activism and larger ideas: ¡COLLABORATION OPPORTUNITY AHEAD!

Not having blogged in a while because sickness happened and I didn't want to leave my bed (although I did, but I kept grandma hours, naturally). I think this post should have a few different components, and I was wondering if I should just divide it into several post. 

Disclaimer: long and text-heavy post with a minimum of illustrations/photographs.

As I'm explaining that here, I obviously didn't do that, so instead I'll use all my cognitive skills (does that word even make sense here? likely not, however, I just learned it, and so will use it at any and all occasions until I understand what it actually means) to wrap this together in a way that'll make sense to more people than myself. Using shorter sentences and more full stops than commas.

One of the things I've been thinking about including in this blog is art criticism, what we love to have and hate to love...? Mainly because I'd do that (or a very amateur-ish version of it) in my workbook for art in high school, and since this is the "grown-up" online Workbook 2.0, I figured I should do that here. It was also because I went to a show yesterday, and realized I didn't really know how to digest it without writing about it. Just talking about it doesn't really do it, just because I can never really talk very well. 

But yay, I met Frog King Kwong! Here is a bragging picture to break up the text and offer some amusement. Artist to the left, me to the right.

However! That will be for another post! Otherwise, this one would be wayy too messy and huge, and I'd never publish it. So onto what I've been thinking about.

art activism: artist's spaces? the farm I come from? residencies?

Yes, that is it. And then a little embroidery: I want to make an exhibition/an artist residency in the very little place I come from called Nannestad, which is in Norway. It's not a city, hardly a village, more like a population of people scattered over a larger area of beautiful nature with ravines and forests and the like. Lovely, and quite different from the very flat Illinois landscape I've been spending the last two years in. I am applying for funding from Trafo, a pretty incredible foundation which supports young artists in several mediums, and many ways. They offer workshops, funding for projects and mentoring services (you send your stuff to someone who works within the field, and you either meet/skype/e-mail to get feedback - it's great.). Highly recommend it for anyone who is at all interested in visual arts, poetry, writing, dance, and so on and so forth. 

As for the details of this workshop/residency I want to arrange this summer, I'm not quite sure, and since I'm mainly working alone (save for my very supportive parents, of course), I need someone to bounce ideas off of, and perhaps even work with? So I am looking for a collaborator, preferably someone who is in Norway this summer, but don't let that stop you. I'm also up for virtual/online collaborations; even if you (in plural? singular?) chose not to be heavily involved in this, I would love feedback and ideas from people who are more or less experienced in this than I am. Although being less experienced probably is difficult. 

The idea is that I want to invite young and emerging artists to come make art in a rural environment in the East of Norway.

As this project grows and takes form and shape and succeeds and fails, I will try to keep this updated. For now I'm applying for funds, any money at all, and getting the idea down on paper. There are still so many things that are undecided, but as vague as this might be, writing about it will help it take shape and evolve into something I'm happy with.

E-mail me at johannelaache@gmail.com for ideas, interests, funny videos or criticism! 

Nearing the end of this post I realize I will definitively have to do several posts about this topic of activism and larger ideas, as the workshop took up most of the space.

To be continued!

lots and lots of ink - jumbled thoughts (should I even take the time to write this blog? should i just be crazily splattering things on the wall instead), and other neurosises/neuroses/newroses

Some absolutely fabolous news; my father and sister documented my "smart" (hardly, more like witty) textile, a piece of fabric I wove that responds to heat. I was so happy I almost cried. 

Yes, it's not turned the right way. OR IS IT?

Anyways, beautiful light.

Yesterday, in a frenzy, I drew with sumi ink on some tissue paper and pasted it to the wall with water - after I peeled off/it fell off, this is what it looked like, the impression of it, or the ghost (or shadow). 

I don't really know what to think, or if it is at all conducive to what I'm trying to do, and I guess I don't really know what I'm doing either. Ugh.

Then I painted on my feet (the ink doesn't 'stick' very well; it rather lies in droplets of the surface of the skin, which is perhaps too dry, or not soft enough or something - I wonder what part of the body is most receptive to ink, or rather, who's skin?), naturally, and thought about The Pillow Book, and wasn't really sure how to proceed. Not so much because I've walked down that path before, but because it feels like I'm re-tracing my own steps, and walking backwards rather than forwards? Is that what progress feels like, or stagnancy?

Some stills from the movie, it is very beautiful.

Images found here, here and there. 

There are many things to be said for The Pillow Book, especially the language in it, and ink and skin, and love also, I suppose, although that is something I will not dare write about here.

This morning I came in a little later as I was full of self-pity over a sore throat; I decided to write on the wall and the floor, as I haven't had the space to do that before. Don't know what this is either - will not make it out to be more than it is, but interesting? A little bit? I am not sure where this will lead me. I am thinking about ink and water and paper, but not like I used to, in a different way now. Does it matter what I write, and does it matter whether it's real language or not?

Some things: communication, miscommunication, someone's own, private language, understanding and translation, the feeling of language, or rather, the feeling of somebody? discipline, in language, life and otherwise.

What is madness, and what is obsessiveness? If I cover this entire space, what purpose will that serve? It makes me think of this:

You write those numbers up, ol' Jim!

Images from 23 and The Omen (from 2006). There's this idea that crazy, obsessive people have rooms full of paper and writing, like some way of organizing information? Which is what words on a page are, also - a way of organizing information, knowing in what order to read it. However, in the madman's case, he's taken it out of the book and spread it all over, so he can see it all at the same time. Why is that crazy? It makes sense to me; you want an overview of something, not just page by page. 

I drew some more on the wall, over the old imprints. Yes, it's boring, but I'm thinking, alright. Having my own studio is both the top and the bottom - so great to have time and space, and so terrifying/boring/intense/scary/overwhelming/desperate. 

And then I found an incredible artist whose name is Jayoung Yoon. Ahh, she is grrrgeous. Some images:

Here and here.

Ahh, come into my life, please. 

She seems to make dresses out of hair, her own, and other 'structures', like dreams, or shields, or thoughts, or vapors (like the fabled 21 grams that "disappear" from your body when you die - the soul?). These pieces are apparently like meditations, and she builds whole sets for these, with lights and structures and everything, and the result is the video or the photograph. So simple... I think I will try to meet her.

totally starstruck and trying to pretend that I also have OCD

I made another ink drawing, something more like a sideways torso this time. It takes a few hours to make one of these, since they're still not too large. I pasted this one up on the wall too...

And the next morning I took it off, as it somehow hadn't come off by itself.

The "skin" after, shed from the wall, is somehow much, much more satisfying (also upside-down) than the original paper, and even the paper on the wall, as if it goes through some strange metamorphosis, an evolution, from drawn and cut out (good enough) -> pasted to the wall with water (the delight can be felt at this moment, I relish!) -> the wrinkled and debilitated paper is a little less sturdy now, that it's off the wall, some impressions left on the back of it.

Incredibly satisfying.

So, on my way home last night from an event hosted by Asymptote at Housing Work Cafe (they interviewed Anne Carson, which already makes me shiver and remember the time when I met her*) (which was v. good, especially when the translator of Bei Dao and Jorge Luis Borges came up... He was v. funny, and had a good pick-up line about asymptotes ("Girl, you must be an asymptote, because I just find myself getting closer and closer to you!") which is automatically a plus in my book, especially if that person is 50+, and not actually hitting on anybody.

Back to the point. After this event I was on my way home, and I was thinking about a failed photo installation I tried making at the end of this last semester, to wit, Ann Hamilton's corpus. It was an installation at Mass MoCA, where there were a series of machines (seen at the top of the photo below), regularly dropping papers made from onionskin. I never saw it (but hoping and praying), but I imagine it must be quit extraordinary.

Image found here. I suppose the reason it reminds me of it is because 1. I subconsciously like to associate all of what I make, no matter how insignificant and minute, somehow relates to some or other great artist's work that I admire and aspire to be like, and 2. because of papers falling. I am not sure if I should continue with this project, as it seems too similar to what I've been doing before, and shouldn't I go totally crazy and do something very unlike myself? I am genuinely curious, but might just continue doing this as some sort of exercise to see how long I can do it for, how patient I can be (not very), and if I can find out anything else from it.

 *she came down from the sky in an apparition. Some people say this never happened to me. (she actually signed two copies of her books for me, but she looked at me when I said thanks. V. starstruck)

Kara Walker, ink and art; long silvery arms

   "The one who least understood all of this was my deaf cousin. When we helped him down, pulling him--as I explained to you--by his legs, Mrs. Vhd Vhd lost all her self-control, doing everything she could to take his weight against her own body, folding her long silvery arms around him; I felt a pang in my heart (the times I clung to her, her body was soft and kind, but not thrust forward, the way it was with my cousin), while he was indifferent, still lost in his lunar bliss."

from Cosmicomics, by Italo Calvino

I made a drawing with many small lines, much as I've done before. I tried pasting it to the wall with some water.

The scale, to my hand.

And I thought about this:

Image found here. 

It's a piece called Testimony by Kara Walker. It's naturally because I made a silhouette of sorts, as she does, and pasted it to the wall. Well, we'll see where that leads, for now it feels like exercises, like doing some specific things to discipline myself, although it might not mean much in itself. Making myself do something, like draw many, small lines, one after another, with small brushes and ink, on thin paper. 

So perhaps if I make many and paste them on the wall, the imprint will be interesting? Or I will have learned something?

When the silhouette fell of the wall, this is what it looked like:

I thought it was interesting, especially the imprint left on the wall, and the paper like a leaf falling off a tree.

Back to bondage

This is the video to the song What Now by the accomplished lady Rihanna, have a look at 2:52. This will be a continuation of what I've begun to write about before, namely harnesses, containment of the body and, to some extent, bondage, since those are quite linked. It sometimes feels like what I'm interested is divided into two quite opposite sets of ideas; either way, my friend gave me a leather belt, and I decided to dishevel it,

I'll come back to that belt.

Anyways, Rihanna. Here are some stills I took from the video:

The fingers and nails. Something quite grotesque about it. I recently watched Disturbia for the first time , and it was similarly strange to watch. Of course, very sexy and attractive and all that, and also bizarre and grotesque. Lady GaGa seems to use the same thing, there is some sort of balance there, perhaps something that came after Black Swan? Or before. It's nonetheless part of the same trend. And it's not grotesque in the way of The Conjuring, but in a sexy way, quite innocent. It's not weird when Rihanna twists her body strangely, contorts it, and sits in a corner twitching, it becomes a way for her to incorporate other references, perhaps appealing a little to another audience, and expand her image from just sexy, because she dares to be "disgusting" or "contorted" (of course, while wearing a see-through dress). Hmm, I don't know how relevant that is or what point I'm trying to make, but I'm trying to understand where my fascination comes from. How does that make beauty? How is it attractive, and why do I think it is? 

Now, see, these are really interesting to me; I suppose it's mainly the movement, the act of falling backwards (there is something about it), that I'd like to do, or to use, in one way or another. 

 I like the contortions a lot. I think they're interesting movements, and it's fascinating to think about human bodies glitching or jarring, or there being something jarring about a movement that is unexpected or more mechanical than fluid and "human."

Where was I going with this...

Right, bondage and harnesses. I wrote a lot about it earlier, mainly because of a school project, but I didn't really finish my thoughts on it. I came back to it because of the belt my friend gave me, which now that I disheveled it, makes a nice sound when whipped around, very soft. It reminds me of this:

Full installation. 

Detailed view.

It's a piece called Mr. Jung's Flower Shop, and I made it for a class. I didn't think much of it at the time, and I also wasn't very happy with it, but I am coming back to it. I mean:

Come on. It was made from crocheting fake sinew together, and I made some flowers. I originally wanted to make a whole suit out of it, that someone could wear, perhaps with bells on. I will come back to that. 

So now that the belt is disheveled, I am trying to decide what to do with it. I thought it could be interesting to make little model costumes out of it, for tiny people, for example crocheting a sort of chain mail or lamellar armor or something of the sort... Updates to follow. Trying to gather my thoughts on this topic yet again will resume with the following blog posts.