Line Artist Statement
After reading "Michel de Certeau "The Practice of Everyday Life: Walking in the City" there was quite a bit that stuck with me. Certeau is trying to drive forward the point that society, both as groups and individuals are putting forth different modes of representations of how we act, our social behaviours. He writes on page 92, “I wonder what is the source of this pleasure, of “seeing the whole,” of looking down on, totalizing the most immoderate of human texts.” This, I feel resonates well with what it is I focused my “lines project” on. I drew up a key that centered around books, of all different types of genres. To many, the depth I reached with these books could be considered immoderate, as could some, and even all of the genres I chose depending on who it was you asked. I too, sometimes struggle in trying to figure out what exactly I’m enjoying from the things I read. Whether it’s the style of writing, the actual focus, characters, I’m honestly not all too sure. From Classic Literature to Japanese Manga, there aren’t too many similarities, though what I can say is that all of the books I had chosen to use, were all chosen for their titles. As Certeau writes, “these names create a nowhere in places; they change them into passages.” That’s exactly what I felt as I sat in these different spaces. As I read in libraries, and during car rides, the titles of everything I read began to change. They spoke to me, encouraged me to explore them even deeper than what it is they said on the surface. They pushed me to understand them, in not just a single phrase, but in an entire system of thought. Reading some more, Certeau continue to inspire my project and I as he writes, “it is like a peddler, carrying something."
Comparative Essay
The World Wide Web and the Labyrinth of life, two different worlds, though in recent times, the same one. W3, as dubbed in the article “The World Wide Web,” by Tim Warner, is an entirely different sector of life. It's lines of code, "recipes" brought together through object addresses, hypertext transfer protocol (also known as HTTP) and hypertext markup language. Meanwhile, the Library is "made up of the same elements: the space, the period, the comma, the twenty-two letters of the alphabet." Different makeups. yet both using their respective elements to present something new. Where Warner describes the web as humanities most prized catalogue, Borges believes in the power of the universe. At their very base, both writers are speaking on humanity's catalogues and their very makeup and importance in our lives and yet at the same time do not fail to acknowledge the faults that surround them both. Borges calls The Library 'cynical' meanwhile Warner makes remarks on its inability to reach its full goals yet. Possessing knowledge beyond human recognition, these catalogues are the windows to the mind, body, and soul. They contain secrets unbeknownst to man, information that we may never be able to grasp despite years of trying. The World Wide Web and the Labryrinth of Life are our informants, our drive for a different future. It does not matter our ability to comprehend it, or the change we inflict upon it, whether we created it or if it was a gift from Life, it is ours to roam.
The Last Newspaper
Upon listening to this interview, the very first thing that I got was that these artists surrounded themselves with images fullheartedly. Their project was inspired and grew from the pictures they saw being so highly represented. In contrast, my newspapers had nearly no photos. Despite being in the photo department, what called to me the most when looking through these papers were the words. It was the headlines, both big and small. Cutting out letters upon letters, the ideas began to flow through me. I had no clue what it was I was going to end up with, or even start with, until the exacto-blade sliced through paper. Further into the talk, the artists began to speak about the actual poetry in what the journalists were writing. She brings up their power, and I can only agree. My newspapers were created to poeticize the power of taking control. They play with different notions of life, be it suicide and sex, or immigration and death my newspapers took control of pre-made stories and shaped them to be poems of taboo. I wanted to play around with the notion of irony one tends to see in order to further emphasize the taunting headlines that tend to pollute our news. In an almost clickbait-esque fashion, I manipulated these bits of paper to give me titles like "Immigrants are Fuel!" and "Exemptions for Treating Sick Transgressors." Hoping to make my audience look twice at what they were reading and truly understand the poetry behind words we take for granted as they're "just the news."
For this assignment I created three different patterns, each titled: "Mob," "Cherry Girl," and "Invasion." Having used a statuette of a skeletal cow I owned to create "Mob" I decided to use a pastel color theme throughout the pattern, chosing to not include any outline as I believed it created its own shape with the few details I included in it. "Cherry Girl" was created with a photo of a pin-up girl tattoo, cherries, and text. I wanted this pattern to truly radiate the "pin-up girl" aesthetic, while using colors not necessarily associated with that era. It is also a mix of era's as in 2020 there's an internet class of women often referred to as "cherry girl's" and are often found on Twitter. In regards to "Invasion," I've always had an obsession with conspiracy theories, and the possibility of aliens. This pattern is created using a recreation of spaceship earrings I own, as well as simple shadows and text.
Colors: Purple and it's Mauve
