Exploring fascination

eugene

Youth Media Crew went to Hollywood this morning to take in a screening of the documentary Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo. The film was screened as part of the AFI FEST 2009. The documentary explores Japan's cultural fascination with insects. I was impressed by the film's inventive blend of slice-of-life narrative, cultural myth, and experimental image sequences. The music is engaging and the images are at times arresting, and having the presence of both in a documentary is quite an accomplishment. After the screening, the film's writer shared some interesting comments with the audience. She said she spent a year researching the story, and then went to Japan for six weeks to shoot the film. She said no one had ever made a film about the nation's cultural interest in insects, because in Japan, the subject is seen as utterly mundane. Culturally, the subject is invisible. This tells me that the writer is an observant storyteller. She can see what has become invisible to all other eyes. She can follow and capture her subject to create an interesting story that makes the invisible visible. Like the bug hunters in the movie, she knows how to spot and catch the tiny details hiding in the forest.

For lunch, we walked across Hollywood Boulevard and, from Greco's, ordered the biggest pizza I have ever seen or eaten. Sam and Itzel ate the most slices. Feeding the crew was very necessary because our day had only just begun. Cathy manhandled the van all the way to our next stop in Culver City, where we checked out another phenomenon born in Japan: The global obsession of Hello Kitty. Hello Kitty's birthday is tomorrow. She turns 35 -- not bad for a cat with no mouth. The art gallery we visited is hosting an exhibition featuring lots of Hello Kitty memorabilia. It's amazing how just about anything can be given a Hello Kitty spin: bicycles, jackets, surfboards, beds, pillows, tableware, clothing. The Youth Media Crew busted out its camera equipment to document the range of artifacts and collect some interesting stories.

Tons of people were there, creating lines running out the door and down the sidewalk, dressing up in catwear, and ready to talk about their Hello Kitty obsessions. There was a woman who came to the show directly from the airport, still tugging her carry-on luggage behind her. She was flying from Mexico back to Hong Kong, and she had arranged for a taxi ride over during her Los Angeles layover. She explained that she grew up with Hello Kitty, and that it represents something important to her even now. She carries a little Hello Kitty doll when she travels, for good luck. Whenever she carries it, she explains, her seat assignment gets bumped up to the next higher class. Another woman has been a member of the Hello Kitty Fan Club since the 1980s. Her enthusiasm for Hello Kitty was amazing. She shares almost the same birthday as Hello Kitty. She said if no one else was around the art exhibit, she would take off all her clothes and run through all the memorabilia naked. It excites her that much. Hello Kitty captures the imagination of both children and former children. The Youth Media Crew reported that everyone interviewed seemed to agree that Hello Kitty in one way or another is a keeper of the idea of childhood.

All in all, it was a day filled with adventure, culture, and stories for the Youth Media Crew.

Posted Saturday, October 31, 2009 at 6:14PM | Leave a comment

Untitled entry

chelsea

Posted Saturday, December 05, 2009 at 11:54AM | Leave a comment

Polaroid/Poladroid

Genevieve

For the past few months, i've seen the new internet application Poladroid appear on facebook and in the mouths (computers) of a number of my friends. Last week, Deanna brought it up to me and asked for commentary on this new phenomenon(?), i don't even know if it can be called that. Poladroid is free computer application and can be downloaded so that everyone can "create easily high resolution Polaroid - like pictures from your digital photos". I have this distinct non-film polaroid look-a-likes pop upon in facebook albums, blogs, flickr, and in my mom's iphone.

I've been using the Venice Arts day lab and converting my slide images into polaroids along with traditional instance photography for some time now. I really like the aspect of flaw and surprise that comes from these images. The color is usually a bit off, there is no possibility for burning, the image is often somewhat out of focus and thus a perfect image is impossible.

When I first saw the new artificial version i found it troubling to hear that with the extinction of polaroid, we needed a new way to replicate the style. Not for its flaw, but for its aesthetic. The poladroid application backs the image with the polaroid holder, slightly alters the color, and fades the edges. The image however remains flawless, and i don't know if there is anything wrong with that. Recently however, I've become more open to this silly image manipulator. I do wonder however. Is this the new way of making vintage popular culture last forever in our electronic lifestyle? Are real polaroids now vintage even though they still exist in limited quantity?

When I was in middle school, this instant medium became very popular among my middle school piers to take "artsy" photos to show on myspace. Is poladroid just a continuation of that attitude towards instant photos? or will it become to "mainstream" and kill the hip aspect?

Will more photographic be imitated with website downloads? probably, but will these click and drag apps wipe out the original art form? I can only hope not. It is scary however to think how with polaroid cameras, each generation became simplified and it has now evolved into this.

Posted Monday, December 21, 2009 at 4:16PM | Leave a comment

The question of the Artist

molly

Are you an artist?


Sometimes those are the most terrifying words to me. I never know how to answer.I mean, what is an artist anyways?

I have grown up all my life in a family of artists. Both of my parents went to art school, and practice their many mediums of arts daily. Whether is be in textiles, painting, music or sculpture, our house is full of it. Of course, it has been a wonderfully unique and lucky way to grow up and I have always loved it. The thing that is hard for me, is that though all of ,y life I have been exposed to art, I feel as if i have never had the opportunity to fully practice it. I have dabbled, as one might say.

Posted Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 6:23PM | Leave a comment

Year in Review

Genevieve

The year is coming to a close (in may?), the show was saturday, a.p.'s ended 45 minutes ago, and Chris and I are reviewing - we have both finished youth media crew, 11th grade, and youth art internship. These past few months at venice arts have been very fulfilling. I learned how to us final cut, interview, a Mamiya 645 ( thank you Eugene! i have to return it), and many story telling approaches/skills. I think this year was productive, both at school and at Venice Arts I have learned so much, but I guess its nice that things are slowing down. Hopefully I'll have time to do other projects I've been thinking about in ceramics and finally spending some time in the darkroom! I also want to finish my piece on my grandpa, it came out well after a whole sunday of editing, but I want to add to it and continue editing my footage.

The show turned out really nicely, especially now sitting in the gallery. All the work is great and I can look at it from a comfortable distance without all the crowd. I especially love the art discovery collage, they're real cute.

Next weekend I'm going to santa cruz for a few days to shoot a music video for my friends band in the woods. A samari dies and us wood nymphs release and carry his spirit.....

I'm excited for the summer, even though it isn't exactly planned out. Hopefully I can take some classes at la trade school and venice arts. I get so excited for june that I forget to figure out what I'm going to do.

Hopefully the next few months and next year will productive too.

Posted Wednesday, May 12, 2010 at 4:55PM | Leave a comment

Hammer Museum visit

eugene

I roam through the exhibits. The work is bold, loud, and empty in the cultureless context of blank white walls. At times, the curatorial notes that accompany the pieces strike me as more culturally interesting than the work itself because they reveal patterns of reaching argumentative rhetoric, wordy pitches that seek to justify why we should not be touching what we are looking at.

The conditions that the contemporary artist must work under remind me of a comment a companion made last week when we were visiting a different museum, one downtown. She said Robert Frank's images of Americans depict a culture that makes its members appear to be "unmoored."

Truly so. And as I realize tonight, this effect exists today in the contemporary work that has stopped looking outward to people. Art can reach the very same conclusion it was making fifty years ago, but now more efficiently through obsessive self-exploration, controlling introspection, and working with the inanimate. Is withdrawal from the world a sign of progress?

I walk from the special exhibition to the permanent collection. I overhear a visitor talking to her companion. "I didn't appreciate this exhibit." The works are by younger "emerging" artists. I notice they are all about my age. Apparently "emerging" is a code word for middle-aged, somewhat known, but not titan in any sense. It must also be a patronizing euphemism. These are people who are maintaining a seemingly focused practice and managing some kind of funding pipeline. If they can stick with it, they may end up in art history's velvet coffin.

The work itself is, again, bold, loud, and empty. It is activity. It doesn't seem to mean or represent anything very significant in the larger scheme of things. Perhaps that is the other dimension of being mid-career. The work is still searching. When the work finds its meaning, its place, then the arrival home has been achieved, and the journey may end.

I discover the most interesting work at the end of this exhibit. It is not hanging on the walls or residing within the self-important slapdash installations. I find it in one of the museum attendants, a young athletic man who conveys a veneered sense of orderliness and respect which is not even skin deep, just merely clung to in the creases of his dark, ill-fitting suit. He seems to be following me, but he is not. He seems to be getting in my way, but he is not. He seems to be looking at the work with me, but he is not. At one point, out of the corner of my eye, I catch him dancing, working his moves; talking to himself, rehearsing what it sounds like to be cool. Like the art on the walls, he is in his own world. But unlike the art on the walls, his self-involvement fascinates me. Why?

This museum attendant is the reincarnation of Michael Jackson. He has an audience: me. But I am invisible to him. He performs for himself. He has an audience, the three ceiling-mounted security cameras which must be capturing his every salacious gesture. But he is oblivious to what may be his supervisor's watchful eye. Do they care, anyway? I think he deserves a raise for lifting up the entire exhibit. How amazing it would be to obtain museum security camera footage to source a video installation on the unwitting human performance art that goes on in the midst of rarefied artistic pretension. It might be difficult. I could stage this as a fictional piece. Some of the authentic impact would certainly be lost.

This is his work, on several levels. Making the money by wearing the suit. But also, finding ways, fueled by his iPod, to never slow the gears of his internal dancing machine. He one of those people who probably parties all night. This mortuary of art supports his quest for living. For now.

Posted Thursday, July 30, 2009 at 11:23PM | Leave a comment

The Creation

Genevieve

In the exhibit, I really enjoyed the drawings and how he combined both the biblical episodes and his style. I have very little knowledge of the bible and it's characters. My favorite part was not necessarily as specific story, but the part after Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden. All of Adam and Eve's immediate descendants were described and I find family trees very interesting so I guess that kind of related. There wasn't exactly a protagonist, but "the better" son in each family acted as that and the antagonist was the bad seed brother. Seeing the good and bad in each character despite their role, was my favorite part. I also really liked that this genealogy linked all the characters together for the rest of the stories (at least as far as I read).

Posted Saturday, December 05, 2009 at 11:58AM | Leave a comment

Last Class for Olympic High School

Giselle

We celebrated our last class by going to the Getty to see the Irving Penn exhibit. Amazing work, of course. I congratulate all the students in the Fall photo class. Great work and some great eye's in the making. Thanks also to Barry and the amazing Tiffany. See you all next year! Happy Holidays!
Giselle

Posted Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 3:07PM | Leave a comment

Taxi driver

eugene

First impressions count for something. My first encounter in Mexico City is with my taxi driver. I have a funny taxi driver. He is friendly, upbeat, a real stud. On our way out of the airport taxi queue, he honks twice at two young women walking on the sidewalk. I figure he honks once for each woman. He's got aviator sunglasses resting on the instrument panel. He drives with one hand. His other hand nurses a mobile phone. He's involved in a raucous chatty conversation. He's not talking business. He's gabbing with a friend. He laughs. "Ellos no te sabe nada." They don't know you at all. How funny is that!

We navigate traffic that seems completely unimpressive for a major city. I thought it would be more crowded, insane, rivaling India. But no. It's relaxed. I think it's cultural. Latin culture is fast and reactive, but it's relaxed, too. This is reflected even in the commute. It's fun to see so many old Volkswagen beetles on the street, not relics, but vibrantly part of the everyday. I am struck how the public parks remind me of the public parks in Ho Chi Minh City, how the elegant tree-lined boulevards with their high median curbs create the same green flicker at the edges of your peripheral vision, just like in Kolkata, how blocks and blocks of towering old building make the streets feel narrower and the public religious squares that much more spacious, just like in Sao Paolo. Traveling the world helps me understand what makes this city truly cosmopolitan.

I think this impression is probably lost on my taxi driver. In looking out upon his city every day, he must render certain details invisible as he chooses to hone in on specific particulars, like the occasional bombshell woman, marking his sighting with a quick honk. He reminds me that two people can be in the exact same experience and looking at the same thing, and what each person makes of it all can be completely different.

Central district is full of energy, style, and even hipness. Lots of people move about, giving real meaning to public space. Clearly seen in movement and gesture, there is individuality here, a sense of ambition, freedom, perhaps why not happiness as well? We drive past the second largest public plaza in the world, and the largest cathedral on the continent. I am struck by the idea that in history, even in an oppressive history, people can search for the feelings of how they might belong. There are young couples in love holding hands, professionals in outfits you would never wear unless you had to, groups of working class gathering in circles holding some kind of public information meeting, tourists, street vendors, cops, performers.

In general it's more crowded here in the heart of the Centro Historico. In crawling traffic, the taxi driver drops the phone in his lap and fastens his seat belt. We are approaching one of the many traficos, traffic cops, who wears a fluorescent yellow vest and stands in the middle of an minor intersection. I ask the taxi driver if I should buckle up as well. He says, no, no problem, he just does it because of the trafico, he is right there and this is to respect him, once we pass, everything is back to normal, OK? And on cue, once we pass, the belt comes off and the phone is reunited with the taxi driver's head.

At the front of the hotel, the taxi driver hands off my luggage to the hotel porter. The taxi driver insists, almost ceremoniously and definitely with quite a bit of theater, on giving the porter a lecture on how important it is to handle my smaller case carefully. It is filled with very important, delicate equipment. Don't bump it or jar it, you might mess everything up. How does he know this? He is certainly making it all up so that he can put on a show for me, or for himself. I tip him N$20 (pesos) for his bravado. I don't know if that is a good tip or not. It is less than USD$2, but it is about 20% of the fare. I imagine he is quite satisfied with his job. He gets to spend all day driving around the city talking to his friends on the phone. He gets to imagine the contents of sealed containers, and then honor his imagination by performing important soliloquies to semi-private audiences, who then shower him with tips.

Posted Friday, June 26, 2009 at 9:21PM | Leave a comment