Flashback to January/2012: Melt/ Crystalize

During the only significant snowfall of this past winter, I made a snowball with a red/pink center, then used a heat gun to slowly melt it.

I recorded the process.  Sadly, the camera's battery ran out and the sun went down before I could completely melt the snowball, but I used the footage I got to make a video.  I sped up the footage to four times its original rate and reversed it so that it ends up as a fully formed snowball again.  Here's a low-res version of that video:

Here are some process stills I pulled from the video recording (note how much clearer they are...stupid video file size limits...): 

And here are some images I took during the act itself: 

It was a pretty spontaneous thing--when I did it, I was thinking about using heat to carve out an architectural interior space in the snow over time, without ever touching the snow.  The color was a playful element--I thought it would be more exciting if there was a reveal involved in the process.  It also made it sort of bodily, like the snow was bleeding, or growing orifices.  When I showed it to my class, the professor suggested that there was some sexual tension between the heat gun and the responsive snow.  I honestly hadn't been thinking consciously about that dynamic when I made this, but I can definitely see how he got there.  This is an important piece for me to look back on because it was my first concrete experiment with video as a medium, and because it involved me performing an action.

More Self-Portraits...

9/11/12  2:02AM  (1.25" x 1.75") pencil on paper

9/11/12  2:08AM  (1.25" x 1.75")  pencil on paper

9/11/12  2:15AM  (2" x 2")  pencil on paper

9/11/12  2:22AM  (6.75" x 5.5")  pencil on paper

9/11/12  6:38AM  (2" x 2")  pencil on paper

9/11/12  6:45AM  (2" x 2")  pencil on paper

9/12/12  12:35AM  (2" x 2")  pencil on paper

9/12/12  12:40AM  (4.25" x 5.5")  pencil on paper

9/12/12  12:46AM  (2" x 2") pencil on paper

9/17/12  12:42AM  (5.5" x 6.5")  pencil on paper

9/18/12  12:18AM  (2" x 2")  pencil on paper

9/18/12  12:26AM  (2" x 2") pencil on paper

9/21/12  2:38AM  (3.5" x 5.25")  marker and pencil on paper

9/21/12  2:51AM  (1.5" x 2")  marker and pencil on paper

9/21/12  2:59AM  (1.5" x 2")  marker and pencil on paper

9/21/12  3:06AM  (1" x 1.5")  marker and pencil on paper

9/21/12  3:11AM  (1" x 1")  pencil on paper

Anagram Thing

Lately, I've been doing this experimental thing where I take a phrase, break it down to its letters, use those letters to form new words, then build new phrases from those words.  It's a challenge, because I can only use words that can be built out of the letters of the original phrase, but I like doing it because it allows me to deconstruct a given thing and create something new out of it.  It becomes this delightful kind of surprise to see what words are possible, and to use them in a way that feels productive, or constructive, like a weird little microcosm of any form of reactionary process that turns creative.

It's extremely time consuming though and requires a lot of mental energy from me.   I am interested in language as a mode of expression/ communication, and words do hold a special fascination for me, but I don't really consider myself a writer or a poet or anything, so doing this feels much more intellectual than intuitive.

Right now, I'm working off of the phrase, "F o r c i b l e R a p e" just because it's so outrageous and because it makes me so angry.  I'd like to eventually also apply this process or system or whatever it is to phrases that I love/ to phrases that inspire me, and see where those go.  But for right now, using this phrase makes me feel like I have some agency, like I have the power to break down ignorant rhetoric and manipulate it into something else, something of my own invention.  Because that's what language is all about, right?  Agency over language is freedom.

I don't know if the reconstituted phrases themselves are all that impressive, but the act of the transformation itself feels significant.  I'm still fooling around with it.  Hopefully I'll have some from other phrases soon.

I'll post some of my favorites so far anyway:

F o r c i b l e R a p e

Par for a force

Feral foal

Race free of briar or bear

I ace

Able pace

Core force of lace

Oracle of RIP

I feel for a fable face,

Rip a pear for a pier,

A corbel place for rebel ire,

Replace a role

For a piece of ol' coal--rare ore,

Price of a floe of ice polar

Rile a friar robe

Real?
Rebel!
Replace!

File for a free piece of peace

Fear lore--fold for bare bile and clear coal

20 Self Portraits

I've been doing this thing where, instead of sleeping, I grab a bunch of old sketchbook paper, markers, pens and thread, and I sit in the glow of my laptop playing Robyn on repeat and draw what it feels like to have my face.  Here are the results so far:

(4.5" x 5.5") pen on paper

9/7/12  4:11AM  (4.25" x 6") pen on paper

9/7/11  4:13AM  (4.25" x 6") pen on paper

9/7/12  4:15AM  (4.5" x 6") pen on paper

9/7/12  4:17AM  (4.25" x 6") pen on paper

9/7/12  4:20AM  (4.25" x 6") pen on paper

9/7/12  4:24AM  (4.25" x 6") pen on paper

9/17/12  4:59AM  (4.25" x 5.5") pen, thread, paper

9/17/12  5:10AM  (3.5" x 5.25") pen, marker, and post-its on paper

9/7/12  5:39 AM; 9:59AM;  9/9/12  4:40AM (3.5" x 5.25")  marker and thread on paper

9/7/12  8:55AM  (5.5" x 8.5")  marker on paper

9/7/12  9:01AM  (5.5" x 8.5")  marker on paper

9/7/12  9:15AM  (5.5" x 8.5") marker on paper

9/7/12  3:18PM  (5.5" x 8.5")  marker on paper

9/7/12  4:29PM  (3.5" x 5.25")  marker and thread on paper

9/10/12  4:37AM  (5.5" x 8.5")  marker on paper

9/10/12  4:42AM  (4.25" x 5.5")  marker on paper

9/10/12  4:48AM  (4.25" x 5.5")  pen on paper

9/10/12  4:51AM  (3.5" x 5.25")  marker on paper

9/10/12  4:56AM  (3.5" x 5.25")  pen and marker on paper

Presently Inspirational

Barbara Kruger's pro-choice art-activism:

Jenny Holzer's Truisms, circulated via billboards, marquees, projections, t-shirts, etc. 

Some favorites:  

Adrian Piper's Calling Cards:

Yoko Ono's Cut Piece: