JENNIFER MAO

2011-08-30T22:59:00.000-07:00

FEELINGS THROUGH EXPERIENCE THROUGH MEMORIES THROUGH FORGETTING

work life

2011-08-23T22:14:00.001-07:00

2011-08-22T23:01:00.001-07:00

Matters

2011-08-21T00:00:00.001-07:00

At some point, I found myself less interested in using photography in a self-reflexive way. I wanted to make images that were conscious of their contextual limitations by not laying claim to total objectivity, but nevertheless attempted to reflect enduring conditions that can be observed and felt through everyday movements within the world. Meaning: being satisfied with partial knowledge, instead of being preoccupied with the impossible condition of having all perspectives on any given thing.

These most recent images are more focused on the particulars of found environments - and, by proxy, the specificity of circumstances. I have so many questions. How can observing these particulars lend some insight into how everyday human problems are resolved on an anonymous and universal level? And, more importantly, how does the coincidental + uncanny + humorous + unpredictable arrangement of manmade and natural objects (as a byproduct of everyday human activity) undercover basic patterns of behaviors and needs, ranging from the aesthetic to the pragmatic?

I'm trying to think about these relationships between objects and the forces that act upon them and with one another. What are the consequences of one thing coming up against or becoming entangled with or rubbing off upon or being conceptually or physically similar to another? How changeable are all of these things? How much of these things should be changed?

I'm constantly searching to find a balance within all situations as they relate to time. What is the connective thread through conditions that seem permanent (i.e; a root growing into a curb, a contradictory intersection of street-signs), things that can be shifted or changed easily, and therefore seem precarious (a crooked concrete fence, a plank propping open a window), and situations that are immensely transient (combustion, cloud formation, any physical gesture a person can make)?

It the end, it all comes down to a matter of perspective. The relation from micro to macro, and vice versa. How can certain assumptions be extrapolated or consolidated, depending on scale? It all matters. (And, they're all matters.)

2011-08-16T23:19:00.000-07:00

2011-08-15T20:24:00.000-07:00

2011-08-14T20:18:00.001-07:00

internal logic systems

2011-08-14T14:33:00.000-07:00

mystery/majesty, exterior/interior

incongruence of object

individually + between things

fulcrums, inorganic and organic

slippages between meanings

slippages between forms

decay over time, (prolonged, immediate, intermediate)

doom

through: pessimism

stagnation / balance

opposition across physical dualities / conceptual manifestations

aggregation of identical platonic forms

aggregation of identical semantics

contradictory states of being, the impossibility of two things occupying the same space

transitivity of places/faces

space

2011-08-07T19:18:00.000-07:00

Somewhere along the line, losing sight of context. What happens when you don't have the end in mind? Walking through the city nowadays gives me itchy feet, so instead I play this game where I try to narrow the scope of my vision, eliminate the peripherals so that I could be in Chicago, or Memphis, or Marfa, or anywhere, really.

I watched a documentary where a famous director describes writing like ironing a shirt - how you start at the collar and iron down a few inches, and then you start over from the top and smooth out everything you've done, and then the wrinkles a bit further down.... I am trying to rethink how to frame and unframe everyday experience, how to fathom/reconcile being grounded in multiple universes, constructing strategies for defining and finding satisfaction.

Non-academic life means that there are no longer any arbitrary or logical limitations on most things, and the trickiest thing so far has been to try to set up constructs to sustain a sense of inquisitiveness and exploration, consistently trying to remain firmly grounded in the realm of comparison and contrast, and to find a new way of operating outside of white walls and compensated curiosity.

Mostly, this means that I'm trying to prioritize different things: traveling, and doing a lot of walking and reading, and performing acts of addition and subtraction, and formulating better methods for mental note-taking. Basically, it boils down to trying to exercise tiny shifts in perspective. I'm becoming more at ease with the idea of taking a lot of photographs without much connectivity or conceptual intent, relying on the fundamental understanding that it comes from the same fundamental source - of circumstantial matters, of things that matter.

Sharpening the saw.

lately

2011-07-18T01:21:00.000-07:00

it's getting easier to do some things.

The Open Work

2011-07-10T22:46:00.000-07:00

'The "openness" and dynamism of an artistic work consist in factors which make it susceptible to a whole range of integrations. They provide it with organic complements which they graft into the structural vitality which the work already possesses, even if it is incomplete. This structural vitality is still seen as a positive property of the work, even though it admits of all kinds of different conclusions and solutions for it.'

2011-07-01T00:48:00.000-07:00

the long hand of the law

2011-05-30T13:12:00.000-07:00

the satisfying snap of using a ruler to draw a clean line

a dried flowering branch absorbing water in a mason jar

the reflection of a green traffic light on the plasticky sheen of roadside shrubs at night

2011-04-06T12:23:00.000-07:00

"life was good, and i filled my lungs with it"

Zoe Strauss - America

2011-03-31T13:46:00.000-07:00

American Face Paint Making Out, Philadelphia, PA

TVs Under Tarp, Philadelphia, PA

Christine, Camden, NJ

Pardon Our Dust, Las Vegas, NV

Man Shot in Leg on Gurney, Philadelphia, PA

White Trash Whorse and I Love You, Camden, NJ

Merry Christmas House, Philadelphia, PA

Ken and Don, Las Vegas, NV

What is it about this book that is so extraordinary? It may be, without exaggeration, one of the most terrific photo books that I have ever seen. It isn't the sort of work that typically holds much interest for me these days - probably a residual effect of graduating from a photography program with a more conceptual (is that even the appropriate term to use anymore?) bent, and the accompanying skepticism of the decisive moment. And yet. There is something about this book that moves me, despite these pre-existing conditions, that makes me want to grab everybody and say, "LOOK AT THIS BOOK", which I don't say very often (and never on the internet), which hopefully says something because it really is something exceptional.

Strauss's edit is expansive, and overwhelmingly inclusive (in fact, my one complaint about the book is that it seems too claustrophobic in some places - there are plenty of images that could have held their own across a two-page spread). Emergent patterns arise across differing geographies: the architecture and attire of checkout lines and their clerks, universal behaviors revealed when being photographed by a stranger, the inevitable tension between the protection and display of possessions. She is unfailingly generous with her context, providing descriptive titles for every photograph, and often pulls the curtain aside with commentary and conversations that continue to tie her to her subjects. These subjects are, all at once, unyielding, indifferent, desperate, defiant, exuberant, weary, courageous.

The images collectively defy categorization or definition, refuses to collapse neatly underneath any project description less broad than the loaded idea of 'America'. Under most circumstances, I would be tempted to dismiss the label as a cop-out, a sloppy evasion - but in this case, there is a balance that asserts itself through the ambition and scope of the book's approach. Strauss miraculously manages to pull the various threads of the story in a dozen different directions, providing a counterpoint to every point, a Jehovah's Witness for a crack addict, a gunshot wound against a newly inked tattoo of devotion. For every figure, a complementary focus on ground. This attentiveness to the latter is the book's saving grace - what propels it from the realm of 'good' to 'extraordinary', what makes the whole worth more than the sum of its parts, and worth looking at, again and again. It's clear that Strauss doesn't see the grim context of this surrounding landscape as static, but as an environment that mirrors its inhabitants' constant transformation from decay to growth (and back again), with all of the suffering and joy that occurs along the way. This empathy can be seen in one of the best images in the book, documenting a graffitied wall with two overlaid messages: "White trash whorse go home", and, "I love you". It's impossible to tell which came first.

Ostensibly, these photographs seem to be about survival. But in the end, Strauss manages to cobble together a compelling look at something similar, but much more elusive: life, with all of its collapsed complications, and how our contradictory impulses towards and against everything are reflected in the spaces that we inhabit - our mantles, billboards, buildings, bodies. The messages on the streets of Strauss's America lay these paradoxes bare: "Everything is not $1.00", "We Love Having You Here", and "Pardon Our Dust". And in the end, after all of the beatings and handstands, scars and sloppy kisses, simply, "We will win".

[Side note: Though you can find all of the images online, it is 100% worth the trouble to locate a hard copy - (something that I wouldn't necessarily say is true of all photo books) - there is an entire other dimension of pleasure in the book's sequencing of images, not to mention Strauss's commentary. Seattlites: you can find it at the Capitol Hill public library, Elliott Bay bookstore, etc. And, of course, on Amazon for criminally cheap, if you want a copy of your own.]

2011-02-22T23:59:00.000-08:00

2011-02-14T00:26:00.000-08:00

back from CA for the forseeable /near future.

immediate priorities: physical and proverbial unpacking, reorganization, reviving old projects, healing, and making a book.

any leads re: the latter (esp; wisdom and potential places in seattle to investigate potentially self-producing an extremely limited run of color books, or good presses/print shops in the area), you know how to find me.

Mother

2011-01-16T15:03:00.000-08:00

Maurizio Cattelan, Mother

Documentation of an installation created for the 1999 Venice Biennale. Cattelan arranged for a fakir, a holy man trained in actions of endurance, to be buried in a mound of earth—leaving only his hands exposed to the air.

"It is an image of hope, implying that ultimately we have the capacity to escape our destiny, our roots, our obsessions and nightmares. As individuals and as artists, we have the ability to bloom from the ground like plants, which grow, no matter what the circumstances, because it is their nature and their obligation to do so… Like the fakir, he [Cattelan] explores the possibility of survival underground, and of finding the energy to re-emerge under an open sky."

This is a time in my life when it seems possible to be touched by everything.

2010-12-15T22:05:00.000-08:00

let's talk about bones.

let's talk about the synchronization of three separate sounds with the same meaning, let's talk about misaligned traffic lights. let's talk about suddenlys and untils and presentlys

let's talk about color instead of time.

let's talk about parallel structure, and the name for things that repeat and repeat, and the things that don't

let's talk about how the sun can still seem extraordinary after seeing it from the exact same place twenty-three times. let's talk about somnambulism, let's talk about heat death, let's talk about the sound that a car engine makes first thing in the morning

sure enough, and not even (interchangeably)

2010-10-29T23:44:00.001-07:00

"not really, but yes, everything."

2010-10-20T23:58:00.000-07:00

“If you want to judge a good photograph, ask yourself, 'Is life like that?' The answer must be yes and no - but mostly yes.”

- Charles Harbutt

2010-10-18T00:24:00.000-07:00

the world is sometimes a strange and sad place

2010-10-14T00:20:00.000-07:00

INSTRUCTIONS:

Lie in bed without a pillow, arms at your sides, palms up.

Keep your eyes closed.

Try to find and balance on the fulcrum of your body upon this flat surface.

Inhale until you can't inhale anymore.

Exhale until you can't exhale anymore.

Repeat.

2010-10-12T23:31:00.000-07:00

"If my life means anything, it is that I am always forgetting just what it is that I want. How’s that for meaning? I have found a way to be unsatisfied by everything, and always somewhat pleasantly excited. I want to know who has ever found anything as wonderful as being a strain...held tight between two eternities. You would think I wanted to die, if you didn’t know me better. It is more that in truth I would like to vanish . . . You always think I am kidding. I am trying to define happiness by what I have actually got and go on from there."

- Kenneth Koch

2010-10-03T14:59:00.000-07:00

let the world change you

2010-10-01T21:59:00.000-07:00

the voice is saying, build a wall

there are a few things that one has to accept when you believe in circumstances rather than fate

there are certain wisdoms that accompany becoming aware of the distinction between balance + counteraction

there is a moment of understanding in being sensitive to the rush of red blood cells away from the heart, slow-motion hallelujah

there is great tenderness in the implication of tiny movements, like washed plastic bottles and the sensation of two lines unfolding

2010-09-20T01:15:00.000-07:00

"I’m attracted to the enormous, important matters of life that take place on a small, everyday scale. Nabokov, a favorite writer of mine, pays incredible attention to details, like a glass breaking. In our culture everything which is large and grandiose is assumed important, and everything which is small is considered of less importance. I don’t think that way. I’m interested in a gesture or an expression on someone’s face. And that gets paralleled in the object-making world as well."

- Barbara Bloom

2010-07-13T22:26:00.001-07:00

an affirmation of personhood, of before and after, of staying up late and cartwheeling in foreign zip codes and of long distance phone calls. and of doing things you love, doing things with love, and always feeling grateful for having it, for having so much of it in late night phonemes and phone calls, in plane tickets and pieces of larger things. in anticipation of drives across open fields in the daytime, of making the best of what you've been given, of taking the best things as they are and leaving the worst as they come.

too much time awake, too much time with rabbit hearts pounding in our throats to get to the next things to jump and jump and jump

what we need are occasional inflatable spheres and the unification of theory + practice and more precisely formed calories and notes in mailboxes and erroneous navigational signals that force us into 1, 2, 3...

step towards these endings from a different direction with sleep in your eyes and your heart in your hands, throwing that wholeness down again and again waiting for warm afternoons in the sun and two shots of espresso to remind you that it is enough, just enough, and that there will be more than weekly checkpoints and harried drives through opaque air and an odd number of parallel lines

there will

2010-06-21T23:30:00.000-07:00

ready.

2010-06-15T00:41:00.000-07:00

i love the internet, the end

2010-06-10T10:59:00.000-07:00

2010-06-09T11:04:00.000-07:00

the hours have now taken on the quality of a slow motion daydream, while i try to take note of things to remember during this last week of the closest thing to freedom that i'll ever know again;

the life i have been making for the past five years whispers to a close, summer mania withdrawing in the face of a few more weeks of winter drizzle. never enough time for afternoons on the shore, slow walks down median lines, thumbing through paperbacks, feeling the strangeness of everything.

one last retreat to a house that i did some growing up in, feeling a skepticism with the idea of 'home' until waking up in the morning and feeling overwhelmed with a specific combination of old magazines, seldom-used furniture, and worn blankets - remembering, this is and was always mine;

some things can't be unremembered, like the precise muscle memory to back a car our of a driveway, or the way that the light looks through a particular window on a rainy day.

there is some sort of untouched innocence about this place that i have been privileged to know - this city, with its roundabouts, and its reverence and irreverence for certain things, with its dog parks and gourmet cupcake shops and courteous distance between bodies on buses. it seems good to remember that there are no cities that are fundamentally different from any other, when you really get down to it; there are always walled structures, and ceilings, and strong-arm robberies, and sunny days, and fire hydrants, and couples that take up the whole sidewalk when holding hands, and and and...

it's time to make my own way, to immerse myself in dusty heat and gluesticks, to feel as if the consequences of something belong irrevocably to me, to move things with my own two hands.

still, there are some things that i am hoping to do yet - driving in the desert at sundown while listening to talk radio, taking continental trains through in-between bits of real estate that normally are not worth noting, to make videos out of windows and to rediscover the joy of 36 exposures, to say hello to an ocean on another coast. there will be time, sooner or later, for this, and to work in the dirt, and for bike rides, and for feeling part of larger things.

there's time.

self portrait at 28

2010-05-28T16:37:00.001-07:00

It is a certain hill
the one I imagine when I hear the word "hill"
and if the apocalypse turns out
to be a world-wide nervous breakdown
if our five billion minds collapse at once
well I'd call that a surprise ending
and this hill would still be beautiful
a place I wouldn't mind dying
alone or with you.

2010-05-28T16:35:00.001-07:00

ARS LONGA
VITA BREVIS

some other things that are good

2010-05-28T16:12:00.000-07:00

zev schmitz

stevie decanay

(who, incidentally, plays in BUCKCHERRY.)

Ragna Robertsdottir

how i feel lately

2010-05-28T16:05:00.000-07:00

erwin wurm - one minute sculptures

2010-05-26T14:43:00.001-07:00

live moons
live lemons
live boys in bathing suits

2010-05-25T15:29:00.000-07:00

"One day i will find the words, and they will be simple."
- Kerouac

"Really looking and observing is hard, and you can’t do it by following a formula. What connects...is finding the right balance between intention and chance, doing as much as I can and knowing when to let go, allowing fluidity, and avoiding anything being forced."
- Tillmans

i am a bad blogger

2010-05-19T10:41:00.000-07:00

some things floating around in my reader;

nikki graziano

jessica williams

black and wtf

joel galvin

katharina trudzinski

J1studio

this is a strange time. it's hard to contemplate the endings to certain things when the habits/details have become so entrenched in daily routine - when you've traced and retraced the same steps to different ends and you know how the clouds move during the day when you are laying on a blanket and looking at the sky. there is nothing left to do now but wait, putting faith in unknown places and and putting off the selling and packing and purge of unwanted things because it seems like too big a step to take. so instead, there are sunrises, open windows, savoring the luxury of sleeping in just ten minutes too late. these days, our appetites are saved for drinking in smoothies and the sun on our faces, trying to mentally record everything that happens, always for the first and last time.

2010-05-09T21:02:00.000-07:00

big thanks to everyone who came out last night - you all are the bee's knees.

the only thing separating you from everything else is time

2010-05-01T19:19:00.000-07:00

The Only Thing Separating You From Everything Else is Time

The Only Thing Separating You From Everything Else is Time is an exhibition of photographs which draw from the experience of taking the Trans-Siberian Railroad - the longest continuous rail line in the world. Though the geography and composition of the train's interior was in a state of constant flux, time emerged as the only measure from the outside world that remained relevant. Time – and the concepts of distance and speed inherently bound to it – became the most succinct connector between the body, other objects and passengers, and the ever-changing external environment.

The photographs within the exhibition look to find universal commonalities between objects and behaviors. Images made during the journey are presented within a larger continuum of events that occurred before and after, further exploring temporality as a unifying factor across varying contexts of everyday experience. In creating a disparate network of documents that are tenuously and temporally related, the viewer is encouraged to uncover hidden meanings, forge unexpected connections, and construct a variety of conclusions.

Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Jennifer Mao now lives and works in Seattle. She will be graduating this spring from the University of Washington with degrees in photography and psychology. She is interested in anything and everything, including but not limited to: everyday magic, chain reactions among things and people, and pictures of cats on the internet.

Opening Reception: May 8th, 7-9 PM.

Show runs May 8th through June 9th 2010

20twenty is open from 11-7 Monday-Saturday & 11-5 on Sunday.

http://twentytwentyballard.blogspot.com/

life as it has been for the past five years is almost over. please come by on Saturday evening, if you are free! it will be a great time to catch up, get down, and say goodbyes.

BFA show

2010-04-08T17:12:00.000-07:00

hello, friends! sorry that we have been so much like strangers!

life has been a whirlwind of getting ready for The Future, and finishing the work that is currently on view here.

the closing party will be this upcoming saturday, from 2-4 PM. work will be up at the jacob lawrence gallery (on the ground floor of the Art Building), as well as in the skinny gallery + room 9, downstairs in the basement.

there will be tons of tasty work, and tasty treats. and fun!

it would be lovely to see you all there.

2010-02-28T01:16:00.000-08:00

ughghgh

2010-01-31T14:32:00.001-08:00

2010-01-28T16:56:00.000-08:00

endlessly folding outwards and inwards - there is too much, and not enough, and just enough.

lots of things to show you soon.

2010-01-15T12:44:00.000-08:00

CONJECTURES OF

EXPERIMENTS FOR

ILLUSION OF

POSTULATIONS OF

HYPOTHESES FOR

OSTENSIBLE

SUGGESTIONS FOR

GUISES OF

PROTOTYPES OF

2010-01-13T23:03:00.000-08:00

2010-01-13T22:50:00.000-08:00

2010-01-13T22:45:00.000-08:00

WAYS OF BREAKING THINGS DOWN
WAYS OF BREAKING THINGS
WAYS OF REPLENISHING THINGS FROM NOTHING
WAYS OF KNOWING
WAYS OF HEALING
WAYS OF CIRCLING AND EVADING THE SAME OLD THING
WAYS OF NAVIGATING
WAYS OF COPING WITH MULTIPLE TRUTHS
WAYS OF SORTING
WAYS OF ASSUAGING DISCOMFORT AND COMFORT
WAYS OF KEEPING THINGS SAFE
WAYS OF REFUSING WHAT IS GIVEN TO YOU
WAYS OF EXPRESSING TENDERNESS
WAYS OF NEVER REACHING DESTINATIONS
WAYS OF EXERCISING NOSTALGIA
WAYS OF EXERCISING SKEPTICISM
WAYS OF GIVING AND TAKING
WAYS OF GIVING YOURSELF AWAY
WAYS OF FINDING BETTER SOLUTIONS
WAYS OF ENGAGING THE HYPOTHETICAL
WAYS OF LOSING
WAYS OF STANDING STILL
WAYS OF SAYING YES AND NO

brad troemel

2010-01-13T10:48:00.000-08:00

"The point of art is not to create art out of thin air but to find what is meaningful out of everything in the world."

2010-01-10T20:21:00.000-08:00

hello, friends. sorry that we have been so out of touch! most of the new year so far has been momentarily losing sanity, regaining it, trying to slow down in every sense of the term.

trying to step back a little from art-making to get some perspective and reclaim some breath; in the meantime, have channeled these impulses into other things;

so far, everything seems altogether mysterious but manageable - getting to the root of some problems, and always, always, discovering new ones.

2010-01-06T08:53:00.000-08:00

this is a photo that i took more than five years ago. i found it on my hard drive yesterday; it was named, 'home'. in retrospect, it seems to be both more and less true, even though it feels like a place/concept that doesn't exist anymore.

2009-12-31T00:38:00.000-08:00

like walking home at night, exhaling sharply staring at the moon, steaming up your glasses

like running your hand under a cold faucet after touching scalding hot water and having it activate the panic pain reflexes just the same

like sitting on a carpet smelling like formaldehyde having a shared dream about human connection

2009-12-23T12:58:00.000-08:00

"it's only a rerun of the same glow and noise"

2009-12-18T13:39:00.000-08:00

2009-12-14T13:42:00.000-08:00

wolfgang tillmans

marc warren jacques

kalle sanner

james turrell

David Maljkovic

daniel eatock

andreia chaves, the invisible shoe

two simultaneously conflicting + complimentary quotes

2009-12-14T09:18:00.001-08:00

"Today it is apparent that...scientists and artists are more like one another as artisans than they are like anyone else. For our purposes of discussing the nature of happening in the world of things, the differences between science and art are nevertheless irreducible, quite as much so as the differences between reason and feeling, between necessity and freedom. Although a common gradient connects use and beauty, the two are irreducibly different: no tool can be fully explained as a work of art, nor vice versa. A tool is always intrinsically simple, however elaborate its mechanisms may be, but a work of art, which is a complex of many stages and levels of criss-crossed intentions, is always intrinsically complicated, however simple its effect may seem."

- The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things

“I want the art to be a kind of instrument for people to use for their own benefit. Art is not for entertainment, and it’s not for pleasure. It’s about something else altogether. Art is a tool. If someone, after looking at the work, can see things they never saw before in reality, that is one of the most important accomplishments for me... [What is really important about art is] the possibility to see things differently. The objects are just vehicles for awareness.”

- Gabriel Orozco

the only separating you from everything else is time

2009-12-13T21:28:00.001-08:00

Two Ways (Six Ways)

Universe

The Universe and Me

Moment

Past Future Selves

Threshold

more of an exercise than an exhibition. creating a variety of seemingly disparate objects while thinking about the magnitude of minute miscommunications, the inherent physicality of one’s position, and the existence of infinite viewpoints for tangible and intangible things alike. trying to emphasize the subjective discovery of common denominators between disparate objects and events (and the value of these connectors within an increasingly complicated environment structured by information superhighways, optimization, excess).

2009-12-13T03:24:00.000-08:00

sleepy wintertime dream monster

2009-12-12T17:18:00.001-08:00

“Art does not transcend everyday preoccupations, it confronts us with reality by the way of the remarkable nature of any relationship to the world, through make-believe.”

- Nicolas Bourriaud

versus

2009-12-11T14:31:00.000-08:00

Frieze Magazine: People often think that there are too many images in the world and that we have become numb to them, but from what you’ve been saying it’s almost as though your practice is trying to prove the opposite – that we’re still alert, and that we’re still intelligent about images, and that there can be necessary pictures, ones which aren’t redundant from the start.

Wolfgang Tillmans: Absolutely. There are people who have no joy in viewing – who have no joy in life, perhaps. I think people don’t observe enough. I’m a great believer in observation. My first passion in life was astronomy.

2009-12-10T22:20:00.001-08:00

2009-11-20T14:41:00.000-08:00

"You can feel struggle with what to do in this world with billions of pictures. I think there's a strain of photography going for something more physical, so you're seeing a lot of cut up, photograms, one of a kind objects. I'm naturally a sucker for that, because I like that stuff, but I don't think that's a long term answer, it's just a side effect. I think there is a hunger merging these pictures, how to tell stories, how to use new technology online to do it. This is more in photo journalism circles, but I see it in fine art photography too, aching to get beyond the single picture. I see these two things happening. If I were 20 years old, I think I'd be on the cusp, like being a photographer in 1942. An incredible revolution is taking place, it's very exciting, and no one's figured out how it's going to work, but something's big is going to happen."

- Alex Soth

2009-11-12T10:57:00.000-08:00

Andrew Lauman

Maryanne Casasanta

Sandrine Pelletier

2009-11-10T23:53:00.001-08:00

2009-11-07T17:52:00.000-08:00

food for thought.

2009-11-07T16:24:00.001-08:00

2009-11-07T16:13:00.000-08:00

the things that make the most sense

2009-11-04T18:47:00.001-08:00

2009-10-29T21:06:00.000-07:00

post trans-siberian (and being manmade mountains)

2009-10-29T02:49:00.000-07:00

back from eighteen thousand miles of looking and making, the constant act of leaving, along with the abandoning of familiar circadian rhythms one step behind as the horizon rearranges, warp and weft.

there are incidental details - imaginary boundaries between places, the exchanging of various kinds of paper for entrance, exit, dehydrated potatoes, points in a game. there is constant comparison, there is the increased awareness of infrastructure: close wooden slats arranged in the tempo of eighth notes, arrangements of interlocking logs and felt, simple structures and methods for the basics of warmth, the constant battle to keep things from falling down and apart. thousands of words in foreign languages which settle into white noise, occasionally punctuated by staccato bursts of momentary understanding. a constant process (struggle and endeavor) of trying to maintain certain necessary routines amidst these places of constant change. home makes and remakes itself faster with every temporary destination, parameters shifting until it simply becomes a space where you can rest for more than a minute. and in between these vigorous spans of disciplining the body, there are times devoted to empty bottles, familiar vowels and consonants reformed in slightly foreign accents, purposeful and purposeless walking while thinking holy, holy, holy;

coming back, there are hundreds of images to scan and examine, to fit together. simultaneously, trying to remember and evaluate the particulars of old habits. more soon.

2009-10-14T05:57:00.001-07:00

being on the road condenses tends to complicated life experiences into something a little more comprehensible, like thin electric filaments, a hole in the ground, four walls existing in perpendicular angles.

sleep less drink more eat up the miles and be stupidly grateful for every single thing that you have, and you don't

stomach pulsations, an acute awareness of your body, the in and out way of things

2009-10-03T02:15:00.000-07:00

hello from moscow

2009-09-30T15:46:00.001-07:00

tomas saraceno

sarah conaway

francisco infante-arana and nonna gorunova

btw

2009-09-30T13:26:00.001-07:00

i'll be leaving soon.

(moscow/irkutsk/ulan bataar/beijing, and all points in between.)

advice

2009-09-29T16:08:00.001-07:00

make something out of nothing

on biographical readings

2009-09-24T12:49:00.000-07:00

"Whereas psychologists have assumed universality, many scholars in other fields believe that Westerners and East Asians have maintained very different systems of thought for thousands of years...most who have addressed the question hold that European thought rests on the assumption that the behavior of objects - physical, animal, and human - can be understood in terms of straightforward rules. Westerners have a strong interest in categorization, which helps them to know what rules to apply to the objects in question, and formal logic plays a role in problem solving. East Asians, in contrast, attend to objects in their broad context. The world seems much more complex to Asians than Westerners, and understanding events always requires consideration of a host of factors that operate in relation to one another in no simple, deterministic way."

- Richard Nisbett, The Geography of Thought

In most cases, I have little patience for purely biographical readings in relation to literature or other arts. occasionally, bringing in knowledge of an artist's personal background to inform one's understanding or interpretation of their work makes perfect sense. For instance, it is a perfectly legitimate (and perhaps necessary?) strategy to take individual and social identity heavily into account for artists who choose to specifically engage with these issues.

However, I have never been convinced that assessing my own work in regards to femininity or feminism (with the accompanying baggage of such terms) was a valid strategy. Nor am I particularly interested in the specificity of a first generation Chinese-American's experience. That being said, while I can't deny that these factors have played an immeasurable part in my development as a human being, and subsequent interests as an artist, it also seems reductive to scrutinize the work solely through the lens of personal identity.

The Geography of Thought was published in 2003. In the six years that have passed since its publication, psychology as a field seems to have lost quite a few of the old suppositions that Nisbett described (if my personal experience studying psychology at the university is any sort of accurate barometer). There is no longer quite as vigorous debate across dichotomies - not only in fundamental oppositions such as nature versus nuture, but even in the way that "disorders" are viewed, assessed and treated. The movement away from thinking about the world in terms of clear boundaries also implicates an increased awareness of spectrums over discrete catagorizations. The literature that I have been exposed to have always carefully emphasized the possibility of unforseen interactions, and complicated relationships between events, individuals, and their environment. Put in the context of the The Geography of Thought, (which is admittedly a bit abbreviated in the way that popular non-fiction books can sometimes be), it appears as if Western and Eastern ways of thinking are starting to converge.

Though the above discussion may seem tangential in some ways, it occurs to me that the "Eastern" worldview demonstrated in my interest in examining complex relationships between numerous elements is also directly reflected in my reluctance to have my work read, (or to read the work of others) by a particular biological or sociological standard.

As simplistic as Nisbett's definitions can be (given, the above quote was from the introduction), there is something interesting about setting up the compulsion of categorize and isolate in opposition to thinking about relationships between things in holistic context. Just looking back at previous blog entries, scribblings, and notes that I keep, there is quite a noticeable presence of obsessive list-making and other structured attempts of description, which interestingly contradicts my self-professed interest in representations of the world as dependent on context. An interesting thing to discover, given my ostensibly American upbringing by immigrant parents. Point is, I suppose you should never presume that you know everything about yourself, which I suspect may be the key to becoming wise.

recent brainwaves thanks to

2009-09-18T16:09:00.000-07:00

yasuhiro okamoto [via]

[via]

sugimoto

seth fluker

kevin appel [via]

noland [via]

trying to be conscious/cognizant of different manifestations of structures and how they relate to perceptual processes and ways of sensemaking

dig deep

2009-09-18T14:48:00.000-07:00

speed

static vs stagnant

intermediary, intermediates

A and B, A to B, A and B

relativity

relations/relational

circumnavigations, (infinite points of view)

directionality, orientation

gaps between synapses

fluid systems, adaptations within

object-based vs connector-based

linear representation

network organization

coexisting organic within (and/or), outside the inorganic

breakdown of logical orders leading to the creation of others

bukowski

2009-09-14T16:37:00.001-07:00

it is good to be sitting some place
in public at 2:30 in the afternoon
without getting the flesh ripped from
your bones.

make me some maps!

2009-09-10T11:25:00.000-07:00

okay - so i finally buckled down and got it done;

http://www.jennifermao.com/works/the-memory-map-project/

more info on the site about my thinking behind making these maps, as well as additional info about how to submit a map (or maps! i'm not restricting submissions to 1 per person) of your own. while i'm not associating the map creator's name with their resulting map by default, i am embroidering verbatim the drawing/text from the original submissions - so provide any context in your submission that you would want to see in the final product.

big thanks + much love to everyone who has already submitted. i have a few more in the works that will be uploaded as soon as they're completed.

(oh and, pass on the word! i'm looking for as many maps as possible - i want the scale of this to be BIG.)

other things;

starting a couple of projects involving tiny bits of paper.

i have been travelling a little bit recently which is making me a bit more nervous about the upcoming Trip (,capitalized) from Moscow - Beijing. all of the mundane details - the filling out of visa applications, the acquiring of odds and ends, determining cell phone frequencies and hostel bookings - are all distracting me from the knowledge that i'm leaving SOON, and from the realities of impending exhaustion, and disorientation, and trying to stumble mutely from point a to point b. all of which are, of course, an important (and maybe crucial) part of why i am going in the first place, but it's always distressingly difficult to willingly uproot oneself from a more comfortable status quo in some ways.

the other day i walked past a dead bird on the pavement, and felt really bad about most things.

i have been having pain in random places which is starting to make me feel really weird about my body as such a fragile thing.

the memory map project

2009-08-20T21:57:00.001-07:00

more on this soon, but here is a hint:

life is busy, a little complicated, and/but pretty good.

taking inventory

2009-08-19T21:48:00.000-07:00

contents of my bag, 8.19.08:

1 empty plastic bag
1 empty tupperware
1 compostable spoon
1 metal fork
1 digital camera
1 visa application, 3 pages
1 ipod cord
1 bottle cranberry supplements
1 medical assessment
3 pieces of fabric, 18"x22"
1 postal delivery confirmation receipt
1 elevator security wafer
2 bottles of prescription medication
1 stick concealer
1 bus transfer, expired
1 postal insurance receipt
1 bag of savory crackers, mostly empty
1 pack cigarettes
1 pack birth control pills
1 empty paper bag
1 post-it with written directions and map
1 moleskine notebook
1 planner
1 sheet of antacids
1 scrap piece of paper with notes to self
1 IKEA receipt
1 zipper pouch (contains 10 band-aids, 1 seam-ripper, 1 eyeliner pencil, 1 facewipe, 5 safety pins, 1 nosering in plastic bag, 2 pantiliners, 1 indentifiable white pill)
1 wallet (contains 1 student ID, 1 debit card, 3 credit cards, 1 driver's license, 1 insurance card, 1 international student ID card, 5 quarters, 5 dimes, 5 $1 bills, 1 $20 bill, 1 $5 bill, 16 receipts, 1 gift card, 1 coupon, 2 lecture tickets, 1 library card, 1 voter's registration card, 1 medical id card, 1 bus transfer, 1 punch card, 1 bank statement)
4 spools of thread (natural, candle light, black, white)
1 business card
1 quarter
1 nickel
3 cloves garlic
1 set of keys, mine
1 set of keys, not mine
1 jump drive
2 chapsticks (sliced peach, nectarine)
4 hairpins
1 bottle lotion
1 pillbox (8 ibuprofen, 1 multivitamin, 2 boric acid pills, 11 unidentifiable pills, 1 antacid)
1 lighter, working
1 lighter, non-working
1 gel pen
1 sharpie
1 navel orange
1 pack gum, spearmint
1 ipod
1 business card

some of these things are mine, and some of these things are not mine - some of these things have been given to me, some things have been forced on me, some things have been chosen by me.

all of these things apart are insignificant, though together, are a lot of weight. a lot of weight

things on my mind

2009-08-19T10:50:00.000-07:00

* **** **** **** * ****
** ** **** ******?
** ** ***** **?
* **** *** * ***
*** *** * **** ******
*'* *****

restructuring

2009-08-12T00:15:00.000-07:00

ok, so it's like this;

there are so many things in the world. there are some things that you want to explain, and there are some things that you don't, and there are too many things that you think about, and too many things that seem interesting, and relevant, and inspirational, and challenging, and worthwhile. part of it is trying to figure out how to package things, to parce and siphon things out into manageable channels, to make things seem more logical in conjunction with one another. there are things that are relevant to survival, and there are things that are relevant to personhood, and falsehood, and unlikelihood -- a lot of -hoods,-- and things that are relevant to the everyday, and then there are things that are relevant to Art (and art), and all of these things are by no means exclusive categories from one another. and the problem arises from the fact that the perceived importance of these things tends to vacillate, depending on space and time, proximity and distance.

so in another attempt at restructuring, all important and/or interesting and/or relevant things that i don't want to talk about from now on will be found here.

and everything else, the things that i do will remain here, like this:

right now, i want to talk about the relative movement of objects and bodies as they interact/exist within the world. and the difficulty or impossibility in making time visible. and trying to think about one's own self as an anchor, the definitive point by which all experiences by default must be measured.

"The reduction of space to the two-dimensional surface places everyone in a space-defining, space-creating position, for in the lost-in-space state in which we find ourselves, the only space is the relationship of the self to the surface formed by the line of the horizon."

my head in a million places/pieces. more later on the topic of everything.

hint: everything is hard, and everything is simple.

and here are some more

2009-07-31T20:13:00.001-07:00

and some more not-scans of things that have happened

2009-07-31T20:06:00.000-07:00

sorry i have been gone for so long, internet! here are some apology scans of things that have happened.

jan dibbets

2009-07-22T15:26:00.000-07:00

some new scans

2009-07-21T00:09:00.000-07:00

prelims

aaaand here it is

2009-07-16T02:01:00.001-07:00

Untitled from . . on Vimeo.

outtakes

2009-07-15T23:36:00.000-07:00

a few more shots from the trip. more project-based things coming soon when film is developed, along with an absurdly unfocused video of fireworks from the plane ride to cleveland on the night of the 4th of july.

kasper sonne

2009-07-15T14:05:00.000-07:00

Untitled sign No.2

The geometry of uncertainty (7/2 and 7/3)

The point of being pointless

his website, where you can download a pdf of all his works & associated commentary. kind of an unusual format but the text content is really rewarding, really good.

significant objects

2009-07-11T10:20:00.001-07:00

Below: a description of the Significant Objects project which explores the relationship between the subjective and objective values we assign to everyday things:
THE PROJECT:

The project’s curators purchase objects — for no more than a few dollars — from thrift stores and garage sales.
A participating writer is paired with an object. He or she then writes a fictional story, in any style or voice, about the object. An unremarkable, castoff thingamajig has suddenly become a “significant” object!
Each significant object is listed for sale on eBay. The s.o. is pictured, but instead of a factual description the s.o.’s newly written fictional story is used. However, care is taken to avoid the impression that the story is a true one; the intent of the project is not to hoax eBay customers.
The winning bidder is mailed the significant object, along with a printout of the object’s fictional story. Net proceeds from the sale are given to the respective author. Authors retain all rights to their stories.

there are a lot of things that i love about this project, including but not limited to:
arbitrary assignment of context and value, the imbuing of value in everyday things, the loving of downtrodden objects.

more about the project here
buy items (and read the stories behind them) from the project here

on a related note, this looks pretty good.

hello from cleveland!

2009-07-06T23:09:00.000-07:00

i have a love-hate relationship with the midwest. the air smells like childhood, the coffee tastes like shit, driving around lost won't give you an aneurysm, and all the houses have shutters on their windows.

mostly it is like any other place, only the lawns are larger than average, and the light is like a good dream that you never want to wake up from.

but i am getting a lot of work and thinking done about various things, so that's something, too.

exactitudes

2009-07-02T12:00:00.001-07:00

http://www.exactitudes.com/

i won't even post images, you will just have to go look for yourself.

"Rotterdam-based photographer Ari Versluis and profiler Ellie Uyttenbroek have... systematically documented numerous identities over the last 14 years. They call their series Exactitudes: a contraction of exact and attitude. By registering their subjects in an identical framework, with similar poses and a strictly observed dress code, Versluis and Uyttenbroek provide an almost scientific, anthropological record of people's attempts to distinguish themselves from others by assuming a group identity. The apparent contradiction between individuality and uniformity is, however, taken to such extremes in their arresting objective-looking photographic viewpoint and stylistic analysis that the artistic aspect clearly dominates the purely documentary element."

words become pictures

2009-06-25T09:58:00.000-07:00

About Masood Kamandy's Words Become Images project:

"The concept of this site is simple: you supply the words and I’ll create the images. The images I make in response to your words will be still and moving; single images and series. Words Become Images is a project conceived in the spirit of collaboration. This site is an invitation to all people from all backgrounds to participate in the image-making process. It comes from the desire to connect and have creative conversations with people around the world."

The photographs above were in response to the words, "The Impossible Project of Truth", submitted by Shawn Lavalette.

3 ways (of looking at the same thing)

2009-06-24T01:14:00.001-07:00

philippe ramette

2009-06-23T23:22:00.000-07:00

Philippe Ramette
by vodeo

no photoshop here, dudes.

more here

katja mater

2009-06-21T17:11:00.001-07:00

burning with desire series, in which every page of the selected books were photographed on one negative.

"The series shows pictures of the complete content of books by shooting all the pages on only one negative. I ‘show’ the entire contents, and by doing so, erase them. the result is a summary, a book shaped blur. the books i used for this project are books that were recently important to me for my thinking about photography.
The title of the project comes from one of the books i used, a book by geoffrey batchen called burning with desire. batchen writes about very early experiments with photography, starting about 45 years before its invention was announced in 1839. he analyzes the emerging desire to photograph which preceded the actual invention. he examines the output of various very early experiments by the ‘first photographers’. he finds they were not, as many historians seem to have thought, devoted to capturing reality, but that their main interest was in deconstruction."

more here

selena kimball

2009-06-10T10:42:00.001-07:00

from her 'watching the audience' series.

project description:

"For these photographs I set up the camera in the front center of the movie
screen, facing the audience, for the duration of the film. The photographic
aperture is opened at the film's title sequence and closed at the last scene. I
think of these photographs as long-term reaction shots, an accretion of
expressions shared by a crowd."

she also does some great collage work as well:

more (including much better detail shots) on her website here