blind consumption

After seeing El Anatsui's work with unusual materials and Ai Wei Wei's brilliant concepts, this is what my project transformed into:

Poster: my design, styling, and photography/editing.

The idea of "blindness" transformed from a literal condition into a more conceptual idea - knowing that a situation is occurring but ignoring its presence. Inspired by the tragic factory collapse in Bangladesh (Read more here and sign the petition here), my work began as a collection of shopping bags from the companies involved - Nike, H&M, Gap, Zara, Forever21, Walmart, and so many more....   I constructed a garment from the H&M bags to emphasize that the extravagance of clothing and the fashion industry had reached a critical point. How we choose to respond to a situation like the Bangladesh factory collapse will ultimately impact the integrity of future crises in the industry. In the poster above, the word "consume" acts as a literal veil over the companies involved in the tragedy. How can we continue supporting these companies so blindly when their actions have caused the death of over 600 individuals in the world? The exaggerated design of the dress against the repetition of shopping bags and literal consumption of alcohol is a very direct depiction of this message.

Process images:

Developing skirt

Figuring out straps and waist closure. Solution: Ties that tuck into "pocket".

            

Alternative Poster (Discarded):

ai wei wei {never sorry}

Never Sorry, the documentary about Ai Wei Wei, was incredibly inspiring for me. In fact, the entire concept of my project changed after I watched the movie. His simple interventions with a material consistently create a clear and powerful message. Ai Wei Wei seems to do this so effortlessly - that is, using a "signifier" and "signified" to convey a strong message, usually political.  As he stated at the beginning of the documentary, "Life is much more interesting when you make a little bit of effort." Ai Wei Wei is different from other Chinese artists in that his political statements are more aggressive – less subtle than typical Chinese artists. He seems convinced of the power of the internet to spread ideas and bring about collective acion. He says, "Blogs and the internet are great inventions for our time because they give ordinary people an opportunity to change public opinion." His artwork is often minimal in terms of material used; for example, in the Munich installation called "Remembering", in reference to the student deaths of the Sichuan earthquake, Ai Wei Wei simply covered the façade of the building with 9,000 backpacks. (However, this did make me curious about what happened to 9,000 backpacks once the installation was removed...) Rather than deriving his artwork from an aesthetic source, his influences are conceptual, resulting in a socio-political statement. As I was watching the documentary, I wondered how this approach could be applied to fashion design. Why should so much time and effort be put into making clothing that is just a manifestation of some aesthetic style? There are certainly designers whose work often has political or social influences - including Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen's collections - but much of fashion is not. I loved the multiplicity in the meaning of Ai Wei Wei's dynastic vase destruction. While it represents a destruction of tradition and old customs, it also reminds the world that destruction like this happens every day... without anyone really thinking about it. Ai Wei Wei's mother, Gao Ying, said something that struck me: "One person cannot solve an entire country's problems... but if everyone ignores the country's problems what will happen?" As an artist or a designer, how do you decide how much or how little you are politically involved? How much difference can one person make? These are valid questions for our society that is trying to deal with structural flaws and other limitations of modern life. Ai Wei Wei strongly believes that each person must fully utilize their freedoms, or to "earnestly cherish their rights" - which in his opinion is the "essence of society." In his artwork, photos are used primarily as documentation. As an artist, Ai Wei Wei has become almost a brand for what he considers "liberal thinking and individualism." His definition of optimism: "[is] whether you are still exhilarated by life, whether you are still curious, whether you still believe there are possibilities." The sunflower seed installation at the Tate Modern was one of the most impressionable moments for me. It was a beautiful and shocking realization that all 108 MILLION seeds were hand crafted and painted, representing that "every entity out there is its own thing."

el anatsui and transformation @ bk museum

After visiting the Brooklyn Museum twice in the past two weeks, I have a better understanding of both El Anatsui's Grace and Gravity exhibit and Life, Death, and Transformation in the Americas. 

Gravity and Grace:

Gli (Wall), 2010

Drainpipe, 2010

Seers, 1993, modified 2010

El Anatsui's work is site-specific, meaning it is altered to suit the installation space each time it is displayed, a reflection of his "nomadic" lifestyle. His walks around Nsukka are often mentioned; he transforms the objects he collects on these walks into works that are often about movement. The bottle caps and other metal scraps used in El Anatsui's curtain-like installations are an innovative use of material because of their literal and conceptual connotations. Also, his unique materials prevent his work from being too easily categorized. El Anatsui's "elevation of mundane objects" creates universal statements about movement, links and trade, as well as being a "celebration of performance and chance". The context of works like Drifting Continents is traced to alcohol trade and the subtle connections that link the bottle caps to their sources in Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Works like Gli (Wall) are symbols of walls as religious, political and social constructions. El Anatsui made a great statement about this particular piece: "Walls are meant to block views... but they block only the view of the eye - the ocular view. When the eye scans a certain barrier, the imagination tends to go beyond that barrier. Walls reveal more things than they hide." To me, his linked metal installations are also ironic, in a sense. Metal, as a material, is expected to be rigid, fixed, and flat, but his work makes the material appear like drapery – fluid and rippling. This aesthetic corresponds to his love of the nonfixed form - "the artist is not a dictator," he reminds us. His beautiful wall hangings Red Block and Black Block have subtle textural and chromatic variations. In these two works, El Anatsui explores the "monumentality and meditativeness of a single color," that is reminiscent of Rothko and Richter's abstract color paintings.

***

Life, Death, and Transformation in the Americas:

The role of the artist in this exhibit is to reflect the connection between the two worlds of life and death. The objects have ceremonial, educational, religious, or other similar purposes to reflect the functions of the universe, like natural cycles of fertility and regeneration. The purpose is to represent the cycle of life and death as a transformation; this cycle is an intrinsic part of the spiritual beliefs and social practices of the cultures. The artists of these objects sought to create a fluid relationship between the supernatural world and the human world. They are sometimes functional, but not in a utilitarian sense - the talismans, vases, masks, pipes, dolls or charms are used for connecting with the spirit. In the more recent objects, the context changes with the influence of Christian beliefs. The objects I was most attracted to were the talismans and charms, since that was the format of my last project.  Organic forms and roughness characterized the talismans in this exhibit.  I love the idea of these mysteriously private objects that are used in order to ward off evil or bring positivity to one's life. Another interesting element of the exhibit was its mention of psychoactive substances, used by indigenous peoples to acquire an altered mental state – a state of transformation that would allow communication with nature and the spirit world. They used these "hallucinogenic plants [to] produce ecstatic trances that are often characterized by visions of brilliant, swirling geometric patterns, sensations of flight, and the feeling of acquiring animal attributes and capabilities."

blindness and synesthesia

Terry Timely - photograph
http://www.territimely.com/art

I can't help but be fascinated by the experience of blindness. It is hard to comprehend that some people have no concept of what sight or color even is, when most of our lives revolve around this sense.

But unfortunately there is a sort of attitude of pity that is directed to those with the "condition", "handicap", or (worse) "disability" that is blindness. Pitying someone who does not experience life primarily through sight is a misunderstanding of the senses. For many who are blind, sound and touch provide a more hypersensitive experience of everyday life. And of course, many scientific studies have been done showing evidence that the loss of one sense heightens the others. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/health/29real.html?_r=0)

This exploration of the senses led me to "synesthesia"....
[n. the production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body.]

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHnnGHgeyC0

The ability to "taste" a color or "see" a sound might sound like some sort of drug reference, but the concept (and the video) challenge us to reevaluate our sight-dominated experience of the world. We can begin to question why we rely so heavily on sight. Does sight always represent truth? Is seeing really believing? As designers, we are aware that we have the ability to "create" images. In other words, a designed image projects a certain message to the world, but it is not always an objective or truthful message. The challenge is to rely less on sight and more on the multi-sensory experience.

The artist/director of the video, Terri Timely, has a website/blog in which an entire page is dedicated to weird photographs that make you look twice. They may appear to be mundane photographs at first glance, but force yourself to look twice and decide whether you accept that reality or not. Why would that particular photo have been taken? Sometimes, it might be just to make you aware of something you see every day but take for granted. http://www.territimely.com/art

Another cool article about "feeling sound": http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2011/06/03/feeling-sound

la mirada invisible

Pete Eckert

As I sit here eating pepitas at 3am, I happened to come across a post about an exhibit titled "THE INVISIBLE EYE: MEET MEXICO’S BLIND PHOTOGRAPHERS". Read it here. Basically, this guy called Gerardo Nigenda was "one of the early pioneers of the seeming oxymoron, 'blind photography'."He would never see the photos he took. In some of his work, he imprinted braille. Fifteen blind mexican photographers were featured in this show, about which Miguel Angel Herrera expressed his thoughts:

"Like [blind Cuban artist] Eladio Reyes has said, “The word ‘image’ doesn’t come from seeing, but from imagination.” Photographs taken by blind people enrich the medium because they involve other senses in the process: hearing, taste, touch, smell."

A hispanic website about digital photography also spoke about the photographers: "a pesar de sus problemas de visión son capaces de dejarnos atónitos y cuestionarnos si la ceguera del prejuicio es peor que la ocular." (Meaning...) In spite of their vision problems, [the photographers] are able to leave us amazed and questioning/reflecting on whether "the blindness of prejudice is worse than the sight [of the blind]". In so many cases, people are able to turn their disabilities into their strengths when really accept the challenge.

In Pete Eckert's photo above, the following question was raised by a hispanic blogger of digital photography:

Pero ¿qué ocurre cuando no podemos ver o hemos perdido el 80% de nuestra visión? Lo que ocurre es que esa visión fotográfica es más intuitiva.

What happens when we cannot see or have lost 80% of our vision? What results is a more intuitive photographic vision. (The writer also explains that Eckert paints with light what he sees in his mind.) The effect is an image pulsating with energy and organic forms, but at the same time these photographs conjure images of a fire or burning men.

Photo by: Gerardo Nigenda. 

In many of his photos, Nigenda captures himself touching the subject, endearingly making the viewer aware of the camera-subject relationship. Braille is imprinted in many of his images.

blind saving the blind

Jim Sherman and Annie Smith had enjoyed the news and Everybody Loves Raymond together the evening of March 27 when Sherman decided it was time to turn in. Bidding his neighbor good night, Sherman, blind since birth, used his cane and Smith's fence to find his way back from her house to his RV next door in Conroe, Texas. 

Once in bed, Sherman, 55, turned on the baby monitor that Smith's daughter Debbie—a nurse who worked nights—had bought for both their homes so Sherman could keep an ear out for Smith, 85, who is legally blind and has Alzheimer's disease. Shortly after 10 p.m., Sherman started to hear odd noises over the monitor and then Annie's frantic voice: "Jim, the house is on fire!" 

Sherman sprang into action. "I knew if I were to wait," he recalls, "it might be too late." He made his way to Smith's front door, left open for her dogs. "I could smell smoke," he says. "I asked 'Where are you?' She shouted, 'I'm over here at the back.'" Following the sound of Annie's voice, Sherman found her near the bathroom. Taking her hands, he led her out of the house. "You could hear roaring and crackling," Sherman recalls. "It was like an oven." 

The fire, started by a faulty electrical connection, gutted the house and killed Annie's cat and three kittens. But mother and daughter realize that, if not for Sherman, the outcome could have been much worse. "There is no way I can express my gratitude—it's too enormous," Debbie says. Adds Annie: "He couldn't see, but he went into that burning house and got me out." 

***

I found this blog, the burning house. It's kind of a lighthearted approach to a terrible situation, but it is a way for people to think about what is important to them. http://theburninghouse.com/

end of story

Vukub Caquix and the Tree of Life

Completed talisman necklace and stand

 

Explanation of the pendants

Using an awl and a hammer, I laid my designs over the aluminum sheet and tapped each mark one by one so that the design was embossed on the other side. I then cut out the surrounding shape with a jewelry saw and drilled holes for the chain links. 

 

Top -- a representation of Vukub-Caquix himself. Him form resembles that of a macaw. His name, meaning "Seven times the color of fire," was given to him because of his brilliant, silvery eyes, which I placed on the top left and right of this pendant.

 

Middle -- the source of Vukub-Caquix's downfall. These two Mayan heiroglyphs represent the moon and sun, respectively. Vukub-Caquix believed he was so important and brilliant that his very existence made the sun and moon redundant. His arrogance is what ultimatley led to his death.

 

Bottom -- reads "Chalam," the mayan word for "jawbone." One day, when he goes to his nance tree to pick fruit to eat, his enemies shoot him with a blow pipe from afar. The wound to the jaw severely weakened him and led to his death. Although Vukub-Caquix is not human, it might be significant to remember that the muscles in the jaw are some of the strongest in the entire human body. A severe wound to the jaw might symbolize taking someone's strength and power from him or her. This story acts as a warning to anyone who isn't careful about letting excessive pride overcome them...

 

The stand -- represents both the nance tree from which Vukub Caquix picked his yellow fruit and also the Mayan tree of life, which contains representations of a constellation (Big dipper), a galaxy (Milky Way), the moon (eclipse), and an offering to the gods. The top of the tree of life is the depiction of the constellation, but it is also actually Vukub Caquix (Seven-Macaw) himself.

 

More Process...

First, I developed the designs for the wood panel and pendants. The design for the tree is in my previous post, done in illustrator using the pen tool. I used mayan images for reference but did not trace any existing forms - this design is my creation, inspired by the mayan forms. I wanted the pendants to narrate the symbols of the story, as explained above. I began by drawing some potential designs; I then scanned my drawings and live traced them in illustrator so that I could scale them up and down easily. Here are the illustrator images:

Using the scroll saw, I cut out the design of the tree of life. Sanding it by hand is what took more time, really... I then spray painted the form black:

 

The actual talisman/necklace required aluminum sheet metal, some 4/0 blades for the jewelry saw (so tiny!!), 36 inches of stainless steel chain, chain links, and a clasp/closure. For all these needs Metalliferous and Brooklyn Charm were most helpful. There are just countless necklace charms you never knew you needed there... it's dangerous. Needlenose pliers definitely make the list of essentials.

 

This project was a great way for me to explore jewelry-making. It was definitely one of those projects whose success was dependent on the amount of focus and concentration. So satisfying in the end!