gestures

movements, subtle, fleeting - motions of physical limbs
ephemeral thoughts
short, fleeting - video
small words, sounds, utterances

what other types of gestures are there? how does that translate into my personal research?

The Books Are Here!!

The books are here! The books are here! The books are here! Part one of two is done and printed/published! I ended up using Apex Book Manufacturing out of Georgia. They were fabulous. It is a short-run publisher. Many more options than lulu and much cheaper - though I would still suggest getting proofs done through lulu first. I am currently in the process of gluing in the envelopes for the DVDs - 3 of these sets will be sent to RED03(my petita gallery in Barcelona) to be sold there, others will be left at the library and given to my thesis committee, of course my family gets copies - and the rest are for sale -with or without the DVD. They will be available at the show in Charlotte. Yipeeee!


The show in Charlotte. I am so glad that I will be there next week so that I can FINALLY FINALIZE where the show will be and how it will be hung. As I mentioned before I am printing digital prints here, at Alfred. All of them are 15 x 20 inches. Ideally I will be able to install the video and have prints up. At my MFA exhibition I had the single projection, but with the space possibilities that I will have at Queens, I would like to reconfigure the set-up and make the show a multi-channel installation - choreographing the videos to work as a team of three projections.


Thanks to Rama Road Elementary School, where my mother works, I will have access to projectors, speakers, and DVD players - otherwise I might have to max-out another credit card - argh! The opportunity to separate the videos and choreograph them is súper exciting! Even though I would have had a single-channel installation at my MFA Exhibition either way, it is still rather invigorating to think of how I can WOW the visitors at my opening.



The choices for space are between the Max L. Jackson Gallery in the Watkins building (which is the art building) and the E.H. Little Fine Arts Center where the auditorium and the music recitals are held. The Fine Arts Center sounds like it will be a grand space, but without seeing either of these it is really hard. Hence, I can't wait until Monday!

Other than the show, I am still trying to print and bind the Qwertyuiop books before I leave. Looks like I may have time tonight, or else perhaps tomorrow.

New projects?¿ I am still looking for a Cortázar story to use. I found this amazing Max Aub play: ¿Qué has hecho hoy para ganar la guerra? (What have you done to win the war?) Obviously it takes place during the Spanish civil war in the 30s, but I don't see why it wouldn't be appropriate today. I would need to find the original and change it to reflect the times. Then I wouldn't need authorization from the translator. I would probably still need permission from the Max Aub Foundation. I wonder how much that might cost? Of course this would be a full-fledged narrative, more like día than the current work I am doing right now - that is unless.... hmmm. I will have to get back to you with that idea. I think I need to go shoot some photos and come up with my storyboard.

Here

This is where I am.

short videos

I am looking for short videos. Short videos because I make short videos. I want to see other people's short video, but somehow I am always disappointed. Like this 12 second video for example:

Edge Transfer (2008) by Damon Zucconi from Why + Wherefore on Vimeo.

I just don't get it. OK, fine I get it, but I don't see the point. Maybe I am missing something vital in art history or my education. Maybe I am too stuck on the way that I approach my 12 second videos (and I realized yesterday that I have a ton of those!) Do I expect other artists to do the same? NO. I just expect to see something inspiring or different. A piece that actually challenges or perhaps uses the 12 seconds wisely. How is the duration essential? Why is it only 12 seconds? Why is it not longer? I am just disappointed, again. I should go out and look for more. There must be some inspiring really short videos somewhere!! I have faith.

Alfred

The other day I finally broke out the camera. I started documenting this village. It was of course raining. So I found some beautiful moments. Click on the link to the right to see the images on my flickr photostream.
It is crazy that I haven't been documenting here.
When I first got here in 2006, I remember being taken away with the silence and stillness. Much of my first videos here were about that. I was trying to grasp the vast difference that I felt. Somehow I forgot about that during the last year, especially. I always feel like there was a missed opportunity. I know that I did take advantage of most of the opportunities here, but sometimes I wish there was more time left for me here - yes I know that I would go absolutely insane! But it would be nice to be here under a different preface. My friend Paula visited last weekend, and she seemed to truly enjoy her time. I wish that I could see this place with those new eyes, not the jaded stressed-out ones that I currently have. Ah well. On to the next adventure, no?

Dudando el momento....

Yep more video art watching for me. I guess now that I have finished the thesis I feel the need for more inspiration. Spanish artist Amparo Sard. The title of the piece is Dudando el momento perfecto (Questioning the perfect moment). It is an eight minute uninspiring, cliché video. Predictable and boring. Pretty to watch, but there is no suspension of reality. You almost immediately are given a wide shot where you can see that a large aquarium was constructed as the set. I never felt the suspension. I got more from reading the synopsis than watching the video. And, yes. I did sit through and watch the whole 8 minutes.
Ah, well. Better luck during my next video art watching venture. I think I will work on some of my own stuff now.

The Thesis has been finished.

Yep. Finally. Some never thought it would actually happen. The title I am not so sure about, but whatev' : The Ubiquity of New Media Forms Allows for More Pervasive Video Art to Occur: a look at new experimental documentary and its roots in consumer practices and experimental movements.

The image to the right is one of the spreads. Two texts run concurrently through the entire thing. It begins like this: ‘The medium [video] is becoming more pedestrian,’ stated Bill Viola in 1981. (Viola 1995, 70) If in 1981 video was becoming more pedestrian, then where is video today in 2008? Because of the success of VHS and Camcorders (leading to DVD format and smaller, cheaper, easier to use camcorders), video is accessible and familiar to the public as well as artists and professionals. This is a hindrance as well as an advantage. The medium is available to people who do not see themselves as artists, yet they can make contributions to the medium (i.e. youtube). Often these creators do not take the medium seriously (for them it is a hobby), therefore devaluing the work of video artists (i.e. youtube). I will concentrate on these advances as an asset. These benefits allow for a different type of documentary to occur: one where the subjects are oblivious to the camera, not because they do not see it, but because they simply do not acknowledge it. Camcorders have become almost invisible/unperceivable. This tendency has enabled me to produce a body of work that challenges ideas of video art, the gaze, the Other, and the familiar. It has allowed me to create the body of work An Infinite Ordered Set of Events.

After the intellectual part comes the show documentation. And thanks to Robbie, I had a real person experiencing the work. After the documentation come the Bibliography and Works Cited. Somehow everything worked out perfectly. And finishes evenly. I still need to figure out what to do with cover, though.....

It feels great to finally be finished. I am now only a few signatures away from actually having my MFA. And what next? What next.

Shorts Proposal

Designed as a workshop, this course will encourage students to think and write visually to create short videos. Through a combination of theoretical discussion and hands-on technical training the students will explore modes of representation in a short duration format (5 minutes or less). Students will be encouraged to explore all of the genres that shorts are found (i.e. narrative, experimental, documentary, video art)

Diseñado como un taller, este curso anima a los alumnos a pensar e escribir visualmente para crear cortometrajes. A través de una combinación de charlas teoréticas y prácticas los alumnos descubrirán distintas formas de representar imagen en movimiento corta duración (cinco minutos o menos). Anima a los alumnos a explorar los distintos géneros que se encuentra en el cortometraje (por ejemplo: narrativo, experimental, documental, video arte).

Many artists have utilized video to tell personal stories, explore the formal qualities of the medium, and have invented new and unusual methods to express different realties. Students will produce and edit projects, which will be screened and discussed in class. Additionally, students will be expected to complete assigned readings and research.

Muchos artistas han usado el formato de video arte para contar historias personales, explorar las cualidades formales inherentes del video, y han inventado nuevos métodos para expresar distintas realidades. Los alumnos producirán y montarán sus proyectos los que serán proyectados y analizados durante el curso. Además, los alumnos realizarán lecturas relacionadas con el tema a tratar y harán investigaciones.

escritos 4

I found more. All I am doing is trying to erase duplicates of files in order to pack up my life and get out of this tiny tiny town and I found that I had already digitized a good portion of them. Hmmmm. Now I really have to start sifting through the words.

If I were awake and could see all of these things with my eyes, I might have a very different opinion of it all, but in fact I am sleeping and cannot give you a conscious response. I give you a sleepy response, one which I hold in high respect. For I truly believe that the unconscious mind has a better understanding of reality than the conscious one. The conscious mind is too busy creating a dream world for the awake mind to be bothered with reality. The subconscious mind only deals with a dream world when you are sleeping, so it has the entire time while you are awake to focus, and really understand the reality that you live in. the unconscious mid is the observer during the day. So at night in your dreams it can give you it’s fucked up interpretation. So the conscious mind has to make up a dream world for you while you are awake, which is a pretty large chunk of time. So as to keep you entertained for the whole day. Where this conscious dreaming is taking place, but the whole time it is working to think of something to entertain you with, analyzing and preparing.

But she didn’t want to go to sleep, she wanted to stay up forever so as not to miss anything. In the morning when she woke, she realized that she hadn’t moved. She had fallen asleep on the couch. And then everything tumbled in. everything came rushing by but nothing was clear, or even clearer. In fact it was probably messier than when it had begun. But she couldn’t remember when that was anymore. It was all too hard, she felt weighted down. She wanted to move, to get out, to resituate herself, but she wasn’t sure how anymore. All of this had been done for her – all of this had been done before. And now it was going to be hard. Harder than she could have imagined, not that she would have ever imagined the things like this, like the way that they are now. None of it could have, would have ever occurred to her. So it seemed so much easier to her to take what had been given and stay where she was. Who was she to fuck up the natural order of things.
The morning paper read like an obituary, the morning paper was an obituary, with no one around to read it. Small photos of everyone were beside their carefully written explanations. Some had groomed themselves, while others preferred to not change the reality of the events. The events that couldn’t live in a reality, for they were too obscene, to contrived. A reality that was ceasing to exist. A reality that beginning to exist in hallucinations. Hallucinations that were communal, communion. Hallucinations that began to occur to preserve the existence of reality, preserving to become the reality.
Consciousness began to become a bit of a nuisance. A thing that could be done without. Well, was it a nuisance or a luxury. Is there really a difference? If something is considered a nuisance then it must be a luxury to have it in the first place. A nuisance is an excess, and excesses can only exist once limits have been surpassed. Limits dictate need and abundance. Abounding surpluses.

Breathe in. breathe out. And understanding a change of perspective. Perceive my perseverance. Breathe in. one deep. Breathe out. Through your mouth. New clean oxygen to the blood cells. Change. Take that out of the pickup. The line. The one liner. The punch line. The butt of the joke and feelings are hurt. Tears streamed down the face. A sniff. A small hand is pulled towards an eye, in a fist. Rub. Lips are licked. There is a salty taste. Sniff. A tissue is found. Sniff. Skinny. Gangly. Two sticks. An icicle. Drip. It melts and falls. Blood.

Summer in Alfred

There are only so many things to do in this town during the summer. One of them is to work, another is to blog, and the third (and most obvious) is to go to the bar (Yes, THE bar. Technically there are two but in the summer we all only go to one).
Yesterday, Terese and I were working. We decided that we both needed a beer, but she stopped by my space as I finished up some applications for festivals. [I have been sending work out to festivals like CRAZY! As long as there are no submission fees - and my work fits - I have sent something off. Since I have 62 videos from my thesis show, I am bound to have something applicable, right?!] I sent her to visit my artistic managers' site. From there she found Video Art World, and who knows how she found this video (click on the image to see the excerpt from VAW). I guess since she is super interested in identity that this video fits right into that category.
The video is amazing and wonderful. There is a very quiet understanding, even for those of us who dislike and refuse to try to understand the hedonistic tendencies of the American Fraternity. Each participant is portrayed in an unapologetic manner that gives them a depth, that allows the viewer an empathy of their desire to be there in this shouting match.
Of course, seeing the excerpt of this video led me to google the artist, where I came upon his website. Richard Mosse. Born in Ireland in 1980, recently completed his MFA in photography from Yale. His photos are, needless to say, stunning, but what I find interesting is his impeccable ability to organize the videos in a such a fashion where you try to guess what is coming next, but are always surprised. I am especially impressed by his most recent video: Untitled. In his video works up until this recent one, he seems to be searching for a story outside of himself. As a viewer, you don't feel the connection. The videos are beautiful, but there is a certain lack by the maker. In Untitled, you don't feel that. Of course I am assuming the man present in the video is him, and additionally I know that he is Irish and the story (the tragedy, if you will) is set in Ireland. I feel his metaphors rather than seeing them as I did in the earlier pieces. Anyway, check him out. With all of my down-on-video-art-thoughts that I had last week, it is uplifting to see something I can relate to.

recipes

What a fantastic idea! A friend of mine posted a recipe - who would have thunk!!! I simply must must start doing that! The only problem is the things I come up with, or started making way back when, well, I don't know the measurements. If you so choose to use one of my recipes, you will just have to be adventurous.

Blackberry-Balsamic Chicken

• Chicken breasts - you can use whatever you like, really. When I first made this (I think I got it from the Food & Wine Magazine) it called for four boneless, skinless chicken breasts. I think this might be even better if you used boned and skin-full chicken - even thighs!!!
• Balsamic Vinegar
• Seedless blackberry preserves (I have also used apricot and raspberry)
• Extra virgin olive oil - please please don't use another kind of oil. It just isn't the same.
• Powdered thyme (or any other type of thyme)
• One red onion
• salt and pepper to taste

First, chop up the red onion (if you are cooking for less than four, don't use all the onion). Pour a bit of oil into a sauce pan. Once the oil is hot add the onion. Lightly fry until the color starts to fade from the onion. While the onion is frying, prepare the chicken by rubbing the thyme into each side. Once the color has started to fade from the onions, add the chicken. If you are using breasts you will fry them about 6 minutes on each side. Once the chicken has been properly cooked, (We all know that you shouldn't under cook the chicken, but you shouldn't over cook either - it just gets tough and dry - yuck) remove from the pan and turn the heat to low. Add the preserves to the pan. I would say about a cup or two. Once they have started to melt, add the balsamic vinegar *BE CAREFUL* better to err on the less vinegar-y side. Start with a light slosh. When the consistency is pretty liquid-y, turn off the fire and pour over the chicken. Well, actually, I prefer to put a piece of chicken on each plate then pour a bit of the sauce over the chicken. Serve with wild rice or red potatoes and veggies. Yummy!

teaching

teaching in video in chile - ACTUALLY A POSSIBLITY!
WATCH OUT SANTIAGO
I'll fill you in later :)

portuguese

I have been learning Portuguese for a week, now. It is really pretty easy. I am almost done with the first CD - AND I WANT MORE!!! The CDs are good, but I want to read and write in it too!! If I could write in it I would write this whole entry in it, just because I would be able to. It would probably be as bad as that dairy entry I wrote in Spanish June 24, 2001. Hmmm I wonder if I could find that.
bueno. I can't find it, but I just had a pretty ridiculous conversation with Matías on gmail chat:
matías: oigame, algo aparte, tu usas o sabes como funciona ichat

me: no sé

no lo usu

matías: si`po por eso te digo K BUENO

ah

que parece que tiene mejor resolucion la cam

que a través de skype

me: no sé

matías: bueno da igual

lo que pasa es que me pedia una cuenta .mac

me: ?

matías: eso`po, no cacho

me: no chachas? k ichat?

matías: calro`po

me: bueno. yo tampoco

Thoughts on Video Art and being 'different'

Video art is really so vast. It encompasses music videos, cinematic narratives, interactive works, short works, performance, documentary, animation - anyway, the list goes on. It always seems to be difficult for me to find video work that I truly enjoy. I know that sounds pretty pompous and insane since I myself am a video artist. Perhaps it is because I feel that what I am doing is somehow different from what the other videos artists are doing. I guess that is the plight of the artist. They always feel 'different' from everyone else, even if that everyone else are artists too. I have been reading a lot of Cortázar lately (when am I not, really) and he made a comment about this - I wish I could remember which short story it was in - well it was in Around the Day in Eighty Worlds (No I didn't mix them up, it is actually the title). So he mentions this idea that the poet or writer are always at least a poet first because it is an east way to express angst about being 'different'. The sense that you are different occurs, then you have to figure out how to express it and make sense of it, usually starting with poetry. Did you ever write poetry when you were a kid? I know I did. Never thought about it as angst. Didn't know that one could be angsty at 9... Hmmm I forgot where I was going with this. Maybe I should just continue this later - or tomorrow. Right, video art, and my displacement within the professional field. Video art and how I feel about the majority of the work I see (especially this pst month at the LOOP Video Art Festival in Barcelona). I'll have to get back to that later. I got a cook-out with colleagues to go to. Maybe I can flesh out some of my ideas with them after a few glasses of wine. ciao

new piece: approprate literature

a photo series based on a short story (or a couple). literature is such a part of my life and inspiration it is high time that i make a piece based on something outside of myself, on someone else's creation. a form of appropriation.
more to come

escritos two

There were never any questions when we hung out, just thoughts, just things that occurred to us. We said them. Sometimes we responded to what another said and sometimes not. Many times there were the long silences when we were all deep in thought. In out own special worlds that we created for ourselves. This is where we lived. Our physical cities were constantly changing, but our real place of residence always stayed the same. There was really no where else to go. The choices that we saw in front of us all resembled one another, and all there was a redundancy in there placement and a redundancy in the actions that we took there. We had done this so many times that it was almost a science for us. We moved and found places to live. We found friends and learned a language. We found lovers and fucked. It was as easy as that. We were filling a well that didn't have a bottom. The bottom had fallen out long ago. It fell during our childhood when all of our needs were met. We grew up without having to be satisfied and now none of us are. We are insatiable and will always be, because we live in our own worlds. The well cannot be filled. If it could be filled our world would be over. We seek, that is what we do. We wander and meander, but not so much in the common sense, not in the classical sense, yet classical we are.

escritos one

I am starting to digitize the writings I did in the midst of a low low depression when I lived in Barcelona the first time (2001-2002). I wrote most of these when I was sick with insomnia in the fall of 2001. Honestly I don't remember the order of the pages. I am currently just typing what I wrote page by page and correcting the typos that I see. Who knows where this will lead...

I heard voices again. They were muffled. I got up and went to bed. And there I was in the middle of it again. Surrounded by it. No way out really, just in. I looked for the door, and do you know what I found? A window. A damn window, so that I can see it, so it can tempt me. I didn't go to the window - way too easy. So I stayed there, in the middle. I was sitting on the floor, indian-style, in the middle. I looked at the window. I looked at the window.. I looked through the window, and do you know what I saw? A door. That's right! A goddamn door! Then I didn't know what the hell to do. I was still in the middle, of course, holding my ground. And they put a damn door just in my sight, through the window, of all places. So what was I supposed to do? Jump through the window to the door? From where I was, I couldn't even see if there was any ground! So, I stayed where I was, sitting, in the middle of it all. Even though I was in the middle of it all, I could see the window and the door ever so clearly through the window. I door knob was shiny brass. It looked brand new, but the door was very old. The door. The kept talking. I wasn't listening. I was only hearing, if even that. I was there. They kept arguing. They kept discussing. I should have been listening. I should have been there, but I wasn't. I was only in the middle of it all. I was staring at the door. I was mesmerized by the door. It was the door that held my attention. In my mind I was already there. I was already at the door. I was opening the door. My hand was grasping the shiny brass handle. I was opening the door. Or so I imagined. In my mind I was away from it all. The middle, I had left and I was outside. Through the window and at the door. I was so preoccupied. I was too distracted. My concentration kept slipping. The conversation kept changing and I was too slow to keep up. My reactions weren't quick enough. I wasn't, I didn't understand what was going on. My head drifted. I found myself floundering. I was trying to keep my head above the water. I was trying to hold my head in place. It floated. I was sinking. The air was thin up there and there wasn't any air to breathe underneath. I tried to find a rock, but they were all taken. The frogs were belching. The frogs were sitting on the rocks that I wanted. On the rocks that I needed. The frogs with their sounds. Those were the only sounds I could hear anymore. And the only things I could see were the rocks, the shiny glistening rocks where the frogs sat. Where they perched themselves to catch the best catch, to feed themselves. To feed their hunger. To eat their lunch. To keep from starving., from starving themselves to death. To keep from letting themselves go. To keep from letting it all slip away. To keep it afloat. To keep from drowning. To keep from dehydrating. To stay alive. To feel alive is what I thought. If I felt alive, then I was, I must be, for otherwise why would I have this feeling? And feeling must always be the way things are, for if they were any other way, then that would be false. That's the heart of the matter, really: the falsification of facts. Facts that are indisputable, undisputed, incontestable, unable to be denied. Facts are facts and that is that, or so you think. And thinking is what got me into this mess in the first place. Because thinking with contest the in contestable and thinking makes fiction into facts fiction., which might not be so bad if you thought about it, but then that brings you right back to where you were to begin with.

rademacher

Some thoughts a friend of mine had about 'Rademacher'
see below for translation from babelfish - because I am feeling lazy

He estado pensando en tu apellido. Yo siempre cuando hablo de proyectos digo que hay que "conseguir crear una rueda para que todo funcione". Eso quiere decir, conectar todos los intereses de modo que las necesidades de unos favorezcan las necesidades de otros. Cuando eso se consigue, la rueda gira y todo el mundo gana.

Evidentemente, esto ocurre en todos los apartados de la vida así que ser una "hacedora de ruedas" puede ser una muy buena cosa.

Por cierto y hablando de ruedas. Te recomiendo la serie de los libros de "Alvin Maker" de Orson Scott Card. Contiene ideas que seguro que te gustarán.

I have been thinking about your last name. I always when I speak of projects say that there is " to be able to create a wheel so that everything funcione". That means, to connect all the interests so that the needs of favor the needs of others. When that is obtained, the wheel turns and everybody desire. Evidently, this happens in all the sections of the life so to be one " hacedora of ruedas" it can be a very good thing. By the way and speaking of wheels. I recommend the series to you of books of " Alvin Maker" of Orson Scott Card. It contains ideas that certainly you will like.

the wonders of the web

I joined flickr (finally) today. It was a little disconcerting when I joined - CREATED a user - and there were apparently photos already there!?! Ones that I had uploaded????!!!!!!? They were photos from my vacation in December and January to Argentina and Chile.

Anyway besides that. Things are back to normal. The written thesis is just about complete - for those truly interested it will be available through lulu.com. The thesis book (and companion piece to the videos) should be back from the publisher before the end of the month and is available for sale.

Barcelona was amazing, as usual. I learned quite a bit. I have a gallery: www.red03.com. It is a small gallery/artist store in the Born (neighborhood in the center of Barcelona). They will be selling the thesis books with companion DVDs. I also have an agent - well actually there are three of them. www.yalohagoyo.com. They will be bringing me up to date and speed with 2008!!! Ha! revamping my website and promoting the hell out of me and my work!

Next show is in Charlotte at the Fine Arts building at Queens University. What will I be showing??? That is the question of the hour, no? I am hoping to be premier the newest piece Qwertyuiop as well as show some - or all - of the videos from my MFA thesis show. We will see how it all pans out. I am still awaiting photos and measurements of the space - it is making my nervous. My muscles are all spasming out.

I'll be back in studio this week (once I get all of the administrative bureaucratic crap out of the way). And I will have more exciting updates then!!

Otherwise I am just trying to stay cool.

Un saludo!