Gallery 1 is a subterranian former railway station.
"Where the traditional museum asserted its hegemonic pedagogy by tightly choreographing paths of movement and parameters of interaction... the contemporary museum utiliizes interactive interfaces to provide increasingly individualized forms of particpation" p19 screenworlds: http://www.acmi.net.au/vid_sw_trailer.htm
Since the time From Object to Platform was written, the ACMI has continued exploring, and have created an exhibition space outdoors called the Video Garden:
And I don't know why. I ate plenty, I slept last night, I haven't been drinking this week, I went swimming today- I am doing all the things I know to take care of myself. My bad mood was pushed to the back of my mind because I was BUSY all day (and yesterday and tomorrow) but when I got home today it re emerged. I prepped for tomorrow, worked on homework, read supplementary stuff so I would be on top of things... even after I got everything I can do today done, I was in a bad mood. I baked some cookies to have something fun to do, and I was in such a bad mood that when I took them out I slammed the oven door partly on purpose and flipped all the cookies onto a plate, breaking about half. Then I ate 3 cookies and put myself to bed but I wasn't tired and my mind was racing. So I learned about sauropods and camels and moose and I was calming down but then I went on disboards.com (it's about disney but run by fans and is unofficial) and started learning about timeshares which made me feel sick and then I started thinking I want to do a project about disney but I have nooooo idea what. I need to start a notebook with printouts of the desperation (?) on that board (when someone says something is too expensive at disney, and they mean it as in disney overcharges rather than phrasing it as needing to be even more frugal in anticipation of the trip*, fellow posters on the board sort of jump down their throat about "disney is a company and companies charge an inherently fair price because that's what people will pay" like, okay, but you don't have to be thrilled to pay it and you especially don't have to bristle when a stranger isn't thrilled to pay it).
And the extent that people get into Disney is confusing. Like there is this video of wedding dresses based on disney princesses (loosely):
For my personality, I would totally understand doing your wedding in costume as a princess. Why not? It's your party and if you're paying for it the only person you should even have to run it by is the groom. But this is different because it is dresses inspired by the princesses but meant to look like classic, maybe elegant** wedding dresses. And the most recent princess featured in that clip is from The Princess and The Frog which came out last year (ish) so it's not at all like something from a woman's childhood that she's always felt fondly about, it's more like I Am A Princess A Magic Princess. I'm glad not everyone has the same plan as me (if I got married tomorrow I'd get a tan (check!) or a burn and then layer off-the-rack white garments and stitch them together and shred them and everyone will have to tell me i'm radiant because I am a bride) because I really do think variety in thinking and actions is essential and desirable but this princess thing feels manufactured. Maybe exploitive, although I go back and forth on whether it's fair to use that word when people are wasting on purpose to feel fulfilled.
I tried to find art that critiqued disney stuff but it was hard. The few artists I found were painters. I will put them in my notebook of prep but I want some artists who do work like I do.
So the thing that got me out of bed this last time and typing feverishly to my blog was that I have to propose something for a grant to ucsc art students and I want it to be about disney and I have NO idea what to propose. (well obviously)
Maybe I want to make a flier and litter it around the park? I could shopdrop something but idk Disney is very well supervised. Maybe I could endure a ride, waiting in line over and over without breaks until I can't walk. I could go and try to function as an observer rather than a participant and not ride anything or eat anything or talk to anyone. I wouldn't like to inconvenience any of the workers or get in the way of anyone's fun.
this isn't the one I was talking about above. I screencapped it because this person only likes things if someone else can't have them ("even if there was plenty of room, why should they allow others that are not members...").
*the frugality board's tagline is (paraphrased) "every dollar saved or earned is another dollar for disney" and to me that is blatantly insidious.
In my metal sculpture class yesterday my professor said it was best not to use this time to make utilitarian projects (she said that right after I said that I wanted to warm up for the term by making fire fans) because we could do those at any time, in community college or after we graduate, and we should use this class to explore concepts and add to our senior portfolio. Then she told us our first project is to make a box.
Anyway, after the box I want to make a hat rack.
She said we can make anything as long as we can explain our concept. So my hat rack is about economics I suppose. Mass production and wage slavery and who can afford to participate in the diy movement* and people who can't afford to boycott walmart and the life circumstances gap between the maker of this hat rack and the maker of one from ikea. I know that is all very contrived but it can also hold hats.
*although often the do it yourself version of something is cheaper than buying it, projects can have high initial costs and take a lot of time, so for most diyers it is on the hobby end of the spectrum rather than necessity.
I made this at my parents' house last night with my new bento gear. I might have made it more special for the first! day! of! school! but I hit today kind of sloppily having done loads of prep but with nothing finished. I bought this lunchbag for a couple dollars, which is as cheaply as I could make one, and it's simple and sweet. I do want to make a furoshiki (a fabric square that you tie the corners in a knot to keep the contents together) because you can lay them out as a placemat and I had to eat on a cement bench today because the picnic tables were too sunny. This is a really nice box. It was $6 and is very sturdy and a good size. It was too big today but I just have to put my salad in the bigger compartment instead. On the right is a little salad dressing bottle that was 2 or 3 dollars. this is salad and stir fry udon with tofu. I was worried about eating salad with chopsticks, because I find salad fairly hard to eat, but it turns out salad is only hard to eat with a fork. I always have to try and fold up the leaf a little to give me something to stab, and then stab it without it unfolding, and then swab/smash the leaf around in the dressing, and then toward the end there is nothing thick enough to stab so I try to scrape everything up onto the fork without it falling through the tines. I don't think anyone notices my salad ordeals; it's a quiet struggle. I have really really good fine motor skills so it's not like this ordeal actually stops me from eating salad every day. But I am not going to try to eat salad with a fork again.
I love getting bento stuff in Japantown, but it is kind of a hassle to get there from the East Bay so I rarely go. I went yesterday though and stocked up. this one has 2 levels and is pretty small. I love this yellow. these are to keep little bits of fruit and lunch meat in the fridge so I can cut them on mondays and use them throughout the week. this is my first onigiri mold (onigiri are rice triangles with a little bit of something salty in the middle.). I don't mind making them by hand but it does take a while. And I got a pair of onigiri containers. 2 onigiri is not very much food for me but I can bring them on days when I only have one three hour class. Daiso had excellent chopsticks. There were about 5 pairs I really wanted but since I rarely use chopsticks and I already have one pair I limited myself to these two. English is used decoratively on lots of the stuff you can buy in japantown, and a lot of times it's really interesting to try to follow the thought process. The bottom one is the wall street journal, and for some reason I am charmed that something so dry would seem beautiful or interesting. These skewers are bamboo so I am going to try to rinse and reuse them. I think these fish are boring but they were 20 for $2 instead of 2 for $1.50 like the ones I preferred. They are sold empty and it was kind of fun figuring out how to fill them. Although, almost no soy sauce fits in one. I will probably have to bring 3 at a time.
Anyway, it was nice to go to Japantown and good to stock up on supplies.
I am not off to a very solid start this year. My last day of work was 5 days before my first day of school so I have been having a pretty good time hanging out, relaxing, shopping for back to school, and taking out my dreads. I'm super excited to start classes but very reluctant to let go of this short window of freedom. So while I am definitely prepared enough for tomorrow (I have one studio class from 1-3:45) my everything is in disarray. I am in Oakland, not Santa Cruz, and my trunk is stuffed with clean laundry, my printer, groceries and bento supplies, and so on. It will take a long time to get everything squared away in its closet or cupboard and it would be a cleaner start to the school year to have done all that today. However, this term my schedule starts very gradually. The only class I have this week is the one I have tomorrow. That gives me 3 days in Santa Cruz to get everything tidy and prepped before my first proper week of class.
My hair looks like it died and my nail polish is destroyed and my bike has a flat tire and my perishables are all in my boyfriend's parents' fridge and I have just about enough gas to get home.
Gallery 1 is a subterranian former railway station.
