mine is yours

Warm Snow

miloceleste — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:57:25 +0000

“But slowly the phosphorescence of the springlike snow became dulled: it vanished then, giving way to a thick black darkness preceding dawn. Some of us fell asleep in the warm snow, others went groping in the dark for the doors of their houses and walked blindly into the sleep of their parents and brothers, into a continuation of deep snoring . . . . ” –Bruno Schulz in the short story “Cinnamon Shops” (published in The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories, Penguin 2008)

This experiment simply focused on placing quotes from fiction into the environment. In this particular version, the correlation between quote and situation is quite direct. It labels the snow as warm, according to Schulz’s quote above. Another direct correlation is that Schulz grew up in Ukraine, which was once part of Poland. In this picture, “warm” is written in the snow covering the park that rings Krakow’s old town.

Does painting the environment with a quote make the reader’s experience of an author’s idea more immediate?

Protected: Dial a Book

miloceleste — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:55:04 +0000

This post is password protected. You must visit the website and enter the password to continue reading.

Metaphoric Labels

miloceleste — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:59:10 +0000

Writers Bruno Schulz and Thomas Pynchon both muse about the life of inanimate objects in their works of fiction (see “Treatise on Tailors’ Dummies” in The Street of Crocodiles by Schulz and V by Pynchon). This investigation tries to carry such anthropomorphic notions from the book realm into the real world, by using labels to bestow alternative meanings on objects.

Can these labels help change our perceptions of objects? Can they make everyday life a richer place for imagination? Or do they inhibit imagination?

Taking this mini-project further might involve making kits full of labels that people can stick onto whatever objects they choose. There must be other ways to push it as well…?

JABBERWOCKY

miloceleste — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:19:13 +0000

Jabberwocky Prototype, copyright Brett Ascarelli 2010

This prototype integrates Lewis Carroll’s famous poem with instructions for a person to follow while reading. The instructions are designed to twist the reader’s everyday life into a theater of unusual experience and performance. The result:

Beware the results of actionotation!

What happens to all those prayers in the Western Wall?

miloceleste — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:34:46 +0000

It turns out that God actually answers them.

New Year's Day 2010 at the Western Wall, copyright Brett Ascarelli

But when all the nooks and crannies in the Western Wall are full, the answers turn up near another of the world’s holiest stones–that which lies near Krakow’s Wawel Castle.

Krakow's Wawel Castle purportedly houses one of the world's holiest stones

Notes found in the wall near Wawel Castle

Don’t delay. Make your pilgrimage plans now.

Dry Wash

miloceleste — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 10:46:30 +0000

The Dry Wash experience / performance was installed during the Aspuddsbadet-inspired exhibition at the Konstfack Gallery during winter 2009

As a variation on the Hand Wash project of fall 2008, Dry Wash was exhibited in December 2009 as part of the Aspuddsbadet show at Konstfack’s gallery. Dry Wash invited exhibit-goers to have a bath during the show. People who experienced this co-performance sat in vaguely demarcated bathtubs, while we scrubbed them with soap, sponges and brushes.

Another view of the shorthand bathtubs

Some of the participants were interviewed briefly about how the experience felt. Everyone enjoyed it, but many likened it to getting a massage, which was not the aim. Rather, the goal was to persuade them to adopt new grooming habits that incorporate other people.

Washing two people

Ekphrasis Box

miloceleste — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 21:08:03 +0000

This project came out of Rolf Hughes’ Word & Image class at Konstfack. The box developed from an ekphrasis piece I made based on Andreas Gursky’s 1993 photograph of Montparnasse, featured in Moderna Museet’s retrospective on the artist this spring.

Montparnasse, by Andreas Gursky, 1993

I started by making a two-dimensional ekprhasis piece / concrete poem, describing what I saw or imagined in each window.

Then, I pushed the piece into three dimensions, by labeling a cardboard moving box with possible contents. The aim is to imbue imagination into the rather dull process of packing one’s belongings. (What the hell is up with this font, by the way? It makes me want to write really ponderous sentences…)

So, we have a 3D building (original) –> 2D photograph (Gursky’s representation) –> 2D ekphrasis (of photograph) –> 3D ekphrasis (of building, possible box contents and photograph).

Based on feedback from the crit session, I tried a couple of aesthetic variations.

Developing this project might lead to different sizes of ekphrastic moving boxes and ekphrastic stickers to label the contents.