Flashback to November/11: Creep Along

Back in November of last year, I took over an additional studio and turned it into a site-specific installation.  I'd been making large(ish) paper cutout pieces that came off the wall and had layers, and I wanted to build something that would be like actually standing inside one of those/ that would allow me to be completely surrounded and consumed by that kind of space.  I started by painting the walls grey...

Then painted the shapes left over from the roller a lighter shade of grey...

And some in darker shades...

I spent about a month locked up in this room by myself.  I was listening to Timber Timbre's "Creep On Creepin On"on repeat, and I reread Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" during the course of its construction, the combination of which reinforced some of the creepier overtones to do with solitude, dread, obsession, madness, etc.  I sat with just the walls painted for a little while, not really knowing where to go from that point.  I tried making a web out of duct tape, just to bring the physicality of the space out from the walls, but it didn't really work--the duct tape didn't really transcend itself; it was too legible as duct tape.

So, I decided to build out of the walls with chicken wire and layer over that with a bunch of greyscale photo backdrop paper I had lying around from the paper pieces.  I incorporated the duct tape as an adhesive, and continued the shapes from the walls with enamel paint. 

 

 

 

I obscured the given light sources of the window and the overhead light so that light had to be filtered through the growths. 

 

It was nearing the end of the semester, and I was given a deadline for when I had to clear out of the space because new students would be arriving.  I spent a few nights in the space, working to finish it so that I could show it before I had to dismantle it.

It kind of became like a manifestation of the interior space of my mind while I was working on it.  The grey was oppressive and the formations were increasingly alien and almost hallucinatory.  It was like an interior landscape.

I took so many photos, at different times of day, with the lights on and off.  Here are some:

I also recorded video while I de-installed (which I showed during a crit along with the remains of one of the larger paper formations, and pastel prints I made off of the walls).  Here's some of that:

mənipyəlātəd melədēz (an Aurally Inclined Anagram Offshoot)

mənipyəlāt^əd melədēz is something I started back in March that involved breaking a song lyric down into the phonetic sounds of the words, and then making new, phonetic phrases.  I wrote out the phrases with the phonetic/ grammatical symbols and also recorded myself speaking the phonetic sounds out loud.  I was really into the resulting weird, mechanical vocals, which carry the anagram theme of reducing the phrase down to its most elemental level and re-constructing from that point.

So, I recorded this video, wherein I rearrange scrabble-looking tiles upon which I've written the phonetic symbols used in the lyric "Why is everything a chore?/ I'm too young to be defeated" from Surfer Blood's "Twin Peaks" into new, corresponding phrases, vocalizing the sounds as I go.

VIDEO: 

Another Anagram Update

So, after screwing around in photoshop for a bit, I decided these things look way better on a black background--the letters pop more.  I also determined that they'd function well as booklets, so that all of the reconfigurations could be held together under the original phrase.  Oh, and I changed the rules for myself slightly--instead of just using an infinite number of the letters in each phrase to come up with the new phrases, I'm limiting myself to only use the amount of each letter given in the initial phrase, per page. 

So I made a booklet with black pages, using the phrase "curves so comely and sinister," which is a lyric from the Neko Case song "Pretty Girls".  Which means that I had two 'c's, one 'u', two 'r's, one 'v', three 'e's, four 's'es, two 'o's, one 'm', one 'l', one 'y', one 'a', two 'n's, one 'd', and one 't' to work with for each new page.  I arranged the letters on the pages in different ways, so that if you were holding the booklet, you'd have to turn it around in different directions to read it (I want it to be playful).  There's a flow to the phrases throughout the booklet, kind of like a narrative, or a stream of consciousness, which felt appropriate.  I haven't made a cover for it, but I did bind the pages before I added the text.  Scanning the pages doesn't really do it justice, but nevertheless, here they are:

curves so comely and sinister  |  love me!!

 i scream intensely  |  i'm very intenssse

love me; never say it; run.  |  love is your scam

you love me  |  you scorn me

you use me. i care not.  |  you drive me sane

 you created me  |  i created my soul

 visions scare me  |  you listen so i can see

 restless dreams  |  restless void

eternal moodiness  |  rusty doom

 it cures sensory denial  |  it invades rooms

it curtails my  |  very senses

my cunt is nicer  |  inside me so truly

 are you inside me?  |  come on in, i say!

enter me  |  discover...

coy voices amid tresses  |  rustle over mossy dens

muscles strain over coy dins  |  truss

strain over me  |  over you

i'm over you!  |  scram!!

no...stay...  |  sorry...

i'm nervous...  |  i've scorned so many, it's cruel

my clit needs  |  some service

render it  |  nicely

man o  |  r lady

or not  |  i don't assume

my selves: ins or outs  |  clear? no

alive? yes  |  a mess

i love me  |  i love me not

i love me  |  rebeccah ulm 2012

I might try to make an animation of the process for the next one, or possibly mess with the colors of the paper/letters, or test out different fonts.  I like the scale of this one--it's 3" x 4.5", so it's pretty small, but that makes for a nice, hand-held, intimate experience I think.  Maybe I'll experiment with larger pages eventually, but this works for now.