Line Drawings
“A Wave of Verticals.”
My first three pieces were influenced by this quote. Referring to the streets, I tried to mimic the grid of the streets in in my pieces. Each kind of clothing is represented by a straight line. However, the lines overlap and create a distorted grid, alluding to my experience so far in the “wave of verticals.” The piece documenting the colors of my laundry are made to represent an overhead view of the buildings in New York. Then finally, in my last piece with my laundry, I combine the two, creating an abstract map of my perception of my surroundings.
The only reason I used laundry is because I was waiting for my laundry to be done while reading this. There is no further correlation.
“Escaping the imaginary totalizations produced by the eye, the everyday has a certain strangeness that does not surface, or whose surface is only its upper limit, outlining itself against the invisible.”
My series of five pieces about pigeons outside my window was inspired by this quote. The series documents how many pigeons (there are almost always at least two) were sitting outside my window at arbitrary times of the day. Though these animals have become such a normal part of my life, something i’ve come to expect upon returning home, the birds are mysterious to me- I know very little about pigeons other than their physical appearance. I tried to portray this in my pieces. Though the concept, documentation, and actual creation is quite simple, I tried to vaguely replicate the shape and position of the birds. Some were facing me, but many were facing away. Looking closely, it is my hope the viewer will be able to make out a loose shape of the pigeons and will be able to tell if they’re facing me or facing away, whether they’re close or far, old or young.
“The long poem of walking manipulates spatial organizations, no matter how panoptic they may be; it is neither foreign to them… nor in conformity with them.”
My piece about bedtimes was inspired by this quote. I spend all my time walking in the city it seems- it’s the only mode of transportation I use. However, the spatial organizations of New York City are still foreign to me. Lying in bed each night, I think of all the new things I noticed that day, just a block or two away from home, that had been completely invisible to me before. Sometimes it’s a laundromat. Other times, it’s a new favorite restaurant that I found by complete chance. Though I know the routes I take every day, represented by the black lines of nights I went to sleep before midnight, the curving, thick, abstract silver lines represent the areas I still do not and to me offer a sense of exploration and mystery.
Art Book Fair Response
I like all these works for completely different reasons. The vinyl record, though hard to see from the photograph, has a woman scratched into it. She appears to be dancing. It is a simple line draewing of her. This piece was interesting to me because I had never seen anything like it- it seemed completely original. Growing up, my family had a record player too, so I know what a tragedy it is to scratch one. it makes me wonder what the record was- was it valuable or worthless?
I found Richard Prince’s instagram recordings for a variety of reasons as well. Because of their shape, I initially thought they were album covers, a unique artform that has always interested me. however, I soon learned that they were instagram posts that prince used in his artwork. It wasn’t entirely clear to me how much of his own voice went into each piece, but I enjoyed the politically motivated and more provocative pieces.
Finally, the sexpapers. they surprised me. My first though was “why?”, a question I still can’t answer. I found them funny more than anything, but I think these stuck with me because of the newspaper project. I thought it was a fun, strange, unique, and risky idea and they make me want to flip through them to see what kind of content they could possibly have.
These three works together are very provocative, unique, and creative. These are the three things that are most important to me when creating or looking at art. Though I didn’t particularly like the art on the sexpapers, I couldn’t help but include them in my assignment because of how unique they are. Though Richard Prince’s work may be appropriated, i thought the subject matter was incredibly interesting due to it provocative subject matter. And the vinyl was just incredibly creative and well done to me. these pieces embody what is most important in a piece of art to me.
"The Libray of Babel and the World Wide Web"
Jorge Luis Borges’s “the Library of Babel” and Tim Berners-Lee’s “the World-Wide Web” share little in common with each other. They write about completely different subjects that have no apparent relation to each other. However, both these texts speak about another language that people try to understand and follow. While Borges’s is a literal language using “orthographical symbols”, Lee’s is a technological language. Both writings are speaking about the emergences and basics of such a language. Each text is meant to teach and encourage the reader to indulge themselves in an act of learning and offer guidance.
Furthermore, the texts both speak about creating and organizing separate worlds. “The Library of Babel” discusses how we can organize, understand, and improve the universe, or “what others call the library”. “The World-Wide Web” explains the methods and vocabulary for creating websites.
This is the extent of the similarities. The texts are not written similarly nor are they about similar concepts. It is simply the theory and point that connects them.
Newspapers
My newspapers are for specific people, not the public. They’re reach is intentionally even smaller than those of the small, local papers in Charlesworth’s work. They’re meant to be a “news-flash” for just one person. The messages each come in different forms, expressing the importance of the message; a strong statement on the front cover, a less important, but still prominent article on the second page, a short column on the left, or an ad in the corner. The pieces are interesting at first glance- they might be entertaining for their humor or blatant rudeness, their explicit message or abstract interpretations. However, when viewed with the title, the message becomes markedly understandable.
The titles for the pieces are:
A Message for President Trump
A commentary about his government’s policies on climate change (and perhaps, many more of his decisions).
A News Flash for my Ex
She never leaves me alone.
A Note for my Worried Mother
A simple reassurance that I am taking care of myself.
An Ad for my Lonely Friend
He needs some love. And if not love, at least something to occupy his time for a while.
The pieces are each meant to benefit either the person, or those effected by their actions. A message for president trump and a newsflash for my ex will benefit those who yearn for them to change their actions, while a note to my worried mother and an ad for my lonely friend will only serve any value to the intended reader. Like charlesworth, I kept my paper’s aesthetic minimal, highlighting only one message per paper. Instead of bombarding the reader with extra information that they don’t care about and can’t put into practice in their daily life, they are straight to the point and unavoidable. Whether they serve serious good or not, the news in my papers is truly relevant to the reader.
Color
This is a photo I took a long time ago- probably during my freshman year of high school, before I was even considering a career in photography. It was undoubtedly one of the images that peaked my interest in photography, however, I haven’t ever thought of its power, value, or meaning. It won a scholastic Art and Writing Award my sophomore year, though I don’t remember exactly which tier, and I believe I used it in my college portfolios when applying to schools, but it’s an image I don’t ever think about.
After reading Nato Thompson’s essay “Yellow” in Cabinet Magazine, I started thinking about why this image was an interesting photo, why I returned to it for competitions, and why I placed it among my twelve best images that would determine my college acceptances. I saw not only it’s subject matter, by how it the combined with colors to create an entrancing photograph.
Thompson identifies yellow as many things; relaxing, calm, empathetic, captivating, and gentle, but also cautionary, calling it a gentle reminder. I was fascinated by this idea of gentle caution and how it applies to my photo. Because of uniquely colored objects and ideas in our world, Thompson explains that we react a certain way to specific colors. Though this seems obvious, it’s something not often thought about. Thompson says that, “It’s a dangerous world out there and you can thank the color yellow for lending a hand in navigating this treacherous terrain” (Thompson). We are relaxed by the color yellow, but because it’s a rather bright, relatively uncommon color, we become alert when we see it. Her most prominent example of a universal yellow thing is a street sign, which often times include black writing and symbols, another prominent color in my photo that relates to yellow in some surprising ways.
Unlike yellow, black demands attention. In street signs, it is the yellow that grabs our attention and requests that we proceed cautiously, but the black figures within the sign do not plead; they demand. The Cabinet Magazine essay “Black” by Paul La Farge claims black is the color of refusal. It refuses to be ignored, refuses to be disobeyed, because if you do, you will suffer punishment in one way or another. Furthermore, it is the color of disorganized freedom. Quoting both Aristotle and contemporary philosopher Giorgio Agamben, La Farge explains black is the color of blindness, but not in the same way that we can be blind. Instead, the author uses the example of a time he was caving with his friend Wayne. When the pair hiked deep enough into the dark cave, they literally could only see black and nothing else. Paraphrasing Agamben, La Farge theorizes “our eyes have not only the potential to see, but also the potential not to see” (La Farge). Human potentiality is only just a mere possibility as well. We only have the potential to act because we have the freedom of not acting, which La Farge claims is “potential for darkness” (La Farge). The color of both literal and metaphorical “darkness” is black, the color of anarchical, yet sometimes valuable, freedom.
This freedom does not apply exclusively to conduct, but also imagination. Attributing this to the sacredness of caves amid ancient societies, La Farge writes, “You can sit in the darkness for as long as you like, staring blindly at nothing, and see what you will” (La Farge). The cave in which La Farge and Wayne sat used to be to “initiate boys into manhood” by Native American tribes. The cave (given spiritual significance by the patterns created by the human eye in the dark that were interpreted as gods by La Farge’s Native Americans), represented a “liminal”, or transitional, space between two stages of life, the one dissolved in darkness and the other not yet known” (La Farge). The liminality of the cave then comes to represent “what might have been”, or regret in a word. We leave our past behind, consumed by darkness and never to be rediscovered, and patter onwards into the unknown, hoping never to regret where we took a turn for the worse.
The colors combined in a street sign are a way of easing the driver into caution or, in Thompson’s words, “simultaneous paternal and maternal forms of danger avoidance” (Thompson). While yellow is calm and empathetic, it does have to be taken seriously. Yellow will not waste your time, but it also will give you the freedom to make your own mistakes, such as ignoring it and crashing your car. Thompson then identifies yellow as “the sign of the ultimate thing to come—death itself” (Thompson). Both yellow and black are signs of freedom, but in a world with complete freedom, we do not know nor could we predict our futures, so it would be naïve not to take caution when alerted to possible danger and not to obey strong demands that systematically relate to punishment.
My image acquires a whole new meaning after researching these colors. To me, it becomes a commentary about the mysterious, unknown odyssey to the inevitable: Death. The obtrusive and vibrant yellow wall acting as the backdrop immediately captivates the viewer. With a few exceptions such as Thompson’s street signs, school busses, vivacious gardens, or maybe the golden arches of McDonald’s, it’s rare we see so much bright yellow in the world at one time. Like a bee to a marigold, the viewer is drawn to this calmness and gentleness of the color, a feeling enforced by the stagnant pose held by the shadow and the fragility of the flowers. Combined with the naturally allusive flowers, the blackness of both the shadows and the table implies freedom, not only in nature but also in a domestic setting, such as this house. But, since the flower are in a vase, they will inevitably die, a sad reality made more imminent by the vitality of the yellow. This vitality then speaks to the implication of youth, clearly seen by the boyish, black shadow, a metaphor for regretting one’s past and yearning for a simpler time in our lives. This photo, in essence, becomes the color yellow. It is a reminder that we are not immortal. It not only reminds us to proceed cautiously and slowly so we don’t miss out, but also to use our own freedom for granted and to take the time to indulge in life’s luxuries, similar to the shadow is studying the flowers. My photo, which I newly titled “Untold”, is a narrative of a person who regrets taking time to “stop and smell the roses”, and serves as a cautionary tale to all who sees it.