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.

Comic Quilt Strip

http://www.personal.psu.edu/kmh5091/Comic%20Quilt%20Strip.jpg

This assignment was a fun one for me. I got to relive a piece of my family's history through a mere drawing. It took me a while to plan out my cells of the comic strip because I was trying not to use words. Without using words it can be extremely challenging to tell a story successfully. Although, with my work, I think I got my main point across.

The story is about my family moving to the U.S. from Ireland. I tried to make this point across with the first three cells. Obviously, the Irish flag and suitcases being carried by my family all are signs of their trip to the U.S. finally symbolized by Lady Liberty. Now, I'm not sure if my family actually owned a Pub in Ireland, but I like to think that they would have.

Many immigrants found some sort of rejection from the public once they moved to the States and my family was no exception. My family's last name "O'Hanlon" was thought to be too Irish sounding and they were forced to change it against their own will. I tried to show how difficult it was for new people, including my ancestors, coming to this country during the massive immigration waves. This was an interesting way to tell a story but I did enjoy doing the assignment. As I was drawing these events it really made me think of just what my family went through to ensure that we all would have a better life here in America.

Self Portrait Option 1

This first self portrait option made me realize there is actually more to gender. I am more than my gender. A photo of the back of someone's head, although in my case I am clearly male, doesn't always reveal one's gender. It shows that I am not barred by my gender to make my own decisions. The plain background of the photo emphasizes that all of us are the same, we are people who have to make decisions. The emptiness around my head represents the fact that I can influence my own decisions, my surroundings don't have to influence anything, regardless of our gender. A person's gender shouldn't dictate what the person can and cannot do. According to our readings, in higher classes during the Middle Ages, women and men worked side by side, it wasn't until later when gender specialized and categorized people into certain roles, at least in the trade aspect of life. Gender, is merely that, our sex, it should have nothing to do with what we decide to do with our lives. There is so much opportunity out there in the world that gender should be the last thing that controls where and what we do. This photo demonstrates clearly that I am male, but more importantly that gender is not everything, women and men are above anything, people. The back of my head shows you no facial features that lets you know how I carry my gender, it shows you only that I am male, and that I will probably be guided through life by the fact that I am male. This self-portrait is hard to hide the fact that I am indeed male, but it doesn't hide the fact that I can make so many decisions without even thinking of the fact I am male, being male sometimes just shouldn't matter, because after all, we are all people, and all deserve to do what we want with ourselves regardless of our gender.

Women's World

Initial warning: This room and blog was not designed to be stereotypical in anyway, I am indeed a male in this Women's Studies class and know little about the wants and desires of women unfortunately. Being a chauvinistic person is the last thing I am trying to do, so here it goes...

Before I began this project I didn't think it would be entirely difficult. The further I dove into it... The more I knew I was wrong. At first thought, designing a house would be fun and interesting, I found myself wanting to design the perfect house for my own wants and needs, it was hard to get away from that. I had to keep telling myself this house is not for me, not even for a male like myself. I had to come up with the perfect house for a woman. What did I know what women wanted in a house!? I've only lived with one woman my entire life: my mother. Most of this house is based on my life experience living in a house with three men and only one woman. I tried to create a house that I know my mom would like to have complete control of, and this I what I came up with.

First off, all though the house is square like most houses, my focus was on making the interior different than most traditional houses. I went for a circular design where all the rooms are on the outside of the circular interior main hallway. The house opens with two beautiful giant french doors that create a welcoming look to the front of the house. I will now explain the structure of the house and why things are where they are. I put the rooms in order by amount of use from the front of the house to the back. The bedrooms where the women will probably spend most of their time is right by the opening of the house, followed by the kitchen and living room areas in the middle, and the bathroom and special workout room in the back. After a long day of school or work, I know some women that just want to get home and crash, they love their sleep. In this house, they don't have far to go to get to their own personal bedrooms located in the front of the house. The most common rooms (kitchen and living rooms) are in the middle where all the occupants of the house don't have far to go to get there. And the bathroom and workout rooms, the specialty rooms as I like to call them, are located in the back to provide privacy.

Now, let me explain each room in a little more detail. My house specifically designed for women has two major themes, sensuality and comfort. Knowing this, the bedrooms are equipped with the biggest most comfortable beds and each bedroom also has a giant couch to sit friends or any kind of visitors. The bedrooms do create a problem though, they are in the front of the house and could create less privacy than desired. I know that privacy is extremely important to women so I decided to fix this with a window that doubles as a mirror. It may look like a regular window from the outside but it is actually a mirror (it is known that all women need a mirror in their room) that displays a reflective glare on the outside to passerbys. This allows the women to walk freely in their room without the fear of people outside seeing them in their most personal place of the house. But don't worry, there is an actual window in the bedroom located on the side of the house. Possibly the best feature included in the room, that I almost forgot myself, is a giant walk-in closet. Women love to have plenty of room to organize and store their belongings and or clothes and shoes.

Next comes the living room area, with wall to wall couches to maximize comfort for any woman who wants to curl up and watch a movie or anything on TV or even just to take a nap. Another important room in the house is the kitchen. some women enjoy cooking and take it up as a hobby, this kitchen allows for all kinds of cooking and also comes with a circular table allowing for classic female to female chatting time after creating that amazing meal. Now possibly the most interesting part of the house is the central atrium. Most of the women in my family love to garden and if they don't they at least love to look and smell flowers usually. This atrium allows for both, the woman have their very own garden inside to plant any thing including flowers or vegetables and provides the most beautiful scents and sights of various floral arrangements.

Rounding out the back of the house is the specialty rooms. Most women enjoy doing some kind of physical activity. Due to this I included a work out room in the house. This room is equipped with cardio machines, free weights and yoga mats to provide for any kind of work out. Another special feature of the room is the small dance floor. Women love to dance, this is a known fact, so when the mood should strike, the women living in this house can turn on the music and dance at any moment. Now, to the bathroom. This women's bathroom includes not on tub but two. Both tubs, of course, are larger than usual ones to provide a relaxing bubble bath at any moment. And one tub of course, is actually a spa. What woman wouldn't want a hot tub in her very own bathroom. Another special feature including in this bathroom is the giant skylight, what for you might ask? For a women's favorite pastime, tanning. When thinking of a house for a woman, this feature was one of the first I thought of. This sky light will allow a woman to not even have to leave the comfort of her own home to get the warming rays of the sun to darken that complexion and look great.

As I said earlier, another major theme for this house was sensuality. I tried to include elements for all the delicate senses of a woman. Right as you enter the house you are treated to a wonderful smell in the "Hall of Scent" where candles line the walls. This provides an instant sensual stimulation right as you enter the house. To adhere to sight, I included the beautiful atrium to provide the women with beautiful greens and colors of flowers. Touch is taken care of with the abundance of comforting couches and the sensual spa and tub in the bathroom. When the women need to hear their favorite song and just dance, their ears are filled with their favorite songs via wall to wall speakers in the work out room, and oh yeah, that awesome mini dance floor is always there to provide the women with their intense desire to just dance. Finally, the sense of taste is easily fulfilled with the wonderful chocolate fountain in the very back of the house. Now, it is located in the back because I know some women can be shy of their love of chocolate, but most cannot deny that they love the sweet taste of chocolate, which is why it was it was a no-brainer to include this in the perfect women's house.

Finally, I hope my thoughts were displayed with my drawing and this blog. I tried to keep the two themes of comfort and sensuality in mind at all times. Again, I know very little of what women want, but I tried to think of what my mother and the woman I am friends with would want. Hopefully this house would make some woman happy, as I think it easily could.

Sappho Translation

http://www.personal.psu.edu/kmh5091/Sappho%20Translation.htm

Firtsly, I extremely enjoyed this assignment. I enjoy writing lyrics for songs (I play bass and sing some in a band back at home) and this assignment was pretty easy for me seeing as writing meaningful words is a hobby for me. It was interesting to see all the translations for the Sappho Poem. Never before did I think that a poem or song or anything could have the same themes and meanings but still be so different. After reading the different translations it was obvious the format that needed to be followed. Most were 4 stanzas long and each stanza usually had it's own function in the telling of an either ecstatic of tragic tale. It was fun to see what I could come up with while still keeping my poem in the style of the other Sappho translations. It was interesting to work with the three figures of God, the beloved and the viewer of the beloved into a singular peice of writing. Also, before reading the translations and writing my poem I thought there was no way anyone could include all the figures, feelings and symbols we had to use in one poem. I was wrong, and found out quickly that a beautifully written poem can still be full with all these things.

My first stanza represents god-like figure that is embracing the beauty of this woman he himself has created. Instead of writing of a man who had the features of God, I tried to have known that in this poem I was in fact referencing God, who is enthralled with the beauty of the woman. In the second stanza we begin to see what the beauty of this amazing woman does to the "viewer" as we see just what he thinks of her. In the third stanza, the man begins to question if he'll ever be able to be with this woman and actually doubts it at all as he begins to lose all hope. In the end of the poem the reader gets the notion that the pain of not having the woman to the man is so much he is actually dying inside. I chose not to have the man actually die because all though I wanted my poem to be tragic, I didn't want it to be that tragic.

In conclusion, the poem assignment was a fun one that I enjoyed writing. I got to experiment with different emotions, senses, and symbols. I had never written anything this sensual and the process was one that brought up some interesting feelings within myself.