We were assigned to write a piece of fiction in relation to our thesis project. Below, you can read a story about a painting narrated by different voices.
Norton Simon Project: An Anthology of Public Voices.
“Yet when an image is presented as a work of art, the way people look at it is affected by a whole series of learnt assumptions about art” John Berger from “Ways of Seeing”
Every time I visit a museum it is a unique adventure. Each time, I am surrounded by a new community with which to share the experience of a being a “viewer”.
A memorable incident at the Metropolitan Museum of Art inspired me to create this anthology. I visited the MET with an individual who owned a gallery. We were viewing paintings by the artist Paul Gauguin, who is one of my favorite painters. This individual asked me, “Did you know he was a pedophile?” Suddenly, the painting I had known for years was different. I realized how the power of unknown information could quickly change my perspective.
Due to this episode, I developed a curiosity for the various perspectives in which viewers experience a piece. At museums, individuals range from scholarly experts to those who’s knowledge of artists and art work is vague. The range of the audience opens the range in opinions, and it is my belief that one opinion is no more valuable than another that may exist on the further end of this spectrum of observers. In order to investigate this further, I conducted an experiment that involved eavesdropping at the Norton Simon Museum. This book reflects the public’s interaction within the museum, as well as gives insight into the multiple perspectives that exist within an audience.
Volume 1: Canvas of Conversation–an exploration of multiple perspectives within Art.
The layers of conversation presented in Canvas of Conversation allows the audience to become the voice behind the painting.
Each time the reader turns a page, they are presented with additional conversations about the Art ranging from fact to fiction–hopefully allowing them to gain new perspectives about the work. The audience’s voice is a crucial part of how the work in the museum is perceived. Through the multiple opinions expressed by the audience, will the reader gain unexpected meaning about a painting?
When opening the book, there is a folder that holds layers of translucent paper stacked on top of one another to reflect upon the multiple conversations that were collected. This stack is to be displayed as one canvas portraying the viewers voices. The rectangles on top of the page represent the range of conversations based on fact to opinion. These rectangles are situated left to right. The first rectangle on the left side is colored red and the far rectangle on the right is colored blue; everything in between represents the voices between fact and opinion. For example, a viewers comment “There is a lot of green”, becomes a fact because they state the obvious of what is in front of them. This highlights the first rectangle, which is red. On the other hand, a subjective commentary on how the painting makes the viewer feel, or how they feel about the painting becomes an opinion, thus highlighting the last rectangle of the spectrum.
Volume 2: Depth of Dialogue– an exploration of multiple dialogues within Art.
Depth of Dialogues explores the dialogue between two individuals when conversing about Art. One opinion does not carry weight more than the other because both parties contribute to the conversation in order to create this dialogue. When eavesdropping, the listener hears pieces of the conversation, which can give a sense of what the conversation entails. In reality, when entering from an outside context, understanding the full depth of the conversation becomes limited. In order to display this relationship between the individuals participating in the dialogue, two roles were assigned within a page. Person A’s comments were lifted up and pasted on top of the page whereas Person B’s comments were di-cut into the page. To reflect upon the experience of being a listener when eavesdropping, there is a portion of the page that is cut out to give the reader a clue into what the audience may be discussing.
Volume 3: Retellings of Space– an exploration of public voices vs. the Museum
The public’s interaction within the museum gives insight into the multiple perspectives that exist within an audience, thus giving another meaning to the Art. The museum provides a certain amount of information for the viewer to digest. Whether this is a label description on the artist’s background or piece, it is what the Museum issues to the public along with the access to view the Art within their space. So what does the public give? Their commentary is much a part of the meaning placed on the art as these information labels. Retellings of Space allows the reader to listen to publics conversations by inserting a headphone into the manual. On the opposite page, exists a photograph of the painting. Underneath this image, is a description provided by the Norton Simon Museum. By juxtaposing the public voices to the Museum label, it explores various layers that gives the piece meaning.
Listen to a few of the sound files from Volume 3 below:
Project Luke
Project Luke explores the territory when the curator creates alongside with the Artist/Designer. Luke Johnson, a graduating MDP student was preparing for his Thesis exhibition. A problem emerged within his exhibition. As a media designer, Luke used the techniques of embedded observation, interventions and interviewing within his design work. Through these projects, he was able to work across a range of media platforms. In order to exhibit the artifacts created for each project, he came across the problem of how these artifacts would be displayed so the viewer could quickly understand what the artifacts represented. We decided to collaborate on the project because of my interest in portraiture and people knowing which was a big part of his thesis project. We realized, that he had a very defined methodology. Each project followed a certain process, which lead to the outcome. With this, we decided to design a series of labels curating his projects for the exhibition. Coming from a graphic design background, I assumed the role as the designer for this task. Luke provided me with the content, in which I broke down into a formula of what the artifact represented. The architecture for the formula was: Title, Question, Intervention+people+time + (process) = statement, designed outcomes, takeaway lessons and unexpected results.
This project reinforced my belief in that the curator should be a part of the making process if they possess the ability to do so. By doing so, the curator can have a better understanding of what it means to be an Artist, which can have the effect of creating a new experience for the viewer as well.
Project Hong G
Project Hong G begins to explore a possible role for a curator to assume. Hong G is a painter. Much of her work revolves around themes exploring the metamorphosis of memory as a space for time travel. Myself as a designer, I decided to assume the role as a curator when working with Hong G. During the brainstorming stage, we decided to take equal parts within creating the unknown. Because of mutual interests, it was decided that the concept or theme would revolve around memory. As individuals, do we remember the mundane? The days that are not memorable? If so, how and when? What does a mundane day look like? These were the questions that lead us to the project “process of remembering a day in the mundane” I gave the instruction to Hong G to write down her itinerary for three days. With this information, I chose what I believed to be the most unmemorable day.
The plan was that Hong G would paint for five days. Each day, I provided her with a new clue about the events of that day. The first day, she was given five constraints along with the clue. Each day, I lifted up a constraint, yet introduced a new clue. The itinerary I possessed was color coded with a key that separated the events of that day into necessity, transitional, relaxation and work. I chose to narrow down the subject to necessity. When things are done because it is a necessity, these events become habitual, which is something we may not reflect back on. The clues introduced a new color into the canvas which she could incorporate into her painting as well as the highlighted text revealing the events of the day. The hope was that a viewer would be able to experience the process of remembering the mundane. The project partially failed in this manner because the experimental territory of dealing with the unknown. New discoveries were made about how I operate as a curator. I had to let go of control, which is very difficult for me to do. Also, it was realized that next time, there needed to be more of a clear direction of how I wanted the piece to look so the constraints could be morphed around a more clear focused vision.
Collections
I asked people to photograph their curated collection. With these responses, how do I curate other people’s personal collections? The next step is to categorize these collections to explore the realm of why and what people collect.
Week 10
Norton Simon Project
What is my role? To create a compliment for the museum that is a comments on the relationship between the Norton Simon and public.
I eavesdropped, listened, took notes on the comments people make when viewing art.
Outcome:
Book–Layers of Perspective
Visualizations of people’s comments
3 sections:
descriptive of the obvious
emotional
outside knowledge or artist/painting–factoids
Layers–
what the museum gives us, what the public gives back
Curating people’s voices.
Where does this exit in the imaginative space?
Project Luke
Working with someone who already has the most of their project done, but issues with one aspect of the project that he needs my help on.
How do you present the artifacts of the project without going into full detail?
Hong G study
How do you curate/paint the memory of a mundane day?
Have Hong G write an itinerary of her day for three days. Choose the most mundane day out of the three to create a set of constraints and clues for her to paint from for 5 days. These paintings should reflect the process of recollecting the Artist’s memory of a mundane day.
Question:
Why am I assuming these different roles as “curator”? What is the meaning behind all of this? How can I diagram where I exist within the public and space? And what is my interaction? Am I complicating, adding, subtracting or intervening to the interaction?
I gave myself a project brief to investigate different points of view through:
Optical technique–different glances. How does the first glance differ from the second or third?
Physical technique–How do you move physically to see the different view points?
Sound technique–How do you use sound to visualize different points of view? Narratives? Podcasts?
When brainstorming for this project, I juggled with the constraints of working with the subject vs the frame of these different techniques.
While struggling with my own project brief, I came across a NYTimes article titled: “No Place at School for Aids Orphans”. It discussed how a group of parents in Vietnam were opposed to AIDS orphans attending school with their children. At first read, I was appalled! Quotes such as “They were saying the children were going to die anyway, so there’s no need for them to study,” disgusted me. Then I read over the article a second time–probably because I couldn’t believe some of the things wrtitten. This time, my reaction was more contemplative. I realized that although the perspective of the other parents seemed ludicrous, it didn’t make their viewpoint less valuable. We read articles everyday, but how long before we forget the content of the article? I happened to choose an article that provoked my interest, but what about the other numerous articles read by individuals that may not have as much of an impact? How do you deconstruct and dissect an everyday article? And afterwards, what do you do with the pieces?
In my opinion, a well designed documentary or journalism( I used these examples because they are interests of mine other than design) touches on multiple perspectives as well as composing a voice of its own.How do I combine the affordances of a documentary or an article and curate it into an exhibition? This lead me to experiment with taking one form and forcing it into a different structure using curation as the tool.
Deconstruct the article “No Place at School for Aids orphans” by point of view.
There are two main views in the article. The opinions of the AIDS orphans vs the opinions of the parents opposing the idea of AIDS orphans attending the same school as their children. There is also everything in between. Creating a scale, from red to green, red represented the “AIDS orphans” and Green represented the “other parents”. Other statements fell within the colors between the Red and the Green. Going through the article, I highlighted the text corresponding to the two opinions.
Afterwards, I deconstructed the text and then reorganized it according to the color, from Red to Green.
In the second experiment,
I highlighted the text according to 6 different subject matters. First Person Voice, Second Person Voice, Adjectives(used within the voices), Statistics, Assumptions, and Facts. Afterwards, I deconstructed the article based on what subject was highlighted and pasted them on to each own sheet of blank paper.
Experiment: Eavesdropping at MOCA
Every time I visit a Museum its a unique experience. Specifically, because of the viewers surrounding me at the museum. Paul Gauguin is one of my favorite painters. As I was looking at one of his beautiful paintings, the person I had come to the Museum with, who happened to be a gallery owner said to me “Did you know he was a pedophile?” Suddenly, the painting I had known for years looked different. I realized how the power of unknown information could quickly change my perspective.
I looked around to the other people who had come to the Museum. Some were obviously “out of towners”. There was a couple arguing about an El Greco piece. One commented on how they didn’t like the painting because something looked “off” I realized that they were probably referring to the elongated perspectives. I’m not sure if they realized that the style of art from this period was Mannerism–which would be the reason for it looking “off, unrealistic” to them”. Greco’s work deliberately distorts proportions in a disjointed, irrational space for emotional and artistic effect in reaction to the realistic human representations in the Renaissance Classicism period. The only reason I would know this is because of years of Art History. But for some people who don’t have a background in Art History, or interest in it, why would they know this? This experience got me to thinking about the background of the viewer. At museums, individuals range from Art Historians to people who haven’t gotten a clue about art. I don’t believe that one is more valuable than the other. In order to investigate this further, I conducted an experiment that involved eavesdropping at MOCA. When at MOCA, some of the phrases heard were:
“I don’t get it”
“I could do that”
“That must have taken a long time”
“Look at Andy Warhol….”
“Lets try to figure this out”
After “cards”, I moved onto another experiment titled “Nails” that challenged me to work directly with creating content and narrative.
project brief pt 1: create a narrative for 5 identical nails. pt 2: add another perspective to the narrative. pt 3: display this narrative.
Stories included into “Nail” project:
Story 1
Perspective A: We were visiting my son’s girlfriend in New York. We were walking around an unknown area. I think it was downtown?
My son’s girlfriend said she knew where she was going…kinda. All of a sudden I stepped on something that went through my sandal. This nail was holding my sandal and foot together.
Perspective B: I was on a yellow wall holding up a picture of a couple. Then I heard the couple screaming at each other. I was all of a sudden ripped out of the wall and thrown out the window, hit a pole on the way down becoming separated from the picture and eventually landing on the street. Then someone stepped on me. I felt the blood spilling over my already damaged body.
Story 2
Perspective A: My first dog’s name was Claude. He was everything to me. He was there when I was depressed because my mom was sick. He was there when I didn’t have a mom anymore. He was there to comfort me through 3 break ups. He was there to unease the loneliness when I moved to another city. This is the first nail I had to use to seal Claude’s coffin.
Perspective B: I sat under a bed. It was cool under there. When it got too hot, the dog would come lay next to me to keep me company. My favorite times were when he would sleep next to me and his fur would slightly touch me. My loneliness was healed. Then one day the dog stopped coming. Someone swept under the bed. Maybe to get rid of the dog’s hair? Then I was picked up to seal something. I still miss the dog.
Story 3
Perspective A: My boyfriend lost his virginity to my best friend. I made a vodoo doll. I pushed this nail into the doll’s heart.
Perspective B: I was sitting in a drawer waiting. Everyone else around me was getting picked up to be used; to hang a calendar, fix a table, even just up on a wall for something to be hung. I wanted to be used. Then one day I was picked up to the possibility of becoming used! I ended up stabbing a heart.
……………………………………………..
Research for “Nails” project:
In order investigate narratives for the “nails” project, I had individuals take photograph(s) curating their most precious objects, collections or artifacts. I also had them write me a short story behind why the objects were meaningful to them.
A curating collaboration with Hunter Sebresos.
Installation Description:
Exploring the boundaries of communication and the semantics of the word “today,” Haelim Paek and Hunter Sebresos have curated this space without ever being in this room together.
For a period of two weeks each Designer posted no more than two items everyday that represent “today,” thus examining the meaning of the word beyond a that of a 24 hr. period of time. Though they worked apart from each other and conventional communication was avoided, a dialogue clearly developed as one perceived and responded to what the other had presented. In a sense, each has played the role of both spectator and curator.
last day of 2 week process
Time Lapse:
“TODAY” Collaborative Curration from Hunter Sebresos on Vimeo.
What we learned
Literally mapping out the creative thinking process with another designer.
Brainstorming indirectly—making you to be more critical about your thought process in passive way.
Created a more enriched discussion about “Today” after the 2 week process.
