gay rights in the news

A federal judge in Boston has dismissed a suit by two families who wanted to stop a Massachusetts town and its public school system from teaching their children about gay marriage, court documents show. LINK.

Also:
There is some terrifying legislation that may soon be passed in Nigeria. Essentially it strips away all rights from homosexuals, and goes a step further to basically deny them the right to express themselves, congregate, and basically exist. Call/write your senators to let them know you are concerned about this. Unfortunately, discrimination against gays is still widely accepted (even promoted?) around the world (and here too). There are some pretty fundamental human rights being violated here. Read more: http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=12180&sectionID=2

Marry Me

Tori Fixx has been called
"the Timbaland of gay hip hop".

Box Art

Just in case the class blog has been too much focused on the marriage side of things, I've posted some classic box art for you on my blog. Keep thinking about interior/exterior relations and what it means to be square...

box art

MEMENTO BOX by Cati Vaucelle: I designed this interactive box as an attractive passage from door to space . The door leads to my souvenirs and is always slightly opened . A bright light shines in the back of the box clarifying a few objects and pictures around it . However, whenever my hand tries to grab what captures the eye, the door closes onto my hand and all is dark again . Whenever I go away for a tiny bit, the door opens up and more lights shine into some parts of my souvenirs and I can travel though them from far away

art + marriage

-Seven Years of Love As Art See also: Seven Year Weddings in Seven Years
-The above project was inspired in part by a previous work by Linda Montano and Tehching Tsieh called The Year of the Rope
-Tim Miller : Glory Box
-wedding at the MoMA
-In the Charles Perrault fairy tale, Peau d'Ane, a young princess orders impossible wedding gifts from her stepfather in order to avoid marrying him: three dresses made of immaterial materials. Valérie Lamontagne is working on three wearables projects based on this story. The three Peau d'Ane dresses will translate the qualities of the sky, moon and sun within various geographical locations at all times of the day. Read more about the meteorologically modulated dresses
-non-weddings, a net art project
- Yoko Ono & John Lennon, Bed-in
- Design Interactions/Love + Commitment: WMMNA review

WRITING:
essay about Voltairine de Cleyre
Emma Goldman - Marriage and Love
Mary Wollstonecraft - A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792

Be my valentine

For Wednesday, we will meet in the computer lab again. If there is a weather issue I will email you with further info, but don't count on anything! I will screen some more art work before our meetings. Please bring 3 simple sketches in your sketchbook and post your concept statement for the HOPE CHEST project to your blog.

The concept statement explains the IDEAS you want to explore with the project, your INTENTIONS, and how you plan to execute it. This is where you will explain HOW your box functions and WHY you want to make it in a certain way/use particular materials.

As you consider your proposal for the project, you might want to look up Johns' and Rauschenberg's work in more detail on the web. Hopefully the documentary was also useful for you to get a better idea of the range of ideas.

Your HOPE CHEST should not simply mimic the style of these artists, but you may choose to use some of the techniques and materials they used: found images from the news, collage, printing directly on the surface, paint, performance, tire tracks, tennis matches, brooms, symbols like targets and flags, combines, rotating disks... Really get into it!

Also, you should really consider the metaphor of inside and outside and how this will function on the HOPE CHEST. Your surface treatment could be one way, but when the viewer opens the box, they could be totally surprised at what is on the interior. Or maybe they only have access to the inside through a special key or puzzle or a very small hole...How is the inside speaking to the outside of your piece?

You'll find that the issue of gay marriage is quite rich with metaphors that will allow you to explore concepts of what is HIDDEN and what is REVEALED.

Ballot initiative would require married couples to "show proof of procreation"

Initiative 957
If passed by Washington state voters, the Defense of Marriage Initiative would add the phrase:
- “who are capable of having children with one another” to the legal definition of marriage;
- require that couples married in Washington file proof of procreation within three years of the date of marriage or have their marriage automatically annulled

11-17 February is Freedom to Marry Week

http://www.freedomtomarry.org/

another cultural event eligible for your required blogs

PS also check out this censorship related to the play.

The Vagina Monologues 2007
Class member Megan Rippey is part of the cast!

Friday, February 9th @ 3:30 pm & 7:00 pm
Saturday, February 10th @ 7 pm

Where: Monty 25
Price: $ 4.00 per ticket

All proceeds go towards the fight to end violence against women.
To reserve tickets please e-mail smcmmonologues2007@hotmail.com
with your name, #of tickets and day you would like to attend.

reading for WED 14 FEB

Jasper Johns & Robert Rauschenberg - Jonathan Katz
AND
Queers & Marriage - British Broadcasting Corporation
If you look in the upper right corner, you will see that there is a link to 2 pages:
IN THIS ARTICLE:
1. Queers and marriage
2. Arguments against marriage

You don't have to write a traditional response in your blog for these readings. Instead, you will develop a concept and some initial sketches. Check the handout for details and questions to consider as you read.

Christy Georg

Christy Georg makes body extensions, instruments, and sculpture incorporating audio, but she does not always use them in the presence of other people. One example is this piece called "Monitoring the Dunes" at White Sands National Park in 2005.

The “monitor” and her instrument caseare in white, blending in to the environs. The instrument is unpacked and assembled on site in the dunes. It consists of two large stethoscopes, which press against the sand and connect to the monitor’s earphones via tubing. This device is housed in tall forearm crutches, so that when in use, the monitor pulls her body off the earth, and only her ears (via their extensions) are connected to the earth. The monitor’s endurance determines her ability to sonically monitor the dunes.

I always had this idea that doing art was just a masturbatory activity, and didn't really help anybody.

Interviewer: What led you to become an artist?
JB: I always had this idea that doing art was just a masturbatory activity, and didn't really help anybody. I was teaching kids in the California Youth Authority, an honor camp where they send kids instead of sending them to prison. One kid came to me one day and asked if I would open up the arts and crafts building at night so they could work. I said, "If all of you guys will cool it in the classes, then I'll baby-sit you." Worked like a charm. Here were these kids that had no values I could embrace, that cared about art more than I. So, I said, "Well, I guess art has some function in society," and I haven't gotten beyond that yet, but it was enough to convince me that art did some good somehow. I just needed a reason that wasn't all about myself.

LINK TO MP3 CONVERSATION WITH BALDESSARI AT THE HIRSCHHORN MUSEUM, DC

Art & Art History department lecture: Heather McGuire on John Baldessari
Wednesday, Feb 7th, Library 321, 4:30
Heather McGuire was graduated from the University of Virginia (B.A. English) and VCU (B.F.A. Crafts). She worked as a curatorial assistant on the Hirshhorn's Visual Music exhibition and curated several gallery shows in Richmond, VA. She is currently pursuing her doctorate in Art History at VCU and beginning her dissertation on John Baldessari's Blasted Allegories. Visit http://www.1708gallery.org/ and click on Exhibitions: Current for a show of contemporary artists that Heather curated.

TEATRO LUNA + workshop

Attendance at the workshop or the performance is eligible for one of the cultural events for your blog response. Make your reservations early.

TEATRO LUNA, Chicago’s first all-Latina performing ensemble, presents S-E-X-Oh!
What do sex, video games, and Trader Joe’s have in common? Find out in Teatro Luna’s irreverent new show, a “hilarious look at the very thing our abuelas [grandmothers] made us promise we’d never do.”

Friday and Saturday, February 16-17, 8:00 p.m.
Bruce Davis Theater, MH

Ticket prices are $4 or $6. To make reservations, call the Theater Box Office at 24-895-4243 or e-mail boxoffice@smcm.edu.

On Saturday, February 17, from 1:00-3:00 p.m. in the Bruce Davis Theater, troupe members will conduct a workshop on “Performing in Community.” This workshop uses performance and writing exercises to generate an autobiographical ensemble performance. The workshop is free and open to the public. All participants are welcome. Email marhoda@smcm.edu to reserve your spot.

So, Why Is this Art?

The Walker Art Center in Columbus, Ohio, has a great collection of works and info for those who might be asking: SO, WHY IS THIS ART?

Their resources include background on work by Gabriel Orozco and Adrian Piper, as well as this piece by Jana Sterbak, a dress made out of meat.

Head Room

from German group Bilderwerfer

7 hosts -- with very different backgrounds except for the city they live in -- stage 7 interventions in a public space in the city. Through the use of a Head Room home box, a box covering their heads yet leaving their bodies visible, they invite one person for a face to face conversation.

This home box, designed by architect Stephane Derveaux, is not just a box, but a reproduction of the hosts’ favourite room in their own houses. The Head Room, from this perspective, balances on the edge between so called private and public space.

The hosts themselves -- an artist, a shopkeeper, a scholar, a worker -- decide who to invite. The conversations they engage in are not interviews. There are no specific questions that need to be answered. It is in the first place about the actual experience of being in the Head Room, its performative aspect, the feelings and reflections it brings about. The Head Room home boxes, the hosts and their conversations are brought back to the project’s base camp -- the Head Room of the project -- located at the platform China studio in the 798 factory. Every box adds another “room” to the installation that is being created as the interventions proceed.

LEDs in the news

This is an LED bra.

Read up about how a marketing campaign using LEDs was misunderstood as a bomb threat.

Stay tuned later in the semester as Nick, Matt, and Iain lead us in a skillshare to make LEDs! Or in the meantime, you can investigate how to build your own. Check out these links:


http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/02/homemade_led_sh.html
http://graffitiresearchlab.com/?page_id=19
http://graffitiresearchlab.com/?page_id=6
http://imakeprojects.com/projects/usb-xmas/
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/present.php?p=GPSClock-1
http://sub-zero.mit.edu/fbyte/ledart/
http://www.instructables.com/tag/keyword:led/

schedule for 12-21 Februrary

MON 12 FEB: PROJECT 1 SCREENING
-We will screen documentation of your use of your sculpture in your chosen location. This should be with photos, video, or both. You will submit your 1-page paper. See initial project handout for all the details.
- project 2 screening

WED 14 FEB: CONCEPT STATEMENT + SKETCHES
READING: "Jasper Johns & Robert Rauschenberg" by Jonathan Katz and "Queers and Marriage" a report by the British Broadcasting Corporation
HW: at least 3 sketches and written concept statement for your project based on the readings. Post concept statement to your blog.
in-class: individual meetings with FHT

MON 19 FEB: REFINED SKETCH + MODEL
HW: Bring to-scale cardboard model of your piece and one refined sketch with measurements.
- Lacey demo 2 and Kelly & Hannah's skillshare: paper making

WED 21 FEB: BUILDING TECHNIQUES
- Lacey demo 3

links from Lance Winn

These are some of the artists and projects that Lance Winn mentioned during our group discussion. Some others are linked on the side bar under "Artists".

Valie Export

Tap and Touch Cinema, 1968, in which the artist, a box attached to her naked chest, invited pedestrians in several European cities to “visit the cinema”.

Gabriel Orozco

Yielding Stone is a large ball clay that was rolled down city streets in 1992, making impressions in the ball and collecting various debris. The ball ultimately weighed as much as Orozco himself.

Manet's Olympia and the Gaze



objectification and the male gaze

Bruce Nauman

Wall-Floor Positions, 1968. Making himself into a "minimalist" prop sculpture in the manner of Richard Serra, Nauman moves through various poses in realtion to the floor and wall. While other sculptors were using wood planks, pieces of lead, or sheets of steel, Nauman uses his body to explore the space of the room, turning it into a sort of yardstick to investigate and measure the dimensions of the space.

The Uncanny - essay by Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud described the uncanny as ‘a hidden, familiar thing that has undergone repression and then emerged from it’.

U.S. artist Mike Kelley curated a show about The Uncanny that explores memory, recollection, horror and anxiety through the juxtaposition of a highly personal collection of objects with realist figurative sculpture.

Adrian Piper

Adrian Piper, Performance, Catalysis III, 1970

Adrian Piper, Performance, Catalysis IV, Frozen Speech, 1970

From the New Museum website: Marking her first explorations in spontaneous and unannounced performance, in 1970, Piper embarked on her seminal Catalysis series in which she physically transformed herself into an odd or repulsive person and went out in public to experience the frequently disdainful responses of others. These explorations into xenophobia involved such activities as covering her clothing with sticky, wet paint while shopping at Macy's. Though photographs are all that remain of the Catalysis series, the work itself focused on the interaction between the artist and the public, and more specifically, on the reaction of the individual to Piper's presence.

Some things for consideration

I've added a few links and images to my blog that I thought were relevant to Monday's conversations... namely trees, restraint, and mirrored contacts. I'll continue posting some reference and things as the class goes on, so please review at your own convenience. And I'd personally love to hear your comments, so bring 'em on!