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.