Double bubbles (project 2)

When Corissa proposed her idea about sound of water using in a in class, I was really excited and asked to collaborate with her without any hesitation because I'm simply in love with water, and it sounds like a lot of fun. Although we has briefly discussed idea for project 2 before, we both have different expectation walking into the actual performance. Our plan was to play with the creation of sound from the contact of water with a variety of items that we picked out from our daily life like straws, cups, bubbles and invisible rubber duckies.

About the setting, we decided to light up the room to the max to keep the scene clear and bright for everyone to see. Also, we asked the audience to surround our table instead of sitting on the stools so they can see it from different angles or walk around if they wish to experience it better. It was evidently a good choice even from the beginning when the dish soap beautifully sink itself in the water, create cool visual effect for the audience to see from all angles. After that we began to use different objects to make sound with water separately from each others before combining and overlapping the sounds. And when I realized I had not much to do anymore, I grabbed my straw to join blowing bubbles with my partner. That's when we spontaneously decided to synchronize our breath and try to blow the bubble as long as we can to test our duration. 

I really love the audience's comment about how it could symbolize a conversation between two individuals and how in the end, we came into an agreement with synchronized blowing rhythm. I believe we did not plan that but it's totally makes sense when I thought about the "speech bubbles". 

To make the performance better next time, I would like to use a bigger, deeper and clearer tub with combination with different colored dish soap to create a more dynamic visual effect. Also, adding more items to vary the different sounds we have during the "conversation", including silence would be something worth trying. 

Overall, I think the performance was successful, even with the little incident at the end. 

To hear is to listen

1.
    - Oil sizzling
    - Fridge opening
    - Machine humming
    - Paper wrap crumbling
    - TV advertisement
    - People chatting
    - Car skitting
    - Door opening
    - Chair dragging
    - Feet stepping

2.
    - Paper flipping
    - Machine humming
    - Elevator elevating
    - Pen writing on paper
    - Furniture squeaking
    - Hand rubbing on clothes
    - Mouse pad clicking
    - Sighing

3.
    - Squirrel chittering
    - Wind whoosing
    - Car engine running
    - Dead leaves crumbling
    - Dog barking
    - People chatting
 

A thought

Art could be a social statement but not all social statement is art.

Trial and Error (project 1)

My inspiration for this project is, indeed, very personal. After this year, I'm going to leave Cornell to a different school, meaning I'm going to leave behind everything I have built in the last two years. All the relationships I made and all the contribution I gave will be smudged by time and distance either I want it or not. There are points in life you just feel like things will fall apart. But they fall be be rebuilt. That is the reason behind my idea. Plus, I enjoy seeing the audience startled by the sound of glass hitting the floor.

I walked into the performance not knowing what I would put on the base first. Items were chosen randomly from the bag so the tower collapse pretty quickly on the first few times. It was "Trial and Error", merely experimenting. I love Sandy's analogy between the concept of the performance and chaos. We all try to organize chaos, trying to simplify life. But we're not supposed to. Chaos is beautiful. Chaos makes life.

The biggest challenge, or question I had during the process of coming up with idea and performing was either to practice beforehand or not. I decided not to to maintain the freshness and spontaneity.

To make the performance better next time, I would like to do everything in a larger scale with larger items, with added items from the audience, possible have several bags of items prepared and have the audience pick the bag.

I like the concept of randomness, maybe I will revisit it in my next project.

About me and my art

Despite my love for art at a very young age, it wasn't until high school that I started to embrace my gifted art skills and nurture them. Up until this point, I have experienced with different mediums of traditional 2D art varying in drawing and painting.

The most common theme in my art is water. I admire the characteristics of water in term of texture, colors, transparency, fluidity... The more I think about different qualities of water, the more I can connect it to aspects of life in many ways.

Water is the source of life for plants, animal and human beings.
Water nurture life.
Sometimes we wish everything is as transparent as water.
Sometimes we wish you can change the atmosphere as easy as a drop of paint change the color of water.
Water washes things.
Water cleans things.
Water destroys things.
Water is consistent.
Water is patient
Water is adaptive; it takes forms and shapes of its container.
Water fills the gap.
Water complete things
Water is never the same.
Water is always the same.
Water makes things lighter.
Things feel lighter in water
Water reflects.
A drop of water is small.
Lots of water is large.
The list goes on and on and on.

Link to my art here
____________________________

I have always had problems accepting the concept of contemporary art. The absurdity and the fact that some seems to have taken no effort to create makes the art itself is hard to judge. I do not like how some people state that everything is art. If everything is art, nothing is art. Also in art, there are good art and bad art and hard-to-tell-if-it-is-good art. I believe to be considered art, the piece has to intentionally intrigue the audience in someway. But in the world that we live in, the blur line between art and not art confuses me in a very disturbing way. I'm aware that a lot of the materials we look in this class lie on that line.

I hope this class can somewhat answer my question about the concept of art.
Or maybe enlighten me in some way.
Or maybe change everything I have believed in.
Or ...

Art Today

Today is art. What isn't art anyway...