What I'm bringing

I will be bringing a tub of tabouli

and a dozen grape leaves, vegetarian

Potluck entries

Here is what I have listed for potluck contributions for Wed. Dec. 11 dinner:
Katie - bean salad
Mia - greek salad
Rolondo - guac and chips
Molly - sweet potatoes
Ann - quiche
Parisa - chicken
Heidi - couscous w/butternut squash

Peter - ?
John - ?
Juliet - ?

More thesis writing- individual projects

DOUBLE BIND:

Works Referenced:

Lipstick, Needle, Forks, Scissors

One of the feminist theories that I related to deeply was the concept of the Double Bind, discussed by many feminists (including Linda Alcoff, Catherine MacKinnon and Judith Butler).

The double bind is defined as a situation in which to declare one’s desires or to take a stand is also to step into a trap or a predefined place of oppression. For many feminists, simply declaring themselves “feminine” constitutes a kind of double bind as the word is associated with negative qualities like docility, weakness, emotional hysteria, oversensitivity etc.  Some feminists want to own some female qualities, like increased emotional sensitivity, while others eschew these qualities as representing weakness.

I find a lot of the activities that women engage in, and that I myself engage in, to constitute a sort of double bind: a place of power or recreation that might be harming the subject.  These feminine activities are not really activities owned by women, but rather adopted roles owned by the historical definition of women’s place in society. 

I hoped by combining objects in “doubles” I could show how our pursuit of a sanctioned femininity can

o   harm us (sewing scissors),

o    unable to care for ourselves or feed a deeper sense of identity (forks)

o   have us running in circles unable to accomplish anything outside of domestic engagement (needles)

o   render us more relevant as useless decorative objects that people of import (lipstick). 

The mirrored quality of these pieces is also meant to reference our own complicity in this role play- we are simply mirroring what has been handed to us to act out in order to feel a sense of power through belonging. Ultimately this power is oppressive, renders us functionless or promotes self-harm.

INGROWN

Works Referenced:

Heels

In this piece, I wanted to again show how women function as both subject and object when it comes to their own oppression. I chose the iconic red heel, a stiletto I found online with a 6 inch heel, which is ridiculous. This heel “elevates” the woman to the icon of sex symbol which is a demotion in disguise. It is also physically harmful: by wearing such a ridiculous piece of equipment, women are shouting that their power comes through sexual allure, and that they are willing to mutilate their feet and backs to become objects of desire. 

I myself wear heels on occasion and many women choose other methods of beautification that men do not have to engage in because their source of power does not come from being objectified as decorative or sexual. In this case the heel is a stand-in for things like makeup, hair, tight clothing, excessive dieting, or plastic surgery.

The heel coming back through the shoe is meant to showcase it as ridiculous, an object of torture, on a superficial level.

On a deeper level, I wanted to reference the body, blurring the line between what we choose to don and who we choose to be. The roles we play can grow back in on us and become a part of our identity rather than just costumes we put on: they can also become harmful, festering over time, weakening us from within.

In this piece outer becomes inner, wounding in the process, but we are complicit in our choice to let this happen.

In a more positive light, I also wanted to challenge the duality presented or accepted between inner and outer, subject and object (referring to action performed or received) and object/thing and self. I was inspired by 2 quotes from Nancy Hartsock, referring to uniqueness of the female perspective to operate along a continuum, rather than experience a duality when it comes to the aforementioned.

 “Women experience others and themselves along a continuum whose dimensions are evidenced in Adrienne Rich’s argument that the child carried for nine months can be defined “neither as me or as not-me,” and she argues that inner and outer are not polar opposites but a continuum.”

Nancy Hartsock, The Feminist Standpoint

“There are a series of boundary challenges inherent in the female physiology –challenges which make it impossible to maintain rigid separation from the object world. Menstruation, coitus, pregnancy, childbirth, lactation – all represent challenges to bodily boundaries.”

Nancy Hartsock, The Feminist Standpoint

BIND/LOCK

Works Referenced:

Handcuffs

Hair Web

Mop

Dress

This series of work is a continuation of the aforementioned themes of complicity, oppression, and role-play.

I have long been fascinated with hair and how women’s hair (locks), which is long and frequently requires a lot of maintenance, is an outward symbol of how we function as sex objects. Men usually sport short hair, a direct indication of the fact that they are doing rather than showing.

To see what it might be like to be a woman operating outside of the regular gender roles, in which long hair is considered not just feminine, but a visible declaration of gender identity, I shaved my head this summer and used my hair to create the hair web, woven with a needle, and the handcuffs. 

The handcuffs are a direct commentary on whether or not our long hair is binding us to a role that is oppressive as sexual objects. I also like how object and body were intertwined in this piece. 

This notion of being bound by feminine practices is also examined in the dress piece that functions as a straightjacket when viewed from behind.

The mop also uses the continuum between body, object and domestic tradition to ask exactly who we are “using” when we decide to abide by traditional gender roles, which we can become a slave to.

Lastly I wove a web with my hair because I am fascinated with the web as a symbol and weaving as a positive and negative female tradition. From Arachne to Philomela, the web is a symbol of cunning and industry. It is one of the few things in nature that functions as both a trap and a home. This is how I view the role of the tradition woman: it is a place to belong, but it is also a trap. Weaving, sewing, textiles, all traditional activities for the housewife or future bride, are also skills to be proud of or instruments of oppression in their restriction to a certain sphere, keeping women in the home away from politics, real world industry etc.

I liked the notion of a web too, to represent relationships, between women and their families, their friends, and even between generations. These relationships support us but tie us together in ways that are difficult to escape from.

Finally, I felt like the web was an excellent metaphor (and was in mythology as well) for storytelling. In this way, women’s relationships to words, objects, and other people are not linear and independent, but multi-directional, complex, and inter-related.

HEIRLOOM

Works Referenced:

Teacups

Plate broken in spider web pattern

Heirloom is also related to personal memories, very precious to me, of my mother’s china and the occasions we used it. My mother was an incredible chef, and was raised in the South, to believe that holidays deserved large and formal family gatherings with gourmet quality food, and that every dinner our family would eat together in the dining room at a large polished oak table underneath a crystal chandelier. I loved the pomp and circumstance of Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners as well as the frequent dinner parties with my mother’s friends. For each of these, my mother’s wedding china was brought out from its glass corner cabinet and the silver was polished to serve the guests.

I loved the story of the China. We had two sets: one that my mother inherited from my grandmother, which had the same gilt and blue pattern as the set purchased for my mother’s dowry (for lack of a better word). I like the idea that my mother was not just inheriting a set of objects, but a set of roles, expectations and even relationships.  I feel both positively and negatively about this. On the one hand, the china clearly states that women are meant to serve others in the home, and their decorative nature is a metaphor for the woman as decorative object. On the other hand, they represent a unique skill for bringing people together to strengthen bonds over delicious food served beautifully.

I used the web symbolism again, 3d modeling the plates in over 40 pieces each, applying a China decal designed from the memory of my mother’s China, glued back together.  Again the web here represents complex relationships between my mother and her friends and family and between generations, and the idea of domestic activity as home-making and a trap. I called it Heirloom because the role of cook, server, mother, and hostess was one she inherited from my grandmother, who excelled at each in the Southern tradition. The loom is also a reference to the web.

The teacups are another reference to my mother, based on my memories. This piece speaks of domestic activity as something that could represent a binding trap but also as something intimate and intertwined. I think of ladies (without day jobs) chatting in the living room when I look at these. These were also a direct commentary on my relationship with my own mother: the ways in which she expects me to be a women can be oppressive sometimes, but our female bond is one that is everlasting, supportive, inescapable and close in a way that no other relationship can be.

COMMUNION

Works Referenced:

3d printed Chalice with breast and baby contours

“Western society is still possessed overtly and subliminally by Christian symbolism, and this State of Possession has extended its influence over most of the planet. Its ultimate symbol of processions is the all male trinity itself. Of obvious significance here is the fact that this is an image of the procession of a divine son from a divine father (no mother or daughter involved).”

–      Mary Daly, Prelude to the First Passage

I am interested in how religion, in particular Christianity and Catholicism, has taken the male body and elevated it to the status of holy by endowing it with all of the qualities naturally performed by the female body. At the same time they have taken other bodily practices and natural urges and made them synonymous with sin, guilt, or evil.

I feel that women, whose reproductive capacities have been re-appropriated to a male deity, have also been reduced in status to not much better than chattel because of their real connections to nature through their own bodily functions: sex, menstruation, lactation, and birth.

I used the form of a chalice to reacquaint the viewer with the processes, unique to women, of childbirth and life giving, that are miraculous in and of themselves and frequently overlooked. 

I also have strong memories of going to church and receiving the communion in an old gilt cup. I loved the weight of the cup, the thrilling feeling of being able to drink wine, and the rich and comforting notion that the wine represented the body of another. It always warmed my stomach, and made me feel like someone was holding me.

I wanted to convey these same qualities of feeding the body with the body, but bring them back to their rightful owners, mothers.  I loved making such a natural and simple process something to be worshipped, valued and held sacred. I liked the idea of the warmth of the milk and the heat of the wine being similar. I also like the idea of the colors of white and red representing blood and milk, rather than wine and wafer. This piece was meant to function as a critique of all male Christian Holy delineation and a reminder of the intimate connection unique to mother and child.

Mia • Rough Thesis Bits

THESIS OUTLINE

December 2013

Abstract

June 12, 2007. The day is perfect: it's 75 degrees, sunny. There's a slight breeze off the lake and I am eighteen. Eighteen! I'm sitting carefree on the stoop of Matt's mother's house. It's a large, rocky stoop, the stones in the concrete are noticeable, but not uncomfortable, as I sit, one leg straight out on the ledge, the other perched on the steps to my left. Matti is sitting on the steps next to Ross, who takes out birthday cards for both of us. I take a deep drag of a cigar—a peach white owl—and inhale too much. I cough, which I try to cover with a laugh. The cigar is too big and papery in my hands. I try again. I don't understand the concept of puffing, and I've never smoked before, so I'm trying to do what I've seen in movies and outside of restaurants. I inhale again, slower this time, and successfully produce a stream of sickeningly-sweet scented smoke. I am resilient. I am cool. I am an adult.

______________

I am creating designed objects as narrative sculpture to explore the perception of memory. In a longing for clarity of my past, I will examine what I remember (and what I do not) to construct tangible representations of my imperfect recollections. The final form this project will be sculptures of houses, or parts of houses: the architecture of spaces where particular events took place. Depending on the specificity of the recollection, the scale of the objects will range from large to miniature. Creating this work is a catharsis for me; I have assumed my memories are clear and unabridged—but through this process I am able to see that the clarity in my mind's eye is more clouded in reality. My desired outcomes are to understand the validity/accuracy of my memories, and to create a framework in which others may reconsider the definition of their own recollections.  

Key words: Memory, Recollection, (re-collection. That's an interesting phrase. Am I re-collecting my memories and sharing them? Am I making a point about the fact the clarity of memories is devised from the meaning of the memory itself?) Perception, longing, the intangible/ethereal

Body of Thesis

The body of the thesis will contain the following material:

Introduction

The introduction presents the questions and issues that will be addressed in the thesis and briefly suggests their relevance or importance.

Issues: the perception of memory: accuracy vs. inaccuracy, clarity vs. ambiguity, real vs. imagined

Questions: What do I recall? What can't I remember?

What is clear and what is vague?

What's the correlation between distance and memory?

(Why is this important? What does the perception of memory say socially? Emotionally? Does this change our present, where the past exists?)

Can our recollections be more accurate or reliable?

The hierarchy of memory is a 52-card pile up.

My memories lack hierarchy; I can close my eyes and recall things most vividly that seem to have no consequence at all. The sensation of green shag carpet under my body, the architecture of a concrete stoop, the feeling of a Victorian doorknob in my hand, the specificity of my parents couch, a the height of the cabinets in my old house. I think I recall things that I know I do not; the house my parents lived in when I was an infant—a house I have only seen in home movies and baby pictures.

My visualization of memory is clear, almost tangible—but only almost. As soon as I try to take it out of my mind it disintegrates, like some pristine deep-sea artifact recovered from the depths only to crumble when it's brought to the surface.

Experimenting with the notions of clarity/ambiguity, distortion/accuracy, and deterioration, I want to know: What I do I remember clearly and what is inconclusive? Why can I remember the color of the color of the kitchen, but not the placement of the windows? What does the Victorian doorknob of my best friend's house look like when I can imagine feeling it so vividly in my hand? I would like to explore the consequences of these inquiries, and would like the artifacts of these explorations to spark a curiosity in the viewer—what do their own memories divulge or exclude? Intellectually, I hope to counter the assumption that our memories are always correct. Research shows that memories are not stored and retrieved with perfect accuracy. Instead, they are constructed and re-constructed differently each time we remember. Memories can be imagined or implanted (Loftus/Pickrell, 1995), yet we rely on them to be an accurate prologue for our future actions. This work is pertinent in today's society because the emphasis we place on the veracity of memory—from the consequences of unreliable eyewitness accounts (the incarceration of innocent individuals, the case of Trayvon Martin) to the justification of legislature based on the collective memory of traumatic events (Sept. 11). With these things in mind, I hope the civil impact of this work will be challenging its audience to ask: Can our recollections be more accurate or reliable? How can we think critically about our own memories, or act accordingly to counter their inaccuracy?

  

Contextual Information and Literature Review

This section provides historical and theoretical background and puts this work in

context with other work that has been done in the area of this thesis. Use prose,

figures, illustrations, tables, poetry, animations, and other representations to

thoroughly present the creative work and research.

The physical context of my work will be sculpture in a gallery setting. Conceptually, it is in conversation with the work of other artists/designers dealing with architecture/perception of memory, such as Do-Ho Suh's Staircase III or Spencer Finch's Trying To Remember the Color of Jackie Kennedy's Pillbox Hat. In my previous work, I was interested in how individuals remember the past, and created "memory vehicles" (objects using smell to trigger memories) to "transport" myself (and others) to a specific time and place. Next, I experimented with what I was capable of remembering: I drew out, from memory, a house I used to inhabit. I then 3D modeled and printed the house; it was wonky and unrealistic, highlighting the inaccuracy and holes in my perception of a place I thought I knew so well. I have since continued to experiment with material and scale to articulate my remembrance of events/spaces. 

  

ART/DESIGN:

Rachel Whiteread: Ghosts, casts of houses then torn down

Do-Ho Suh;  Koren artist, issues of home, replicating home/parts of apartments

Gregor Schneider; Home, empty, belongings outside of it – large scale

Takashi Horisaki; Latex casts of doors, handles, parts of places

Spencer Finch: Trying to recall the exact shade of Jackie O's pink pillbox hat

Mike Kelly- recollecting school

LAST PARAGRAPH PAGE 15 INTRODUCTION JAMES YOUNG TEXTURE OF MEMORY

LITERATURE/Other

Susan Stuart; On Longing

Proust; Swan's Way- the Madeline

Orhan Pamuk; the museum of innocence

James Young; The texture of Memory

Simonides; Philosopher-- the Memory Palace

An Anthropologist on Mars -- Oliver Sacks

CLASSES:

History, memory, culture,

German Museums

The wizard of oz—wanting to get home.

Connection to the past

Tactile memory into a tactile substance

Shaping it

Re-construction

Giving access to the audience what my memories are

Public presentation – take note

Translation—imperfections

Discussion

Interpret the work, reflect on the work, and/or explain the work. Suggest how and

why this work is compelling or important.

• Photos go here? Explanation of the tactile/visceral qualities, the display, etc..

• I'm hoping this makes more sense as the work gets made.

• What are the questions I tried to answer? Were they answered? What did I learn?

What does my audience learn? What do I want to accomplish by doing this? Is this

design or not? (I mean, it is, but it may be discussion worthy. What am I designing?

The interaction, the objects, or both? Which takes precedence? Does one?)

Conclusion

Briefly restate the questions and issues addressed in the thesis, why they are

important and what has been learned from this work. Identify new questions that

arise from this thesis work and suggest areas for future work.

Ann Bartges: Thesis Outline

  I’m Here: Conjuring Presence and Connection through Mediatized Images

1. Using Technology to Bridge Distance:

A. My work is focused on the role of media (photographs, home videos, video chat) in close relationships.

1. Issues at Play:

a. the separation between the human being, and their image

b. the attempt to conjure the essence of someone in their absence

c. the dangers in psychologically allowing the image to become a substitution or replacement for the absent person

B. Sarah Maslin Nir, “You May Now Kiss the Computer Screen,” New Your Times, 3/5/2013

            1. Discusses the rising trend of online intimacy and marriages performed through video chat. The article focused on this practice among immigrants living in the US—which makes sense, as immigrants are, inevitably, dealing with the challenges of distance           

            2. Article speaks to my own observations: advances in telecommunication technology builds the hope that one can maintain an emotional closeness even at a physical distance.

C. Video Chat

1. Limitations of technology to mediate intimacy

2. the real-time web-cam absorbs your visual senses —you see your companion’s face, their real time expressions. . ..you have access to their eyes, the image on your laptop doesn’t just mediate their image, it becomes them---you also have access to the space behind them, and there is a visual promise in this that you might actually be able to join spaces.. .. .but you can’t.

D. Looking Inward

1. Exploring culture via personal experience

a. Janine Antoni

2. Personal Experience with Long Distance

            a. As a nomadic artist, I have been living my family life through my computer for years

                        b. Via Satellite

E. Video Mom

            1. Whether through live video chat or family photos, we increasingly rely on mediated versions of loved ones when locational distance prevents physical presence

           

2. Siren Song

2. Cultural Response to Contemporary Modes of Telepresence

A. Video chat as Answer to Long-Lived Desire for Access over Distance

            1. Victorian Video Chat image

                        a. my intention with this work is not to disrespect the technological triumph of telepresence via video chat, but I am sensitive to the cultural anxieties that come with swift advances in technology

B. Historical Context: Cultural Anxieties of the Digital Age in relation to Cultural Anxieties of the Electric Age (1840s-1900)

1. Linda Simon, Dark Light: Electricity and Anxiety fron the Telegraph to the X-Ray

C. Studies on the social effects of technology:

                        1. my work meditates on the stakes of our redefined virtual social structures and projects the resulting feelings of vulnerability and fears of becoming less human.

2. Sherry Turkle, Alone Together

3. William Gibson: “No Maps for these Territories,” science fiction writer who coined the term ‘cyberspace’, concerned with “making the conditions of the present accessible to people” through fiction.

             D. Practice

1. Until Then Now

            a. I ask my performers to wear photographic masks of their eyes to present the physical self and the mediated self together in real time

            b. eye-masks give each performer a fixed gaze. There is an outward promise of attention—eyes wide open, but in fact, the mask itself blinds the person wearing it

3. “Liveness”: Mediatized vs. the Real Thing

A. Theory

1. Philip Auslander, Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture

2. Philip Auslander, “Live from Cyberspce”

3. Peggy Phelan, Mourning Sex: Performing Public Memories

                        4. Susan Sontag, On Photography

5. Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation

6. something from Marshall McLuhan?

           

            B. Creating Presence via Video Projections

                        1. Tony Oursler

                       

2. Paul Serman

C. The Loop

1. The Loop and Live Performance

                        a. Marina Abramovic and Ulay, Relation Works

2. The Loop as Replay: A Defining Characteristic of Recorded Media

b. Paul Pfeiffer, Fragment of a Crucifixion (After Francis Bacon)

3. Remote Connection

a. using face projections to address the conflict between the physical and mediated selves.

b. through this performance, I play out the failures of mediated communication and visualize breeched emotional connection.

D. Ann & Video Ann: working to visualize the complex relationship between the self and mediated self

1. Through theses short performances, I explore my relationship to my mediated image

            a. psychologically

            b. what is material vs. immaterial

            c. pointing to both the strength and the fragility of the immaterial image

2. Developing Video Ann’s character

a. a colder version of myself

b. media is a mere shadow of a person—image is present, but this presence is fragile.

                        3. My Relationship to the Other Me

a. through social media, my image, my profile, is my public face.

b. love for the ability to curate only my best self into the world

c. hate for the inevitable dishonesty,

d. jealousy for the immortality of my image

4. Ann & Video Ann: Passing Notes

4. Desire: Conjuring Presence

           

A. The rise of Spiritualism in response to advances the technologies of electricity and telecommunications

                        1. Iwan Rhys Morus, Bodies/Machines

B. Distance, through location or through loss, fuels a longing and desire that

complicates my relationship to images of my absent family

1. my relationships with my father, grandmother, grandfather, and mother in law, all who have passed away in the last 5 years

C. Re-experiencing the Loss of a Person through the Loss of Their Image (photograph, video)

1. Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida

2. Images as “negotiations between the living and the dead”

            a. Kristin Hass, Carried to the Wall

3. Ann & Video Ann: Eating Dad

D. The Emotional Presence of Shadows

            1. Roberto Casati, The Shadow Club

            2. Ann & Video Ann: Shadow You

5. Exploring Multiple Selves

           

A. Video Chat and Mediatization as metaphor for interpreting the multiple sides of myself   

1. NEED SOME SOURCES HERE

B. Elizabeth King: Pupil

C. Laurie Anderson, Home of the Brave

1. Philip Auslander “[Anderson’s] multiple images make her LESS present”

6. Breaking the Fourth Wall

A. Using Live Performance, Video and Sculptural Installation to Blur the Relationship between Performer and Audience

B. Failure as Tool for Audience Engagement

1. Andy Kauffman

2. Philip Auslander, “The Comedy of the Failure of Comedy”