Aimlessness

" In Buddhism, there is a word, apranibita. It means wishlessness or aimlessness. The idea is that we do not put anything ahead of ourselves and run after it. When we practice walking meditation, we walk in this spirit. We just enjoy the walking, with no particular aim or destination. Our walking is not a means to an end. We walk for the sake of walking" (The Long Road Turns to Joy: A Guide to Walking Meditation p 6). 

"This world has many paths. Some are lined with beautiful trees, some wind around fragrant fields; some are covered with leaves and blossoms. But if we walk on them with a heavy heart, we will not appreciate them at all" (p 9).

I just found out about the philosopher Thich Nhat Hanh the other day in my Religions class. A lot of his teachings are going to be very helpful when it comes to my work. The above quotes are from his book about walking meditation. This directly ties into what I am doing this semester. I guess I had just never realized that my project is based around walking meditation. I spend a lot of time wandering around in my various environments, getting a feel for what's around me. The idea of aimlessness is very appealing to me when it comes to making my images. I don't like having a set direction for where I'm going. I just start walking and see where I end up. I can't wait till I have a full day or a full weekend to be able to lose myself in a new place, wandering aimlessly. I feel like this will have a huge impact on my work and hopefully will help it grow. Today during the mid-crit I almost felt at a dead-end. I'm satisfied with my images but I feel like I need to go in a new direction, whether it's a completely different environment or a different method of working, or both. I'm excited to keep researching this philosopher and his various teachings.

Hanh, Thich Nhat. The Long Road Turns to Joy: a Guide to Walking Meditation. Berkeley, CA: Parallax, 1996. Print.

Flowers, Trees, Birds, Bees: Nature Explored Call for Entries

 

DONE DID

Zoe Beloff Question/Response

1. Why is it important that the viewer be able to interact with some of your installation pieces and films and not others?
2. How is your work that is psychically based related to your personal, autobiographical work? Do you even relate the two?

I was really excited to see Zoe Beloff speak yesterday. I already felt attracted to her work because it delves into the paranormal, psychological, and the unconscious mind. I became a bit disinterested when she was describing her current work. I thought her idea with the five dioramas was really interesting but when I saw the piece with the actors acting out the hysteria it just felt a bit ridiculous. Finally, in the end when she came out and said that everything was made up in her head and Albert Grass was actually "her" I reversed my decision. The idea that all of her work is made up is really interesting to me, especially the fact that many people don't know it's all fake. They might have an idea because a lot of her work is so fantastical but many just take her word for it and believe that the psychoanalytic society is real or that Albert Grass was a real person in the movement. The whole concept behind Beloff's work is manifesting the unconscious and probing what is real and unreal. She tries to create a dialogue with the past, filming scenes that occurred in the 19th century and using the same equipment or film that would have been used then. I really liked the exhibit at Coney Island. I think the diagrams and models for the Dreamland were really interesting. I also enjoyed the films for the Contemporary Psychoanalytic Society. Filming your dreams is another way of probing the distance between real and unreal. Sometimes our dreams can seem so realistic that when we wake up we have a hard time distinguishing what really happened and what didn't. Beloff was able to answer one of my questions in her lecture. I wondered how all of her work related to each other, not knowing that her work that was more based in the psychic world was completely fabricated by her and what she considered a part of herself. She stated that a lot of her work is biographical, just not in the literal sense. She and Albert Grass are the same person, therefore she able to project her views through him and through the rest of the project. Zoe Beloff's lecture was definitely one of my favorite lectures that I have seen at VCU.

Ned Kahn

Ned Kahn is an environmental artist and sculptor. His work usually involves "capturing an invisible aspect of nature and making it visible; examples include building facades that move in waves in response to wind; indoor tornadoes and vortices made of fog, steam, or fire; a transparent sphere containing water and sand which, when spun, erodes a beach-like ripple pattern into the sand surface" (wikipedia.org). He won a MacArthur Foundation genius grant fellowship in 2003 and the National Design Award for environmental design in 2005. Kahn currently lives and works in California. Kahn's work provides insight into contemporary society.

"On the one hand, he has a strong commitment to making projects that respond to their environment and to individual viewers. On the other hand, he seeks out natural complexity, and he knows intimately how natural turbulence can develop in technological systems" (http://www.nedkahn.com/biography.html).

Kahn is an artist I just happened to stumble upon in an artist's directory. His work is almost in the same vein as Andy Goldsworthy and also Chris Welsby. He uses nature to create these monumental sculptures. Nature works with his projects, much like Welsby's, where wind and other natural elements make the cameras move.

"In contrast to Turrell, Goldsworthy and Eliasson, however, Kahn harnesses kinetic, natural forces within formal, exhibition settings, and his works come to resemble interactive science experiments" (http://www.nedkahn.com/biography.html). In one of his projects, Slice of Wind, 10,000 metal discs move freely and reflect light as the wind passes through them. I enjoy the kinetic nature of Kahn's work. It's a lot like what I am doing now, where I just set my camera down and expose for long periods of time, letting nature do its thing. All I do is sit and capture it. I like the fact that all of his work is a scientific experiment. He makes these "experiments" yet they function as art so everyone can interact with them.

http://www.hohlwelt.com/en/interact/context/nedkahn.html

 www.newlangtonarts.org

http://www.nedkahn.com/

31st Annual Photography Contest

Magic

"Magic takes place in a curious world of paradox. When seeing a clever magical trick, the delight is in the fact that we don’t know how it is done, that we can permit ourselves the sneaking suspicion, if only for a moment, that perhaps, at last, here is some real magic, that there are no hidden wires, no rigged props, no stooges in the audience, but what we are witnessing is one hundred percent, real, authentic magic. The pleasure is in the ambivalence. And the idea of real magic hovers just out of reach, claims to its existence almost impossible to counter, because it occupies a twilight realm of anecdote, rumour and endless tales about what a friend of a friend saw" (thinkbuddha.org).

There is a certain aspect of magic related to my work. You can see it in my meditations and in the images themselves. Sometimes when I look at my work I wonder how the image came to be. "Modern Western magicians generally state magic's primary purpose to be personal spiritual growth,^[4] many seeing magic ritual purely in psychological terms as a powerful means of autosuggestion and of contacting the unconscious mind" (wikipedia.org). If magic is related to spiritual growth then an element of magic is definitely ingrained within my work. The act of meditating is a magical experience in an of itself. You get to be by yourself within your thoughts for an undisclosed period of time. The feeling is different for everyone but I know that every time I finish meditating I feel different and I see the world in a different light. I'm hoping that my images convey that sense of magic and mysticism.

Thorndike, Lynn (1923-1958) (8 volumes). A History of Magic and Experimental Science. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0231087942.

James Turell

Born to Quaker parents, Turell was born in 1943 in Pasadena, California. His work mainly focuses on light and space. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1984. His work is represented by the Pace Gallery in New York. He received a B.A. degree in perceptual psychology from Pomona College and an M.A. degree in art from Claremont Graduate School, University of California. He is best known for his work in progress, Roden Crater. He is turning a natural cinder volcanic crater into a massive naked-eye observatory designed especially for viewing celestial phenomena. His other works "usually enclose the viewer in order to control their perception of light" (wikipedia.org).

"I feel my work is made for one being, one individual. You could say that's me, but that's not really true. It's for an idealized viewer. Sometimes I'm kind of cranky coming to see something. I saw the Mona Lisa when it was in L.A., saw it for 13 seconds and had to move on. But, you know, there's this slow-food movement right now. Maybe we could also have a slow-art movement, and take an hour" (wikipedia.org). While his work is mostly focused on light and space, it is still connected to nature. He's trying to get the viewers to connect to the space they are in and get in tune with that environment. Essentially that is what I'm doing, using photographs, sound, and film.

"Turrell's works defy the accelerated habits of people especially when looking at art. He feels that viewers spend so little time with the art that it makes it hard to appreciate" (wikipedia.org). I enjoy the fact that he is making art that forces the viewer to take time and actually pay attention and appreciate what they are looking at. We bypass so much beauty everyday because we are in such a hurry to live our daily lives.

http://thepacegallery.com/

http://conversations.org/story.php?sid=32

www.pbs.org/art21/artists/turrell/