Events this Friday and Saturday

Panel discussion today: Women Artists in Muslim Society

5:15-6:45

1104 S Wabash 2nd Floor

Tomorrow May 1st Performances:
3:30-5:00

Women Artists in Muslim Society - Panel Discussion

Women Artists in Muslim Society - Panel Discussion
April 30th 5:15-6:45

Raw Space
1104 S. Wabash, Chicago
2nd Floor 


A Panel Discussion is set, in conjunction with the Widowsweave exhibit for April 30th 5:15-6:45.
Morehshin Alylahyari, Hale Ekinci, Rabbya Naseer & Renee Tadros will discuss internal and external influences on creating art in Muslim societies, their experience in their counties of origin and in the United States. Melissa Potter, Assistant Professor at Columbia College Chicago, will introduce. Kevin Valentine,  project director and creator of Widowsweave and founder of Artistactivist, will moderate. 

Day 42 Montrose Beach meets North-East Wind

 

Today was much colder than I expected, and proportionally more difficult to draw lines in the snow/sand.  My implement this day was a wonderful tool for interesting marks - sometimes check-marks, sometimes x's, sometimes double lines, sometimes single tapered lines.  I explained to Bryan how counting double lines, or not counting them is an existential dilemma.  Bryan got a cell call that was longer than he'd expected which is how it goes sometimes -art and life imitating each other.  Whether it's counting double lines, taking a call, losing count, counting by nines or elevens instead of tens by accident or writing the numbers in the sand/snow to keep track - all have parallels in the economy of war and oppression.  Leaving out the count, exaggerating the count, being distracted, approximating using extrapolation, caring about every detail or being satisfied with a close representation - all have been carried out over and over again when accounting for dead, wounded, care for wounded and family, widows, orphans, dispalced, refugees...

  

 

Eden concentrated on tilling motions, and also on the resulting lines which he thought resembled train tracks.  He created tracks that meandered around acres of beach ending at a tall steel light post, like the hub or station.

Jaber brought his nephew, a recent refugee who has been in Chicago for only 2 days.  He wisely took stock of the wind and returned to the car with apologies.  No sense in being out there without proper clothes for this weather.

Tuesday - Day 31 - Lee St Beach

The high waves were ominously splashing above the ice out on the edge, while I scratched out 15,400 more lines.  Inevitably, counting to half-a-million will lead to some days where the counting and marking become a sort of peaceful mantra - maybe not comforting, but expected and familiar, like the end of a long run for a runner.  I wonder if soldiers ever get to the point where a patrol or even a killing becomes so familiar that it feels good - God forbid.

Loyola Park Beach - Day 30 with Mary

Mary and I set out to this beach, where there was actually an expanse of sand, on a moderately breezy cold day in the 20s.  I had the cracked stick that was on the bottom of the pile making a little odd to draw with, as I had to hold it together a bit.  We  did 10,500 between us. I did only rows, while Mary, always the teacher, filled a chart so as not to lose count. She said that this way she could pray for the women and the situation in Iraq.

Both of us spent a good deal of time talking to passers-by.  Mary spoke to a lady who saw us another time on the north end of the beach (either Leone or Greenleaf?) and wanted to ask what we were doing.  I spoke to a Romanian lady with a husky named Katia, who "Hates all Arab men."  I tried to talk about it but she interrupted with a story about higher education growing up in Romania.  She said that in communist Romania, they would invite Arabs to enroll in university saying that "we hate the Americans too." but that she never saw a single female come to school, only the men.

I couldn't argue or debate.  When someone is so vehemently telling a stranger how she feels about men, it's best to just let some things lie if nothing is at stake but argument - one cannot win an argument about how someone else feels.  I tried to insert Jaber's story and his pride in his daughters' education and talent, but I only got as far as "I know a man..."

Day 26 - Self-referential

The first day that is self-referential: 2,600 lines for day 26. 

I'm racing around in the morning on a tight schedule, trying to get to College Art Association before the afternoon sessions start.

Carving out lines in the fresh snow.

East Wind - Thorndale - 9,000 Lines on Day 20

On the soft sand the thin but packed snow broke apart concealing many lines and turning into a sort of high-contrast camouflage. It also reminded me of Three Cups of Tea author Mortenson getting lost following a trail down the mountain.  It was hard for me to follow my own path - sometimes I drew over two rows of lines before I noticed and corrected my path.  Counting one-by-one, each individual mark, is still an imprecise science when such large numbers are combined with field conditions.

Greenwood St. Beach -Day 15

What a difference sunshine can make.  I was all tense about being late, not being realy ready to start and worrying about the project, but the warmer weather (30 degrees F) and sunshine, and Jaber's cheeriness made for a successful day.  We talked to a couple of interested people, both of whom have a cause of their own.  It's interesting how many people who stop and ask what we are doing are activists of some sort.  One lady is trying to save the local cable station from the chopping block, and a man is with an environmentalist group.

Above 2 Photos by Jaber Alturfee

Today we drew the most lines yet at 27,200.  This feels like success, yet also means we are representing a more efficient counting of casualties and resulting widows.  We are also remembering, and representing these forgotten women, so the more lines, the more impressive the statement.

I am also struck again by how the shape of the implement changes the dynamic of the line.  I had a curved branch which led to holding the stick across my body.  I could leave a distinct mark very rapidly with a small flick of the wrist.  But the rapidity and the loose sand meant that each mark also kicked up sand that partially covered the row adjacent, speeding up the process whereby the lines would disappear in the wind.  Different events, from bombing, aerial attacks, chemical weapons, assassinations, the draining of the marshlands, occupation - each leave there own wake, with unique narratives for each affected family.  I wonder how the destructive variety effects the rapidity with which we forget the survivors.

Fading

Many

Tally

 

One

Why? #1

People are asking me why I am doing my thesis-and-beyond work to benefit Iraqi widows even though I am not Iraqi, knew no Iraqis personally when beginning this work, and have never been in a war.

I answer in a lot of ways: about my previous work, my outrage at injustice, global society where we are all neighbors, my formative years watching the Vietnam war and so on.

I woke up at 1:30AM thinking of a very old story in a new light.  When I was a boy - maybe 2nd or 4th grade - some argument ensued, resulting in me being tied for a time to a telephone pole.  I do not remember exactly what it was about, how long i was there (not long), or -most importantly - how it felt.  But I can never forget that my brother never forgave himself for letting his friends do that to me, and not stopping them.  He didn't help them or encourage them, but he didn't stop them.  I did not blame him, but he never forgot. 

I don't want my life to continue without doing something to stop injustice.  I just have trouble sleeping knowing that I haven't tried, when I have the opportunity.  Sometimes circumstances peresent themselves and we have to choose to participate or pass.  No one can fix everything, and not everything can be fixed, but it is the trying, the effort, the caring that makes life a little more worth living.   This is the opportunity.  I have the statement, the time, the support, to do this and so I must. 

Francis Alys: When Faith Moves Mountains 2002

Just ran across Francis Alys, whose work When Faith Moves Mountains in 2002 involved five hundred people living in a shanty town outside Lima, Peru using shovels, one step at a time, to move a dune 4 inches.  They live in these dunes along with about 75,000 people without running water or electricity.

His words: attempts to translate social tensions into narratives that in turn intervene in the imaginal landscape of a place. The action is meant to infiltrate the local history and mythology... 
 art operates precisely within the space of myth....
In this sense, myth is not about the veneration of ideals--of pagan gods or political ideology--but rather an active interpretive practice performed by the audience, who must give the work its meaning and its social value.

Conceptual Art

Lying in bed this morning, when I should be asleep, I realized that my work has always been conceptual art.  I've done my share of landscapes, architectural and figurative work, but all my series have been conceptual.  It also occurred to me that my thesis proposal is basically an enlarged Cabinet, I just never saw it that way.  Now I have to make a Widows Cabinet.

My mind has been spinning all week with ideas.

Meeting with Doug Stapleton

I met with Doug S. at the State of Illinois Gallery about my thesis show.

He also saw that it is an architectural environment. that I am trying to create a passage to a liminal space: that the chalk room is referential to the Kabaa in Mecca: that the intention is transformative in nature - moving from death to life, accounting for the deaths, and tallying the living.

We talked about the cleansing fountain idea as a metaphor - not as an actual fountain. What can I use to symbolize the cleansing?

We talked about the use of an invitation to go home and make 3 million lines to commemorate the widows.  A take away if you will.

We discussed the duality.

He questioned weather it was a type of momento mori

Further Ideas - Lines beyond Thesis

In line with the Circles for child deaths in Chicago, in conjunction with drawing real lines of chalk at sights of murders, I will make a map of Chicago and drawcircles where the deaths occur - then paint over the map so that the circles remain. Again one doesn't have to show to demonstrate, and it might be more powerful than pictures of the dead, because the abstraction forces the viewer to contemplate and imagine.

Deborah Boardman visits Art as a Spiritual Practice

Deborah Boardman visited our Art as a Spiritual Practice class, with ideas about her rituals, practices and themes in creating work.  She mentioned that when in doubt or uncomfortable with what she is doing, she likes to sweep her floor, for long periods.  Sweeping is task oriented and gets her out of her knots. 

This is akin to what I am achieving with my chalk and more strongly with my sand drawings.  It's a way to clear ones mind of distractions leaving space for a meditative attitude in which one can find new inspiration.

Meeting with Cliff M.

Met with Cliff on Tuesday Oct. 6th.  He referenced a number of architectural sites, both historical and contemporary.  The Temple at Karnak in Egypt, and the Jewish Museum in Berlin by Libeskind in particular.  We talked about the ceremonial aspect, the transformative aspect of the architecture, the structure of the pillars referencing a processional.

We also talked about the Monument Against Fascism by Jochen Gerz, a column that lowers into the ground and disappears as its surface gets the signatures of witnesses to the monument.

I need to pay more attention to the reasons for creating the space.  I know that I want it not to be a blatant referance to a mosque, an Iraqi graveyard or a Western funeral parlor.  It needs to be a metaphoric space which creates a transformation from the gloom and sadness of the entryway of rememberance (of the dead) to the affimative, healing, comfort of the memorial to the Widows who have survived.  That is the point of the two rooms - it's not just the aesthetic, but the spiritual passage from grief to hope that I wish to capture in the final installation and performance.

 

Meeting with Mel P. 9/16

We talked about strategies to continue working, like grant writing and positioning work to get it shown after graduation. I explained some of my new ideas to her about the room and we discussed simplicity and a clear vision.

References:

Eduardo Kac Telepresence kac.org
Genelle Baxor: Generative & Algorithmic art?
Ars Electronica
Indira Freitas Johnson: Evanston artist
Wafaa Bilal: at SAIC www.wafaabilal.com

New Project Description

Widows: Lines in the Sand will be a participatory installation with durational inhabited performance components to include video and/or object-based elements and artist-audience cooperation resulting in the drawing of three million lines to commemorate widows in Iraq.

The exhibit will consist of an entry room, symbolizing loss, with real and mediated “lines in the sand.” Video projection will portray the sand lines on the floor, while a central element, filled with sand will have lines drawn in it by the artist and participating audience members.

A second room with all black surfaces is to be chalked with white lines over the duration of the exhibit. These white lines, representing hope, drawn by viewers and the artist will cover all surfaces of the room including the floor and ceiling.

This fusion of media, installation, performance and interactivity, comprising this memorial to the living victims of three decades of war in Iraq, aspires to heal wounds through awareness, empathy, advocacy and hope.

Compassion

Just as there is no end to human suffering, there is no end to human compassion.

Research Unrecorded

I've been remiss in not talking about theory of late.  Relational Aesthetics (Bourriaud)  has lots of points I want to discuss soon, as well as some things I've begun reading in two other books: Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art by Grant Kester and Collectivism After Modernism: The Art of Social Imagination After 1945, Blake Stimson and Gregory Sholette, Ed.  All three books deal with art which involves the audience in completing the pieces, art which can only be understood as it effects an environmental or group dynamic, not as individual art objects.

Hopefully I will get to writing some of this down this week.

Post-Theory Theory or the Rabbit Hole and Why I'm Not Dead Yet

I am seeing how every art work can be viewed from multiple theories, whether the artist intended the piece to carry that or not. Just as every historical fact can be viewed on many ways, depending on what aspect of history or society one examines. Art work holds these interpretations within and
audience brings them to the viewing. In this sense all art is collaboration, thus the removal of authorship, and the "author is dead." But the author is "not dead yet" in the words of the old Monty Python sketch. What is it that is not dead yet? If it is not the artist, could it be God? Yes, I said God. God meaning what? Well, god is also what we bring to him through our lens, like theory, but also has authority. What authority? The very definition of God is for me "Good." So the question is, is there good that has fixed meaning? Is there at the core of art or fact, goodness which is fixed beyond translation of theory through the viewers senses, or is all in fact theoretical?

For that matter is there any fact at all in the entire universe which can be said to be scientific or indisputable and not subject to interpretation through theory? We observe the rabbit-hole, and fall in with a never-ending series of theoretical calculations and interpretaations, but is there in fact some thing we are interpreting?

Author/no author: fact/theory: good/subjectivity: science/fact: are they all intrinsically different ends of the same rabbit-hole, different sides of the same coin?