The truth is, I miss you. This is more then a photograph; it’s a rare fragment of a moment that completed me. This portrait defines him in my mind. At first glance he looks happy but I know better. As I delve into rough terrain of plunging and rising skin I arrive at two very familiar eyes. Although these eyes belong to this man, they are unmistakably mine. The size, the color, the placement, I can’t kid myself that this man is my father. I took this photo upon meeting this stranger. I flew to a foreign land to meet the man that has been MIA in my life. We did not speak the same language and were completely alienated from each other. This picture stings me. It reminds me of him, and everything I hated and loved about him. His eyes are what get me. They evoke pity and weakness from me and for that I hate him and this picture. His eyes speak of a loneliness that he holds me responsible for. Others viewing this picture might think is a lighthearted photo but I know his eyes to well because they are mine. My eyes, my emotions, me. Our eyes are one in the same.



this is what i'm working on for my essay. I'm pretty sure this is going to be the first paragraph.

Will Taylor my drawing teacher was the first one to point out Robert Longo's work to me. I immediately was very interested by his large size lithographs because of the movement and scale. Longo's work is usually life size or bigger. It towers over the viewer in a gallery setting and that in itself is very potent. The piece "Eric" at Wake Forest is particulairly intriguing. According to my sources online Longo took his friends at his roof and had them move and spin around while throwing objects at them. He then took pictures of them and projected the images on the wall to trace it. He then used lithography to create the final image. The stark contrast of black and white creates a graphic nature to the piece while the scale is pretty intimidating. After researching this piece i decided to create my own life size installation piece. I can't post it on the internet because my model was an actor and asked me not to but i can talk about it. I decided to reference longo in terms of size and having my model actually being forced into a situation (like how longo threw objects at his model i covered mine in honey). Having my model covered in a sticky substance changed how he moved and interacted with himself. I video taped him rubbing the honey around his body and had a very simple set up. I did a slight wardrobe change so that he was also that of a woman. The actor i used was very androgenous so when i dressed him in lingerie he appeared to look like a woman. The message i was trying to get across was that of discomfort from male sexuality. A lot of time in the media we see women exposed and acting sexual. Take that show that has hugh heffners three playboy bunnies in it. they are always half naked engaging in semi sexual content. We flip by and think nothing of it and go on about our day. On the other hand, if a male was to be in barely anything rubbing his body on tv, everyone would become extremely uncomfortable. I tryed to capture this by the actions of my model. I projected it life size and played around with sound to further the mood of discomfort. Taking a note from Longo, i really feel that projecting the body life size helped to create a dramatic effect.

it's campaign time once again...

except on a smaller basis...school wide that is. So usually, i'm not going to lie- i don't give shit about school politics. I mean seriously..who does? Not to be a pessimist, but usually whoever is running is doing it just for popularity and also just for their resume. This election is a little different though. I guess its not the same in my mind because i have a friend running for president. I was approached by my friend Jamar the other day to help him and his running mate Samip make posters for their election. At first i was said i would just to do a friendly thing but after talking to them about their goals i actually because pretty interested. They want to "break the silence" as they say by forging a relationship between the students and staff..bridging the black and white area of the administration and the student body. They also want to get our school interacting with the surrounding institutions. After hearing them speak and hearing their passion to actually make a change i really wanted to hook them up with good signage. I felt that my commonplace would be a good place to discusst his because it made me think about what goes into to creating effective propaganda? So let's discuss signage. As a young visual artist i feel i definitely am effected by really interesting images and text. For example when Bush ran for president i remember really boring signs. Repping the red white and blue font, the signs were straight forward and really reallly boring. The reaction it got out of me was a big fat "he would". Obamas posters on the other hand were i think an example of smart intelligent signage. Let me just state i have no idea if the word signage is even a word but, whether it is or isn't i will continue to use it. Anyway the leading most popular Obama poster was created by the popular street artist Shepard Fairey. This sign was graphic, crisp and catchy. It appealed to the younger generation which was a really unique approach as far as his tactics in running his campaign. This style became so famous that now photo editing websites have generators that transform your photos into obama posters. Tieing that into jamars campaign, originally he wanted to go with an obama type poster. After plugging in his headshots we ultimately came to the decision that this would not be the most effective method of campigning. I say this becasue i feel that obama spoofs have gotten pretty old. There is so much baggage and judgeent and even prejudices that come along with him, (good and bad of course, dont get me wrong i am an Obama supporter) that i felt it was just to much of a risk to model jamar and samips posters after his. We decided to take an alternative approach and do something in their words "artsy". I suggested that painted text on their body rather then computer generated text might be more affective and unique. We decided to write their slogan on their arms and enlist other peoples hands to write out the information. When photographing them i tryed to capture their serious intentions while still fusing it their strong personalities. Working on a small tight time limit , i didn't get to go as elaborate and "artsy" as i wanted but they were very pleased with the outcome. I guess i just really wanted to take this opportunnity to record my experience being involved with some sort of political thing. Even though it was a small time thing, it gave me alot of insight into peoples professions that design things like campaign slogans for a living. If you want to see the fruits of my labor its posted all over campus..yeah..everywhere really. later for now.

This fucking hilarious. If i ever found this i would probably shit my pants. But on a serious note how creepy would it be to find a note like this pinned to your car windshield. I'm going to be straight up and say that i have admired people from a far, i'm pretty sure we all have... but who acts on it like this?....yeah someone thats crazy-thats for sure. So, here's a question..obviously for myself because i am the only one reading this... is this "foundmagazine" an artistic site? are the notes pieces of art... i'm only asking this because honestly- it's assigned in art history class, so it's my duty to find an artistic connection. I hope my few readers aren't judging me at this point. Anyways, ONWARD. The act of finding objects is a very curious thing. Everywhere one goes , one is expsed to thousands of interesting objects and as in this case- crazyyy things. Does taking these things and putting them onto the web act as an catalyst into an artistic exploration? hm, possibly. I really think this breaks down into the age old question of "what is art"? Art, I feel is a very personal thing. i think depending on the person, "actual art" can be considered to be merely based on technique, or in some cases it could be more a broad practice, based on conceptual and pure expression. If art is based on the acts of expressing ones self, then couldn't it be said that posting notes and photos found that contain private snippets be considered an act of expression? I feel like i am not expressing this clearly. Art is a way of expressing ones self and so is writing, thus, if you take personal written notes and post them online, for people to view would that be considered an artistic practice? In my opion...not so much. Not to say that i have a narrow minded view on what art is, i just feel that you need some type of harnessing of technical skills and conceptual ideas. I feel that forgoing all types of technical skills undermines the act of creating. I guess thats my personal opinion. Anyways, all in all i hope i wasn't tooo vague. sorry if i was- sometimes i have a hard time conveying my thoughts.

Modern

Hey there, i have an interesting topic this week. Bare with me as i take you through my mental journey on what defines today. I started off by interviewing to va 1's. let me introduce you...

This is Kat...



Kat is a striking intelligent beauty. She's level headed and makes profound comments on a daily basis.



This is Christian...


Christian is a unique beauty. His personality is tangy yet sweet. His sarcasm and wit defines his reactions to things a lot of the time. He is ridiculously smart in the way he thinks about society and art.


Here are a few questions i asked them


*Me*: What defines today in your eyes?
*Kat*:Hm.....
*Christian*: wow, what a question..
*Me*: yeah.. you're telling me.
*Kat*: I would have to say individualism- everyones unique qualities
*Christian*: Meis- like less technology based... Really like the medias influence on society and its use of technology as a tool.
*Me*: What artist/musician/ film maker etc. helps us see our own time?
*Kat*: OBAMA
*random person*: they're not an artist
*Kat*: in a sense he is. i think obama is a good example of what society is today compared to how it was in previous years.
*Christian*: I think kat's answer is really fucking good
*Me*: hahahaha
*Christian*: so many artists have been inspired by obama, and even in other counties he has inspired so much change
*Kat*: ok shepard fairey
*Christian*: Shut up katherine.



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So that was pretty interesting picking their brains. As far as what defines today i would definitely have to agree with Christian about media influencing our life. Everywhere we look the media changes how we look, dance, act, dress, basically everything. I know the media has influenced me. take dancing.. There is this song called "stanky leg". My roommate first told me about it.. she showed me all the youtube videos of people doing this silly dance. I thought that i could beast that dance so i started showing all my friends what i could do. Media via music and youtube influenced me yet again blinding me at my own stupidity. Someone taped me doing the dance the other day. Thought i would share.

here's how it should be done...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNW7QdM2Kw8

here's me...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nthvttZafo


yeah...ok moving on.
So when i think of an artist that reflects my view on todays society in the sense that we are driven by the media and young hollywood, i definitely think of David La'Chapelle. I know, i talk about him a lot. shutup. A little background info on him
he went to NCSA and then went to SVA in new york. In new york he met up with andy warhol and started working closely with him. He does a lot of work with celebrities exaggerating their personalities and elements form their personal life. His style is described by people as "surrealist/ grotesque/ shocking/ ironic" (wikipedia). His work reminds me of perez hilton. perez hilton writes a blog allll about young hollywood and everything that goes down. I feel that this is so typical of our era because we put stars on this pedastool where we want to know everything about them. Lachapelles use of color, lighting and setting is very contemporary in the sense that it's very over the top and vibrant. Here's a piece by him



I find this piece especially intriguing because of the subject matter. I feel that now more then ever the gay/transgender community is very prominent in society. If you flip through tv you can find shows like queer as folk, the l word and rupauls drag race. At our own school it seems that guys take every opportunity thrown at them to dress like females and i myself sometime prefer to wear suspenders, fedoras, and suit jackets. This ambiguity in gender is something that is slowly becoming more and more dominant in our society. In this picture Lachapelle explores this and also exploits it. This picture is clearly very sexual. This sexual tone is consistently evident in his other work. This picture deals with a trans man. The way the body is posed, greased down, lit, and "accessorized" (watermelon) screams shock, lust, and sex. This subject matter is so contemporary and so pure in purpose(theres no question at what he's getting at).
This picture is just one example of how Lachapelle embodies how our culture is evolving into this money/celebrity/sex based society thriving off of cheap thrills.


..well at least in my opinion.