Within Me (Dentro Di Me)

 - a short stop-motion video exploring the anxiety that stems from feeling constricted by one’s physical existence.

This project was an outlet. It relieved some of the stress I have been feeling for the past few months. It helped me realize how difficult life is for everyone and that in someway or another we must all (learn to) cope. In fact, this project was meant to make a statement about how we all may internally cope in very different ways, but when we turn our feelings outward, we tend to express them similarly (hair pulling, closing our eyes, taking deeper breaths). It makes me wonder about the manifestation of emotion and whether our expressions are innate or learned. To complement this thought, I chose to add the Tibetan singing bowl as accompanying music. The sound the bowl emits is a sound of everything-ness. It is a sound that heals, relieves stress, and gives a sense of well being.

Here is a link to the video: Within Us

Here are some of the stills I captured throughout the stop-motion.

I am so thankful for all of the people who helped me create this project. Thank you Alexcia, Makenzie, Amelia, Madison, Ryn, Raina, Kyle, Michelle, and Sabrina. You're all amazing and I could not have made this without you!

SOMETHING IS HAPPENING

Because something is happening here

But you don't know what it is

Do you, Mister Jones?

This exhibition was a collective effort - everyone helped put it together in one way or another. By doing so, it really made the exhibit feel like a unified piece. Arranging everyone's independent works side by side - close to one another - created a lot of juxtapositions, while retaining to one continuous, fluid theme: "Something Is Happening". This theme allowed us to take our art in so many different directions. It also allowed viewers to make their own interpretations of the work, without knowing the artist's exact intention. My favorite part of the exhibit was definitely the books! I enjoyed flipping through them and getting to see all twenty of the photographs each student selected. I think it made the experience at the exhibit less formal, and more personal & interactive (which is not something I have experienced at a exhibit here on campus,yet - so that was cool!)

The sound of someone you love who's going away and it doesn't matter

by Penguin Cafe Orchestra

"I think I am the violin"

very relevant

LAOZI/LAO-TZU/LAO-TZE and McLUHAN

Laozi was an ancient Chinese sage/philosopher from the 6th century B.C. who is known as the father of Taoism. The origin and life of Laozi is pretty ambiguous and even after years & years of research very little is known about his life. Nonetheless, his teachings have been passed down through time. Today he has many Taoist followers. Why did McLuhan choose the passage about immateriality and absence to describe the Western shift toward a more unified, fused society? First of all, it is necessary to understand what Laozi’s passage means. Taoism preaches that "nothingness" should be present everywhere. Without it, there would be chaos. In the Tao Te Ching, order is accomplished by including emptiness - thus, balancing something with nothing. Laozi believed emptiness to be a blessing, without which life would all be too much. McLuhan’s translation is a little different. 

I think McLuhan chose this passage in order to emphasize the apprehension he has about the advancement of technology in Western society. Our society “our western legacy” of separation and isolation has been eradicated by the constant flow of digital information. Like a room, a wheel, or a vase, the usefulness of technology must lie in its empty space. But what is its empty space? Does it have empty space? Media information is now multi-dimensional and comes to us so abundantly and with such speed that we no longer have the ability to categorize it all, and in that sense we are now fusing everything together. We are no longer able to remain isolated. We are constantly involved and no longer detached. While this may be viewed as positive, McLuhan emphasizes its uncertainty. Where is the usefulness in technology when there is no absence of it anymore?

Laozi Riding an Ox, Buhzi Chao, n.d., Ink on paper

McLuhan says "the ear favors no particular 'point of view.' We are enveloped by sound. It forms a seamless web around us. We say, 'music shall fill the air.' We hear sound from everywhere, without ever having to focus. Where a visual space is an organized continuum of a uniformed connected kind, the ear world is a world of simultaneous relationships."

I created this one minute sound montage by splicing twelve voice recordings taken over the past three years. I decided to focus on a sound that made me happy: laughter. It is a universal human expression that brings people together and cultivates happy and healthy environments. It symbolizes a state of freedom and loss of control. The release of laughter is raw and pure. It is liberating to let go and laugh without restrain. Hearing my friends laugh in unison is kind of overwhelming. The piece feels chaotic and untamed, but I still think the sound evokes happiness!

LAUGHING IS GOOD FOR YOU!

So, let laughter fill the air! 

Philip Glass - Einstein on the Beach, Knee Play 5

(Portrait of Philip Glass by Chuck Close) 

One of the most beautiful pieces I have heard. Take a listen and read along, if you wish (poem below narrated @ 4:10).

Two Lovers on a Park Bench

The day with its cares and perplexities is ended and the night is now upon us. The night should be a time of peace and tranquility, a time to relax and be calm. We have need of a soothing story to banish the disturbing thoughts of the day, to set at rest our troubled minds, and put at ease our ruffled spirits.

And what sort of story shall we hear? Ah, it will be a familiar story, a story that is so very, very old, and yet it is so new. It is the old, old story of love.

Two lovers sat on a park bench, with their bodies touching each other, holding hands in the moonlight.

There was silence between them. So profound was their love for each other, they needed no words to express it. And so they sat in silence, on a park bench, with their bodies touching, holding hands in the moonlight.

Finally she spoke. “Do you love me, John?” she asked. “You know I love you, darling,” he replied. “I love you more than tongue can tell. You are the light of my life, my sun, moon and stars. You are my everything. Without you I have no reason for being.”

Again there was silence as the two lovers sat on a park bench, their bodies touching, holding hands in the moonlight. Once more she spoke. “How much do you love me, John?” she asked. He answered: “How much do I love you? Count the stars in the sky. Measure the waters of the oceans with a teaspoon. Number the grains of sand on the sea shore. Impossible, you say.”

“Yes and it is just as impossible for me to say how much I love you.”

“My love for you is higher than the heavens, deeper than Hades, and broader than the earth. It has no limits, no bounds. Everything must have an ending except my love for you.”

There was more of silence as the two lovers sat on a park bench with their bodies touching, holding hands in the moonlight.

Once more her voice was heard. “Kiss me, John,” she implored. And leaning over, he pressed his lips warmly to hers in fervent osculation.

- Samuel M. Johnson

Miriam Beerman. Expressing the Chaos. Colorist. Inspired by Goya - horror people feel in their lives and existences. Abstract/German Expressionism. Grotesqueness from own experiences. Terrors and disasters of life. Sociopolitical. Expressing pain. Digging into subconscious. Harboring thoughts of pain, anger, and survival. Bloody Heads - protest against Vietnam War.

"NOT interested in pretty pictures."

First woman to have solo show in NYC - 1971. The New Humanism. Makes art because it gives her meaning. Not for marketing. Art/painting is extension of her existence. We see messages in her work that she does not always intend. Work speaks for itself. "Interpret it however you want." 

Significant: Nazi Germany and Holocaust. Represented the horror and terror of the Holocaust. Constantly protesting history and dealing with torment.

"Artwork that is 'moving' makes you feel uncomfortable."

Collages represent chaotic themes. She gets ideas while making them. Through them she is expressing chaos within herself, while not trying to find order in it, either. 

These are my notes from the film screening. Fragmented sentences, little structure, but an understanding of the overarching themes of darkness, horrors, and evil in life.

Miriam Beerman's art is haunting and unapologetic. It's a dark expressionistic representation of her world. It is an extension of her thoughts. An extension of her being. One which is tormented by the terrors of injustice. Her paintings are not silent. They are overwhelmed by movement and sound. They scream the pain caused by injustice. Beerman's works are the realest you can get to visualizing fear. I so easily feel the heaviness and the pain she created with her brushstrokes, and I am paralyzed by the anguish they transmit. While I am easily moved by art, I have never felt this shaken. I am left in awe by Beerman's ability to create beauty from terror and to convey it with such intensity and authenticity.