I'm thinking about the relationship between self-portraits and the fact that as humans, we spend our life unable to look at ourselves as we can look at others.

I know my own face far worse than I know the features of others. Noses, eyebrows, smiles, dimples, scars. Our eyes are like lids that open our self to the rest of the world, and they are at this border, the skin, that separates that self, that holds it from spilling out into everything else. We can not physically turn our gaze onto ourselves, we're only aided by mirrors or photos, so we can't gain direct knowledge of our physical selves although we live within that container every second of life.

Here's looking at you, kid

Walk the back of the building, or "Hug the Wall"

One of the aspects of commercial buildings that I always think about is how these places present the visitor a facade, an image of 'building' in which they will receive something in exchange for their money. Some of them have prosthetic pediments made of plywood, others, pretend surfaces in their walls simulating rock, wood and other materials.

However, no attention is given to the backs of these buildings. These walls, and the areas that surround them, become un-sites, forbidding territories which hide the hard labor of business. Small black holes within our cities that are swallowing the possibilities of social interaction, negative space, vacuums. The visitor/consumer's eyes are to keep strictly to the image presented, void of information about how the products even get there, supporting the automatic, un-questioned exchange.

With today's walk, we re-discovered, we re-claimed one of these lost spaces, and found signs and sounds that revealed some different uses.

...a couch, grafiti, the sound of a plane, of cars, a mattress, smell of pee, white on white, a toilet, musical electricity meters, sealed doors, a guy who saves who's been "saved"...

At eight days until this project goes up, I keep trying to find ways to keep my motivation high...
At times I feel so excited about it, things make sense, ideas fit together, images do too...but I worry of how people will respond to it. It's not a flashy, come-look-at-me-piece. Will they see it as a history lesson that will make them wanna go to sleep, or will they stay within it for some time, listening to these voices?

Sometimes I'm happy that I'm working in this way, using images that blend into each other along with strangers' narratives of what Tampa was like.
Something I wrote one day:
I've been working on a project for the senior thesis show, a sound and video installation. My subject matter is place/history, focusing on Tampa. I'm using oral history interview excerpts in which people discuss Tampa and Ybor city's history, small art community, historic buildings, etc. mixed with my own sounds recorded in different cities around the world. I feel like the project itself is somewhat simple, but it's led me to do some great research. I've been reading a little bit of Paul Virilio, Michel Foucault's "Of other spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias", and I'm HAPPY that I get to work with these sort of ideas while making art!!!!!

I think starting with ideas that concern me, such as the conservation of these places that have witnessed many things through the years, helps me understand that its not just about the finished product on display, but about learning to manifest those thoughts in the physical world.

Sometimes the positive feeling is overshadowed by the fact that it hasn't yet reached the state of completion it needs to have at the show...


Recently watched film: W.

A return to the old blog...
I heard an intelligent speaker on the radio today as I was driving to lunch. Benjamin Barber. I kept silently nodding with every statement. He spoke about people as consumers, and the prevailing conditions in our lives (built environment, etc) which help perpetrate this role in our society. He spoke of how, throughout history, town halls, squares, markets, etc. -tracing back to the ancient greek agora- were not only places where citizens would exchange goods and services, but they were the epicenters of culture, and often politics. Comparing this to our world today, I think about how consumer/pop culture is so distanced from politics AND culture. In fact, in order for politicians/parties to appeal to the average consumer, they must define themselves as a brand, market their product strategically, advertise, poll.
I remember a quote from Paul Virilio, whose texts I started reading this summer: "the opinion poll is the election of tomorrow, it is the virtual democracy of the virtual city."
These are all random thoughts that somehow make sense to me, but for now, this is it.

Recently watched film: Vicky Christina Barcelona...thanks Woody!

Summer Art???
I was driving home the other night, feeling the urge to do something. I remembered a set of watercolors I had bought a while back, and that it was still practically new...one of those things I keep putting off until I never do.

This morning I woke up with the feeling that I have been working on the same image all semester. Yesterday I was putting them up in the case outside the photo classroom, and they started to all look alike.

The audio tracks of the different characters are really interesting to me. I think that those could act in the way that some photographs do, as traces of a person that has been there, so in that way I think the images can connect to each other through the audio.
I think that this summer I really want to work on the blog that I have been making from the text I have compiled, and see where that takes me.
I want to try to do a variety of projects not only involving photography or video, but don't know yet what form these will take.