My Life Project Reflection

Link to entire My Life Project Posts: http://www.personal.psu.edu/kmh5091/My%20Life%20Project%20Final.htm

Reflection Post:
During the “My Life” project, I wanted to show a woman transcend through life dealing with feministic tropes and tribulations. I found it kind of difficult to write about a female, because of the obvious fact that I am, of course, a male. In my self-portrait film still I even decided to mask my masculinity by wearing a gender neutral hat and shielding my face with my hood to keep some form of credibility. But until I decided that I could incorporate some aspects of my own life and desires, I was kind of stuck. My character, Taylor Benson, starts off as a woman who tends to keep things to herself, and is a very introverted person. This is somewhat of an exaggerated view of myself, reflecting how I had felt at some points in my life, but the events in my story are greatly embellished. She experienced some ups and some downs, but ultimately ends up in the final chapter happy with the decisions she has made and joyful that the events she went through helped shaped her to be the person she really wanted to be.

The nature of this assignment, being totally written in online message boards, allowed me to be more creative than I may have been otherwise. The technology of an online class creates a sense of safety, that all your sayings are anonymous, even though it is paired with your names. You can’t see your peers in this virtual classroom, only what they say and think. It was interesting to read others’ stories and write about someone else’s character. I felt like I could take their story in a direction that they may not have thought it could go. Likewise, this happened to me, as I had to adapt the ending of my story based on what someone else had thought about the events of my writings.

Although, originally, I thought it would be difficult as a male to write a female’s life. I took into account all the things we’ve learned this year, like the cinematic gaze, and collaboratively shaped a character that ultimately succeeds in her life. She goes through some difficulties like the rest of us do, but achieves her goals just like all of us dream of doing someday. This project allowed me to put down, not on paper, but on the web, some comments, concerns, dreams and goals of mine, through the eyes of a totally different character than myself.

Performance of an Art/Life Experiment

When first hearing of this assignment I thought that there was no way I could do something for three hours and call it art. But after reading some of Linda Montano’s "Art in Everyday Life" and the rest of this Lesson's framework, I realized that this task wasn't so impossible.

I began to think of things that were normal, everyday activities that when studied closely, could be called art. Then I began to think about how I have virtually no clean clothes left to wear, and am due to visit my girlfriend's parents this weekend for the first team and should probably look somewhat decent. Then the idea struck me, laundry. The act of doing laundry can definitely be an art. And more specifically, I chose to focus on the art of folding. After I did the initial trip to the washer and the dryers I brought my clothes back to my place to do the dreaded folding. Now, usually, I hate folding clothes, I never did this while living at home (a luxury, I know) and I pretty much despise it, but this was different. Something about this time wasn't so bad, maybe it was how I really stepped back and looked at just how I do it that was somewhat entertaining. Instead of the folding being annoying, monotonous and just part of my everyday life, it was something I could turn into a real production. This task could definitely take 3 hours, I had a lot of T-shirts, Jeans, Sweatshirts, and boxers in this load, so I decided I would fold one piece of clothing every 3 or 4 minutes.

As I was moving along, I realized this was definitely more than just that annoying task of laundry and an art. Without realizing it, I had a method to this madness. Each shirt was folded with the front facing out, sleeves folded in between so I could tell which shirt it was while lying in the dresser. The jeans were folded rhythmically, one fold matching the pant legs and 3 folds down the jeans to make them a nice square. Sweatshirts were folded with the hood inside, front facing out of course, so I could see what Sweatshirt it was and the hood wouldn't take up much room in the drawers. Each pair of boxers were folded in half, and then rolled, into a nice little log-shaped bundle so they would take up less space and be able to fit in my drawer. And not only was the folding an art, but the piles I put them in were distinct piles, matching which specific drawers the different types of clothes had to go in. I keep things in a specific order, so I always know where everything in. Even my bureau is an art, with the top drawers housing the underwear and undershirts, the next drawer keeping my sturdy T-Shirts and the last holding my pants, allowing me to go right down the dresser to get dressed every morning. Yes, this was an art, and the difference between folding for art and folding for everyday life, is that it wasn't really all that bad today. In everyday life it is a task that gets in the way of other things, today while doing it for art it was certainly a performance. Although nobody really saw my performance (minus my girlfriend taking the picture), it felt like my folding had more of a purpose, I noticed the little details and appreciated just how I fold my laundry just a little bit more.

1. My performance is art because it was something I produced through a medium (life, in this example) and can be evaluated, critiqued and reviewed.

2. Art is anything made through some medium with a message that a viewer can interpret any way he or she pleases striking any various kinds of emotion.

3. The difference between art and life is its purpose. Things done for the arts are done purposefully to evoke reaction while things done for life are done indistinctly to carry on your everyday survival and being.

Self Portrait Film Stills

All Film Stills can be seen at: http://www.personal.psu.edu/kmh5091/WMNST003.htm

This project was a fun one to do for sure. When I first read we could wear costumes, I was overly thankful that Halloween had just passed and I had something to work with. First off, obviously, I am a teletubby in these photos as that was my costume for Halloween this year. Now, at first, the costume was all I had visualized , but after looking at the style and the content in Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Stills, I had an idea of what point I wanted to get across in this project. I chose to publish the photos in black and white much like Sherman's stills to create that Hollywood effect and make it look like a film as much as I could. Secondly, I chose to be in costume as a teletubby because just dressing as my usual self wouldn't be as effective at all in this project.

The theme I tried to accomplish with my narrative of film stills is my anxiety of the "real world". Going to college is great and being successful is a goal of mine and has been for a very long time, but frankly the business world scares the hell out of me. I have many fears of being confined by my job and only being known as "part of the company". This narrative allows me express my feelings towards the subject and mask them through the character of a depressed Teletubby. I rarely come out and say I am scared of what lies ahead in the future, but this project allowed me to do so in a different way than I would think to. The story starts with my character, the Teletubby, getting out of bed and then going to work (shown by the tie and briefcase). The teletubby then gets a shocking revelation at work, by receiving a letter saying he was fired. This startling news causes him to go out to a bar, and get rejected by a woman. Feeling like his world is spiraling downward, the teletubby becomes extremely drunk and the story ends with a shot of the teletubby contemplating his life and about to overdose on unknown pills in the bathroom. This pressure of this tiring business job everyday ultimately lead to meltdown of the main character, in which his life becomes in jeopardy. Now, although I do not, in any way, find my life in jeopardy or wish to overdose on drugs, this narrative through the teletubby can be seen as an over exaggeration of some of my fears.

The project was hard to do as a male, because I couldn't use Cindy Sherman's stills as an exact influence, as she posed as an actress doing feminine tasks in her photos. Also, I couldn't incorporate the "cinematic gaze" because my central character was male and I didn't want to do a project on typical "male" stereotypes. Instead, I wanted to do a reflection of an inner self fear shown through a strange and bizarre character in the everyday working world. Overall, I think I made these stills, like Sherman, look like actual film as much as I could and did accomplish my goal of taking one of my worries in life and turning it on its extreme end to convey my thoughts on my unknown and certainly untold future.

Public Service Announcement

http://www.personal.psu.edu/kmh5091/PSA.JPG

For my PSA I decided to focus on the aspect of the cinematic gaze that was brought up last week in Laura Mulvey's essay. I feel the main point of the cinematic gaze was how society has used the female in movies and advertising and such things to make her into some symbol or special image. The viewer is the active male, there is no question about this, and his image is the woman. There are countless example of this in the world from films and society but one other aspect of modern entertainment that shows the cinematic gaze in action is the obsession with celebrity gossip. Most of the attention of these gossip columns are women celebs who are usually seen by the males as superstars and fit the "woman image" perfectly. These pictures and stories are so common now that it is just accepted, this gazing of the media on these women. Women are more that just a symbol and an image, but we rarely see this in these celebrity gossip photos and stories.

This is why I chose to use a picture that a lot of people probably have seen, to emphasize just how much the celebrity gossip industry uses this cinematic gaze concept. They use it so much so that even the most extreme measures are not seen as that shocking at all any more. I chose to use the infamous picture of Britney Spears getting out a car at a club exposing everything underneath her dress. The constant cinematic gaze on poor Britney has made this picture and this ludicrous invasion of privacy an every week occurrence that barely even makes a lot of news any more. My message was: If people believe that women are not generally seen as an object by men, then these images should be extremely shocking to us! The problem is, they are not, because this constant cinematic gaze and objectification of women does take place in society, especially in the ridiculous industry of celebrity gossip. Hopefully my PSA will make some people realize this and they can stop and think about how disgusting this industry is, no matter who it is they are objectifying.

I installed my PSA outside my apartment on campus in Nittany Apartments. I live in the 37 building that is in a unique shape creating a tiny courtyard where all the front doors to each apartment in the building face each other. I also chose to place it here because I have neighbors of both sexes and wanted to create a situation where maybe a male and a female could be looking at it the same time to possibly start a discussion over it.

Self Portrait Option 4

http://www.personal.psu.edu/kmh5091/Self%20Portrait%204.JPG

"Lounging in the City"

This was a fun assignment that I enjoyed thoroughly. I chose to represent my self as a golden lab for a couple of reasons. First off, my family owns a golden lab that we love and admire very much, she is a huge part of our family. Secondly, I am extremely jealous of our dog, all her daily life consists of is sleeping and eating. I mean, who wouldn't want to be a dog, really. I'd definitely trade in my life of working hard to maintain school and relationships and the ongoing job of making money for a life of lounging around on the couch as a family dog only having to worry about when you're going to eat next. It's not that I don't enjoy my life as a human, but being a household dog would definitely be ideal. You may be wondering just why I chose to keep my human arms. Well, I thought about it, and I would still want to do a lot of the things I do as a human if I were to be a dog. Most of all, I wouldn't want to lose my ability to play the guitar, I love playing music and I would never want to lose that. Another thing to notice in the photo is my new habitat, New York City. I've always wanted to live in that city, and hope to after graduation. I have dreams of going to baseball games and Broadway shows and other various activities on the streets of New York City in some point of my life. My thought process was, "If I was creating my ideal life as a household dog, I might as well live in my dream location, the city".

I tried to use realism as much as I could in this project. I used all real pictures of myself. Three different ones for my face and two arms. I also used a real picture of a yellow lab and obviously a real picture of New York City. These three objects are obviously real separately but a hybrid dog-human is nothing close to reality. It was helpful to think of Frida Kahlo's Wounded Deer while doing this project, and I even tried to match the pose of that deer in the image to the pose of myself in my new habitat. I feel much like Frida Kahlo's work represented how she felt she was being treated at the time, my work represents how I feel about my life. All the pressure of being a human being in college are so intense, that I feel life as a golden lab would be my ideal life, life as a dog lounging around in the greatest city on the planet would most definitely be magical.

Modernist Poetry Experiments

http://www.personal.psu.edu/kmh5091/Lesson%208%20poems.htm

http://www.personal.psu.edu/kmh5091/Lesson%208%20poems.htm

For this lesson, we read Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein. Reading Stein is a unique experience, as her writing is off the wall and all over the place. In the poems I created based on her Objects, Food, and Rooms writings I tried to have aspects of Stein's uniqueness come through, just not as evident as she did. These poems were unlike anything I had ever written before. I tried to get outside my comfort zone and write more abstractly like Stein did.
I chose to write about my Guitars for the objects portion, describing them as in depth and logically as I could. For the food, I chose what I ate over the weekend, Meatloaf. I chose to personify the meatloaf saying it was rough and had a hard life. Finally, for the rooms portion of the poems I chose to write about my room here in my apartment. I chose this because it is the first time in my 20 year life that I have had my very own room. I tried to get the point across that I was actually in love with my room, using as many romantic and loving words I could.

After the poems were written, it was time to experiment. For my Guitars poem I chose the method of the First/Last word poem. This totally takes a lot from the poem but also lets the reader look it at in a different light. Since I wrote the poem, reading it in this new form, I can still tell it is about my guitar. It still contains mere references to guitars with the words, but can be interpreted to mean something else as well. In the Meatloaf poem, I decided to add an excerpt from a Wikipedia article on the singer Meat Loaf. Mostly, I did this because I find the singer Meat Loaf very comical. I don't like his music at all, but I couldn't resist myself with this one. The comment about him breaking the sound board is just funny to me and can't be true. This brings some humor to the already comical poem I wrote. In the last poem about my very first room, I decided to take every object in the room that I wrote in the poem and replace it with the very literal description of the object. For example, bed becomes box of springs. It makes for an interesting read and causes the reader to think of how the things we use every day and how very simply they can be described. It also shows how one word can change into many words, it depends on how descriptive an author wants to be.

Overall, I enjoyed this assignment, as I always like to put my thoughts on paper (or this time the web). I also enjoyed experimenting with things that were already written. The writing process could go on forever as one work can transform for eternity.

Self Portrait Option 2

http://www.personal.psu.edu/kmh5091/My%20Self%20Passions.xml

"My Self Passions"

The assignment for this self portrait was to create a triptych. We were asked to create a self portrait using three separate images. After thinking about all of our options I decided that three photographs with my three most prized possessions was what I wanted to do. The only problem was, as I began to think about what I would be photographed with, I couldn't really come up with any sole possessions that I found dear to myself. All I could think of were objects or ideas that I was passionate about. This is why I decided to call my self portrait "My Self Passions", instead of 3 objects that I hold dear, the portrait displays my 3 biggest passions that depict me.

I am a very passionate about many things in life, but number one to me, is music. This is why I chose to be photographed with my trusty bass guitar, which I play in my band Scenic. I also write lyrics in my spare time and sometimes those even get converted into actual songs that the band will then play live. I feel my best when I'm playing with my friends in the band in front of a live audience. I love to share my passion with other people, and there's no feeling like playing live in front of people who appreciate your work

If anybody knows me, they know this one fact. I am very passionate about my sports teams. I can sit and watch all 162 games of a baseball season and know all the players and all their stats. I am most passionate about my New York Mets but am also a huge New York Giants fan as well. I like all sports but baseball and football are my all time favorites to watch. During baseball season, I am completely enthralled by the entire magic of the game and can be found yelling at the TV during football season as well. The photo of me displaying my favorite teams with my Giants banner and Mets hat shows just how much I love these teams.

The third photo shows me staring in the glare of the one and only Darth Vader. This photo symbolizes my love for films, I am a huge movie buff, but ultimately, the photo displays my favorite movie, Star Wars. There is no better film, in my mind, than Star Wars. It has it all, special effects, great story, romance, and action. The movie is the sole reason I am in love with movies today. I used to walk to my older neighbor's house almost every weekend and borrow his VHS of the original trilogy and watch the films with awe. Ask me anything about the film and I will surely know the answer. Some may call me a bit of a nerd on the subject, but I just call myself a fan of one of the best stories ever told on film.

While planning my three photos I tried to keep in mind the way that artists much like Artemesia during the Renaissance period would paint people, mostly of royalty or rich persons. The subjects would pose never smiling and usually not looking right at the artist, much like I did in the photos. They would also pose with some of their most prized possessions or passions in my case, such as loyal pets, jewelry, or even gold. I also put my photos in order of the extremity of my passions, starting with my music and ending with my love for films, showing just how much I loved these three things. It was difficult to narrow down my top 3 passions but if we were to add more photos for this project, I could go on forever. Overall, I enjoyed this project, because it was interesting to think of a subject that would connect the 3 individual self portraits and bring them into one single triptych type photograph.