the spacing, or even typeface is what it will likely be, this is just thrown together to show sort of what I'm talking about with the book documentation.

Sleeping A to -

As an extension of the fetish based book performances, I sleep next to a dictionary, I did this piece building on my interest in the intimacy between us and our written language/ us and our books.  It is not out of the ordinary for someone to fall asleep with a book.  The tactility and smell of old books are something that people look for.  We barely notice these things in some way, but in another there are few objects that we treat with such intimacy.

In bringing this piece to other people they have talked to me about these experiences that they have had with books that relate to this piece.  This performance made me recognize some pretty intense experiences that I'd been having that books play a role in (like your rocks, Lyssa).  The piece might be a little more vulnerable, a little more real, sometimes I think it might border on too personal (sometime life starts to imitate art), but I think that might be important.

I'm planning on making the stills collected from this performance into a book (probably print on demand), I took stills (1,807 to be exact) from each second of the video, knowing that there would be hundreds of almost identical images.  It's a meditation in some ways.  I've been thinking about page turning as a meditation lately.  Like using a mala to recite mantras.  Like flipping through the entire book could be similar to sleeping next to an old book, there could be some comfort there.  I'm also thinking about including the first word on each page of the dictionary from page 1-1,807 to relate back to the dictionary.  As if in some way sleeping with the book is a way of traversing through it.  I'm rambling a bit.

Unfortunately I can't upload the embed the video yet because youtube refuse to let me right now, I'll try again later.  For now here is a sampling of the stills (I couldn't include all of them because of google drive's file size limits), as well as the video.

P.S. I'm not sure why the contact sheet has pages of just filenames, maybe that's just me, but you get the gist, when I design the book that won't matter anyway.

A to Z

A while back John and I were discussing the possibilities of "quieter" performances, which may reveal themselves later.  We talked about me writing letters with my tongue on something, and maybe that would read as something at the end.

Well I didn't do that, not really I guess.  I was interested in the concept of writing letters with my tongue and the associations that that holds, applying it to the book, and seeing where it takes me.  It's definitely follows the other book licking performance that I've done, and while I feel that that one is compelling, this has another kind of thing going on with it.

I used this old art history glossary From Abacus to Zeus, and drew out the letters of that page, so if I were on a page defining pagodas and post and lintel, I would write Pp with my tongue somewhere on that page.

Watching it back is sort of strange, because the licking is not just random, but is also difficult to parse.  Plus the associations with writing the alphabet with the tongue and oral sex is really interesting/odd.  Is this some unexpected result of deep intimacy with our own language?  Does this association exist within other cultures whose writing systems are very different from English. The whole thing has the tinge of amateur exhibitionist porn.  The random talking an background noise of the studio makes it feel really public.  I felt that while I was performing, because it was not a typical performance situation, where it is known that something out of the ordinary may happen, I was doing this in my studio while everyone else worked, or walked around, I felt on edge the entire time, like I was going to be caught which feels appropriate for the piece.  I'm interested in exploring this further, but at the same time I'm wondering about the meaning an longevity of these book fetish pieces.  I think I need to just write a bit extensively about them to really begin to nail them down.



P.S. I uploaded all of my full length videos to youtube, they're right here.  John, maybe you could add it to the resources on the blog.

Speed Reading Videos

I made a few of these videos a while ago, viewing them as being representative of reading that is specific to reading on screen. I find it interesting to remove the utility of the software, by setting speeds to theoretically show the text in a minute. The result is it being impossible to read with any clarity, and delayed recognition of specific words. They're pretty low quality videos because they're screen captures, but I'm sort of interested in the weird witchy atmosphere of blurred text. The texts that I chose were writings on the state of the book within the network. They're texts that I feel like I should read, but rarely manage to. I've been trying to figure out how to use them, my studio mate and I have considered collaborations involving projecting them. I've considered performance work involving speaking the few words that I recognize, or writing them down.

Paradise Lost: book i, book ii

In this series of performances, I explore how the act of reading, specifically from a codex, reflects upon the reader due to a common perception of morality and romanticism associated with reading from the codex. These notions are challenged in performances in which I read, using the act of moving to a new page as a timepiece, and simple gestures which deny the typically romantic image of reader and book. Currently these performances have taken place while reading through Paradise Lost, each of these performances involves water as a gesture toward the concept of the Great Flood.

Civilization and Its Discontents: Pages i-xxvii

Common internet language has allowed the word porn to be attached to anything which may be found pleasing, resulting in the concept of book porn, or book fetish. My interest is to play with these terms, and make them literal to the point of absurdity. The foundation of this body of work is this performance in which I lick the gutter of a book in an attempt to sexualize the book, and create a sort of amateur book porn.

(It seems that for now I'll be uploading clips of performances considering the file size limit until I upload everything to youtube. Plus the audio needs to be cleaned up on the full length videos The full performance is 10 minutes. This is the link to the full version on vimeo, but I probably won't keep using it. https://vimeo.com/116816894)