Embody

New project started in which I asked 10 people to do this:

" Help me out with an art project by telling me the following things:

Today (or tomorrow, just choose one day to record the following factual info)

What did you eat

How much time did you sleep

What kind of exercise did you do, and how much (walk, bike, run, yoga, etc.)

What did you wear

How much time did you spend indoors and outdoors "

My plan is to re-enact these days according to the information they give me. I chose 5 people who I interact with here in Chicago and admire for their physical beauty, and the other 5 are very close friends of mine who live far away from me. There's a duality to this project in that I am looking at how I see my physical body and how I compare it to other people's physical appearances, and then I'm also trying to bring myself closer to certain people who I can't be with right now. So I'm studying two parts of my everyday consciousness--two things that I think about a lot on a daily basis.

The first day was Wednesday.

These are the facts I got: 

"What did you eat- plain yogurt and peanutbutter, japanese udon noodles with green unions, salad with butter beans/nutritional yeast/lime/olive oil/garlic/lettuce, lots of tea, coconut water, banana

How much time did you sleep- 3am-9:30am, 11am-3:30pm, 5pm-6pm

What kind of exercise did you do, and how much (walk, bike, run, yoga, etc.)- walked around in the apartment, pushups and streched

What did you wear- sweatshirt no bra, sweatpants, slippers

How much time did you spend indoors and outdoors- 0 time outdoors (except to take out recycling, lots of empty bottles)"

Here are some photos from the day:

 The day before, buying supplies.

 What I did until 3 am before going to sleep.

 Pushups.

 Food debris from dinner time.

The second day was Saturday.

Facts for Saturday:

"Ate Alpencheese (strong gruyere), Alpensalami, peanuts, water, pasta, Alpensausage, eggs, swiss chocolate

Slept about ten hours every night (9pm-7am)

Hiked in the alps for about ten hours each day (8am-6pm)

Wore running shoes, wool socks, wool pants, synth underwear, a belt, wool base layer, wool sweater, wool hat, wool mittens, and a backpack! Alpensheep!

Spent ten hours a day outside, hiking, and from 6pm to 8am inside."

 Breakfast: Gruyere and egg.

 I wore a belt.

                                                      Found this while walking.

 Walked by one of my favorite places, A. Finkl and Sons foundry.

 

Ended the walk meeting up with my friend in a playground.

Vanessa Beecroft---Obsession with Body

I read an article about Vanessa Beecroft, an Italian artist born in 1969.
   She's apparently obsessed with her body, kept a daily journal for a few years recording what she ate and how she felt. Her performances consist of a bunch of women of a certain body type- usually thin, tall, pale- occupying rooms to make the viewer feel uncomfortable and consider their psychological response to the situation.
 I don't know if it's her art that I don't like or the way the author of the article wrote about her art, or both. He wrote: "As in the diary and drawings, the reader/observer is not invited to participate; he must only become aware, through sight, of a suspended posture and indeterminate gesture that slowly indulges him and stimulates him to participate emotionally." Does that mean the art is boring and cryptic?

 Sure, the work can be said to be a commentary on voyeurism and objectification of women and ideals about what women should look like in our culture today, but what else? That seems to be it. And she does it over and over and over every year with a few changes here and there. It seems more like craft than art to me because she has found one thing she likes to make and just makes it over and over again changing the color, size, location and other little details now and then. It's like when a painter makes a series of the same painting, "playing with" a technique or composition. boring if that's all there is to it.

 But one photo from her site reminded me of the Chromatic Diet that Calle did, which is inspiring to me--the idea of eating according to color.

 

Calle's Chromatic Diet from her book Double Game

Beecroft 2003 

Drawings of Assumed Lifestyles

These came from the descriptions that I collected at the MDW fair a few weeks ago. I ended up not using the faces and names of the people. They're not important. The characters in the drawings are anonymous either way so therefore the names and faces are unnecessary. And it's all fictional because I use my imagination to construct the places these characters inhabit.  My imagination is fueled by my memories and associations with particular words, for example "dining/living room" means something specific to me, gives me specific imagery in my head. I think of the chairs and table of the dining room in the house where I grew up and I think of a dining room where I had dinner at a friend's aunt's house a few months ago. Some people don't have a dining room and might not know what it is.

  

These are not the descriptions I used for the drawings. The names scratched out on the bottom show part of my process of deciding how to mix up the names and faces, which eventually I didn't use at all.

Assesment

So what am I doing what am I doing?

Where is this all going?

Okay, okay, how did it start?

Dissatisfaction, frustration, longing, lonliness. That’s where this project comes from.

I returned to Chicago after being in Europe for 5 months. I felt that I did not belong here. My closest friends who feed my joy for life are not here. They are far away. I often feel like I need to walk through the forest. I get depressed. But no one likes that, so every now and then I am fortunate enough to try to take advantage of windows of optimism and creative fire that define my attitude.

            Flooded with ideas, I decided to use them for an Independent Study under the guidance of a great artist who actually likes me more than a little bit.

Without knowing exactly what I was embarking on, I embarked.

I started to deliver anonymous letters. I wanted to poke the unknown thing with a stick and see if it would move. It pretty much didn’t move.

I started interviewing people. I am frustrated with living here. It doesn’t give me what I need. (Still trying to figure out what that means exactly.) I heard different perspectives. I learned that most people are proud to live here. I was disappointed with boring responses like, “The city is beautiful. I love the hustle and bustle and the culture is great. The architecture is beautiful.” That all comes from tourist pamphlets and cliché’s about the city. I am satisfied having given people an unexpected interaction. It’s important to be fearless.

 I drew what I imagined people thought when they received the letters I distributed.

Drawing is where I can produce my thoughts more concisely than writing. For some reason, drawing makes me feel productive. I have a need to feel productive. I think it’s sometimes like a compulsion.

            My prediction is that most people are not open minded enough to respond to my letters. People are afraid and not creative.

 I went to an art fair and collected information from people. I think this could work on the street too because, compared to the letter distribution, it is personal, I am there asking someone face-to-face and I can explain to them if they need it.

 I started making some drawings based off of what I collected at the art fair. Not sure yet how it will manifest.

So, what can I conclude from this, what points of clarity can I use to progress from?

I don’t want to live here. But I do live here now. I have a desire to address my feelings head on in an effort to resolve them and to be more self-aware.

 Why don’t I want to live here?

            Relationships to people are the most important thing. Can I really say what is most important? Relationships with people who I can easily relate to, who support me, who I support in what is most important to us. I have some great friends who I talk to often about my anxieties and excitements, dreams, etc.

            I am constantly thinking of not an ideal lifestyle that I want forever, but what I need right now. I think of this because I get to that low point where I am unmotivated and have a low self-esteem. There’s a lot of resistance to say and hear that kind of statement today in our culture. I need to read David Foster Wallace’s A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.

Where I live, why I am unsatisfied with the location has to do with the people in my life, my identity. If living here makes me feel certain things I want to know why. I want to investigate and to make my problems fodder for my creative work. Creative work and friendships are where I find purpose in life. Some people transcend needing to have a purpose, but I haven’t transcended.

 Living here (what’s that?) sometimes makes (or do I “make”) me feel shitty.

 So obviously I don’t want to feel shitty if I can avoid it.  But I recognize that it presents a lot to think about and work through, grow from; can lead to creativity.

What do I want out of my living place? Ability to be creative, place that feeds my self-confidence and motivation, contact with people that I love and support and who do the same for me.

If you can choose where to live, how do you choose?

Now I have more ideas.

I need to deliver letters again because I am dissatisfied with where the letter project stands right now. I’ll revise it.

I will go to the places that people have mentioned in the interviews. I will take pictures and write while in those places. I will create a book. The format and tone of the book will be derived from Calle’s Appointment with Sigmund Freud book.

I have started to ask 10 different people to tell me the following factual info about themselves:

Today (or tomorrow, just choose one day to record the following factual info)

What did you eat

How much time did you sleep

What kind of exercise did you do, and how much (walk, bike, run, yoga, etc.)

What did you wear

How much time did you spend indoors and outdoors

 I will use this information to look closer at my identity. I’ll compare myself to the other people. I am not going to say right now what I plan to do because I need to keep it a secret until it’s all done so that it doesn’t alter what they tell me. (in case they look at this blog)

MDW Fair

Yesterday I went to the MDW Fair down on 35th. I collected descriptions from people.
Descriptions of
What they think of when they look in the mirror
The wall you see when you are laying in bed
What you see when you step out your front door
The area of your apartment you spend the most time in
Your neighbors
A sound or smell you associate with your block or neighborhood

I'm going to make drawings based on the responses and the photos I took of each person. I think people were especially receptive to this because they are of the art-type, open minded thinking.

I didn't read the descriptions right away because I didn't want to associate their face with what they wrote. The drawings will use a face with descriptions that don't necessarily match each other. Not sure yet how the drawings will actualize.

No Place Like Home at the Hyde Park Art Center

Today I checked out the No Place Like Home exhibit at the Hyde Park Art Center. It's a show of 5 different photographers' work dealing with the idea of home or community, each in a different way.     
  What struck me the most was a photo by Jon Lowenstien called Sade and Horace.
His photos gave me the closest proximity to "real life" compared to the other photos in the room. The texture and hand made quality of the photos are beautiful and reinforce the humanness of his work. Sade and Horace struck me right away. I don't know how Jon goes about getting people to take pictures of, but I'm assuming he doesn't know them all super closely. That pose that the two people are making is incredible to me. Did Jon tell them to stand like that? It seems natural. I don't think he made them stand like that, or at least I'd like to believe that they just did that of their own accord. The guy, Horace, is totally sexy. The gazes are amazing. They are both looking directly at you, but in very different ways. Her head is level, not lowered or raised. His head is lowered, which makes his gaze more penetrating. I think the major sexual vibe I get from this photo would remain in his face if it was in a different context, not posed with Sade. Her face, on the other hand, doesn't have that sexual power like his, it could be a face from a family photo. She is smiling, he is not.

  I wonder if they are still together. For some reason I think they aren't. Because they're so young and because of the major sexual vibe I get from the photo. Those shorts are so flawless and effortless on her body. He's grasping her against him, holding her boob up with his wrist. He's posing with his left arm behind his back, like a warrior with his prize, or catch. Her hand on his thigh. Her butt up against his pelvis.
 Even though their stance together is not a simple expected stance, it does not feel posed because I feel so much real feeling in it. I think that those two people were just not self-conscious at all when Jon took the photo. Or maybe not not self-conscious, but maybe they were proud to be together and to be sexy, and focused on showing themselves off.

This is why Joe, Cindy, and Carlos live in Chicago!

joe
cindy
carlos

Interviews today woohoo!
I have to apologize again for audio mistakes. It's not so easy to listen to the recordings, but you can understand the words if you try a little harder than usual.

I saw Joe walking on the sidewalk and just decided to interview him. I like that he was not in a rush. We stood on the corner and he moved out of the way when people had to walk by. At that moment I thought he was being considerate and it made me feel happy. I feel like I'm describing this in the way that Data (star trek) would.

Joe was nice. I didn't feel like I was annoying him at all. I think he was open to being interviewed. Joe asked me if he would be on tv. Was that a joke or did something about me actually make him think I could get him on tv?

He said he goes to grant park with his girlfriend and they just enjoy the day from there. AAW! I imagine them sitting on a bench and talking and not talking and smiling and having cute exchanges. He said that he "will never leave" the city. I don't feel like I will necessarily always be somewhere or never go somewhere. I wonder if he's done any traveling. Does he have desire to explore? Not just different locations, but anything--is he exploratory in whatever he does at work? Does he read books and desire to explore more books of that theme, or by that author? 

I actually took a picture! This is the park where I found Cindy and Carlos.

   Cindy was in a park smiling and throwing a ball for her dog.

When I asked if I could interview her, she made a face and said"interview?"

From the experience of having done some interviews already, I know a good way to make people feel more comfortable with it. They aren't expecting to be interviewed and it seems like people are hesitant to give something without knowing what it's for.

I tell them where I go to school, tell them it's a research project, which is true, and they feel better because they know what's going on. That's all pretty predictable, but it's part of what happens so I state it.

  She has pride about being born "in the city limits". And like Joe, she said that she "will never leave." How can people say "never" so easily? It is easy to say "never" and "always." What if something changes?

  She said the physical environment of the city makes her feel happy.

I want to know what "happy" means for Cindy. It doesn't mean the same thing for everybody. In a sense it probably does, but I want to know what it means in the context of Cindy. 

I'm not hunting until I find that. I don't want to pry that out of someone. I don't have the tact for that. I'll have to use my imagination, like in the drawings I posted earlier. 

  Carlos was sitting on a bench in the same park as Cindy. A girl was with him. I asked if I could interview them. She said I could interview him, but she didn't want to do it. Carlos is the first person I interviewed that wants to leave Chicago. His main reason was to find a warmer climate, but he also wants to find a different culture, energy. I felt pleased for feeling like I could relate to this, but based on his body language, vibes I got, general impression, I think I'm more different to Carlos than similar as far as the way we think about the environment around us.

  He said that he goes to Montrose beach to "absorb the energy that's all around me". That phrase stuck out to me because it wasn't as typical as generalizations that I've heard so much in these interviews.

Generalizations, or typical phrases that I've heard in response to "Why do you live here?" :  "It's just beautiful." "I was born and raised here." "It's just great I love it." because of "the culture, the hustle and bustle."

I want people to pour their hearts out to me! I don't expect them to.

What are people thinking all the time? I think of things all the time.

I want people to be able to explain their statements.

This is the sky above the park after I did the interviews.