Me On Your Front Porch

FA 3400
SP 2012

This is my contribution to the class art project. I decided to use the Navajo sandpaintings as inspiriation. I wondered how I could approach this when it came time to shoot video on the green screen. I decided to use only my wife and I as models. I decided that we would dress in black and dress in contemporary clothes, because it would be too theatrical and disrespectful to try and dress “Navajo”.

I tried to weave a story in to this, and there is one here, but it is open to any interpretation. I was inspired by the symmetrical and spiritual aspect of the sandpaintings, so I used the crickets as a natural sound track. I decided to loop the simple movements of my wife and I to reflect the symmetry and and the one-ness of everybody’s life on Earth. That is to say, we are all the same, we are all connected by a spirituality, be it a religious god, or an atheistic belief system. 

As a side note, I used the grainyness to try and reproduce grains of sand. I wanted to achieve the “living, moving, breathing sandpainting” that the Navajo believe in.

Anonymous asked: Where do those mystery poos go that disappear inside your body when you no longer have to poo?

This is a really good question, and I am glad you asked. The mystery poo is one that has intrigued people for years. The answer is this: The physical poo itself changes into a thought, and as soon as you think, “wait, i no longer have to poo”, that poo is thought away, and it is sent up to the ether. Thanks for the question!

NAVAJO SANDPAINTINGS

Navajo Sandpaintings

Wow, this is such a cool and unique form of art. I didn’t realize that the majority of Navajo sandpainting were only temporary, and that they were made by their medicine man on the floor of their Hogans or on a buckskin, as per the various rituals (only for healing) and that as many as 30 paintings could be associated with one ceremony. I also find it cool that there are close to 1,000 traditional sandpainting that are know by the Navajo, passed down through the generations.

These sandpainting weren’t seen as a static thing, but a spiritual, living being. The order and symmetry of  a painting is meant to symbolize the harmony within the patients life.  The accuracy of the painting was supposed to determine its effectiveness. As the patient would sit on the sandpainting, the medicine man  would ask the spirits to use the painting as a portal with which the spirit could pass through. The holy spirits would absorb the sickness through the painting and take it away.  After the ceremony, the sandpainting is destroyed because it is believed to be toxic, since it has absorbed the patients illness. The life cycle of a Navajo sandpainting is usually no more than 12 hours. They are extremely sacred to the Navajo people.

One is never supposed to mock or mimic a sandpainting, or a medicine man. Authentic sandpaintins are rarely photographed, as to not disturb the sacred ceremony. Some medicine men will create sand paintings to appease the curiosity of outsiders for a “display only” purpose. He will use reverse colors and include variations as to keep the authenticity sacred. I found this online: “The sandpaintings for sale in shops and on the Internet are commercially produced and contain purposeful errors, as the real sandpaintings are considered sacred.” That is very, very cool. I can’t imagine the patience and skill that it must take to produce one of these. 

ROTOBRUSH and ROTOSCOPING TEST

Here it is… kinda boring, kinda fun.

This is my Hybrid place. Hopefully this works this time!!

ARTIST STATEMENT:

1. WHAT KIND OF A HYBRID PLACE DOES YOUR PIECE DESCRIBE? WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THIS PLACE?

This hybrid place is a sort of hybrid of my way of thinking, and the things that represent my thoughts. I chose the city at night footage because it represents my inner thoughts. I find that the energy of this video, and the time I shot it inspiring. It clears my thoughts. The other two pieces represent the social constructs of my life: Family and Friends.

2. WHAT SOURCES DID YOU USE IN YOUR PROJECT?

I used some HD video that I shot one summer night in 2010. That is the main focal point (my inner voice). I used some old 8mm footage, converted to mini-DV, as a representation of my great childhood and family life, and it represents my current life with my wife, as well as my hopes for a future family life with my wife and our future family. The third piece is some security camera footage of a show that some friends and acquaintances of mine were at. A fight broke out and it made the news. Anyway, it represents how fun and how destructive and disappointing friendship can be.  It is a huge part of my life. Some friends ended up to be terrible friends, while others ended up to be amazing.

3. DESCRIBE THE THOUGHT PROCESS YOU WENT THROUGH IN CREATING THE PIECE. WHAT STRATEGIES DID YOU USE?

I essentially described this already. It is all representative of parts of my life.

4. WHAT DOES YOUR PIECE MEAN TO YOU NOW? WHAT CAN YOU LEARN FROM IT AND WHAT INFORMATION DOES IT HAVE FOR YOU?

It tells me that I indulge in the melancholy. I didn’t realize that all the pieces I chose were dark in their composition. Another interesting thing is that my dreams are very like this video. Always at night, always nostalgic and a little bit haunting. I am not a brooding or dark person, so this came as a surprise.

UMOCA

It was really cool to visit the UMOCA. I really enjoyed contemporary art. I am a traditional, minimalistic sort of person. I like the art of film, as it pertains to real life. I am not very abstract. But every once in a while, I see a piece like “Evolution” by Marco Brambilla, and it is mind blowing. Especially in 3D, in that crazy loop/ pan. All those pieces of cinema really took on a new meaning to me. It became Marco’s work entirely. It was cool how it mimicked the human mind, or should I say it reflected it in a tangible way. It is crazy what a good piece can do to change a persons outlook on what art is and can be.

[Flash 10 is required to watch video]

I have had some trouble catching up in class, but here is my first 3D video. It is a composite of two of my favorite places. Enjoy!

A Heterotopia?

“The location of a thing, in fact, was no longer anything more than a point in its movement, its rest nothing but its movement slowed down infinitely. In other words, from Galileo onward, ever since the seventeenth century, localization was replaced by extension.”

This excerpt from the article was pretty interesting. I honestly didn’t get a chance to read the entire article ,although from what I gathered, this piece was fairly abstract. When a thing and its relative location is deconstructed to nothing more than its point along its movement, or journey, it takes on a new meaning. When translated to art, then art itself is displaced from its normal position and it takes on new possibilities of space and “other spaces”. What is space within a world of art? What is the otherness that is so vital to understanding the human condition? When I am in a room, say my bedroom at my parents house where I grew up, and say I think back on my childhood and i visualize it and I can see a physical place and the interactions that took place in that room… then I realize I am in this very space that I am visualizing but it has a different meaning. What is space and location relative to meaning?

 ”it is light, ethereal, transparent, or dark, uneven, cluttered.” To me, this represents many locations, many point of views, one place, all places, infinite space and a terrifying understanding of infinity.

[Flash 10 is required to watch video]

This is my “3 Clips” video. I was trying to manipulate the “I Love the 80’s” icon all around the screen, at random, and kind of emulating the helicopter.