Bart Station Performance

thew downtown berkeley bart station: we stationed ourselves at the bottom of the escalator in that short round building.



when choosing rush hour to do this, I do not know if it is a good choice to keep returning to the same location, to get the same crowd with different performances, or to travel from bart station to bart station with the same performance. any thoughts would be helpful. you can leave them in the comment section of the blog. thanks!

new adventures and friends

waiting for SF bus


new friends: stevie et moi


Avery and Dax


and i am wondering what it means to live the artist's life... this semester long project is meant to figure that out. being around other practicing artists is encouraging, especially when they do there 'thing' even at coffee shops, and when they can not find jobs, they make their money by commissions... and the fact that it actually works to live off of commissions blows my mind. i am witnessing real life. makes gallery life feel pretentious at moments.

take the digital away from me please!...

first step out of BART onto the Embarcadero last week


man and his cat wanting to go home.


street performances to be inspired by: THE BUSH MAN- though now the original man has been replaced, he has left a legacy of sitting on the embarcadero behind his bush, taking tourists by surprise by popping out, as if they could not have noticed him before.

Converting Cameras

Here are the two cameras to be converted.

On the left is a lens-less Kodak, with incredibly flexible and intact bellows, glass view back. I need to re attach the bellows to the front slide, and in turn for no lens, make a pin hole for its eye. As for the back, I am making it adaptable for 4x5 negative holders by extending the back of the camera out with light tight boards and velcro to hold the carrier in place.

The camera on the right is fully functional as is. But, instead of using a roll film, I want to experiment using small medium format negatives of the 3.25 x 4.25 size, available by efke films. I need to procure or make a larger changing bag for this though, due to the fact that every image made will entail the changing out for a next negative for the next shot.

First Street Performance

Today was the first street performance attempt made, and it was fortuitously amazing! After work at the lab I met up with Dax at the downtown Berkeley BART station where we proceeded to pull out his accordion, my stilts and a moth newly constructed. For an hour and a half at rush home hour, we produced so many smiles on faces that I couldn't help but want to go back again and again. We made an all time record of $20 dollars, a Sim phone card, and a poloroid (which is like gold now), all placed into a bike helmet for our makings. Essentially what we did: Dax played his accordion and sang as I danced around with his moth puppet on stilts. No attempts were made to evacuate us from the premise... which was a worry since no permit was at hand. But many people watched, smiled, took photographs and videos, all which made us have a fantastic time. It was enough inspiration to collect our dinner money every night this way!

side thoughts

January 3, 2009 I think that perhaps if one always tries to go one direction further than the known boundaries, to find out if there is some necessity out there that might be needed, one will always be happy.
Like the fish crawling out of the water billions of years ago or a man building his airplane to get off our planet, even if he only ends up hovering just slightly above in our same atmosphere, there still lies a great accomplishment: the lift.
I held today this thin insect, two wings and five legs, (five legs leaving me wondering if he knew he was missing one) in cupped hands as I sat on the edge of the door to the boat as the sun set. As it became darker a star was brought up on the surface of the still water next to the dock. Friends sing and play thick intruments now in the center landing of the cabin, I think that they could be in La Boheme, though in the style of post-industrial-folk-noir-yachtrock. I wonder if this independent study is coming together, and I wonder what is the next step. I think I need to do more- spelling out what needs to be done seems to be like a fifth grade bubble map upon light green lines on white pages. but it really helps. the internet connection is so unpredictable here that i can not spell check or upload photographs to show the cameras i am converting yet, but they will be posted soon. I work now every day at the photolab as a sort of secretary. it takes up a bit too much time, something that i need to remedy, because my shifts are in the middle of the day, 11-4, so day walks are limited to the weekends or rushed in the am/pm. . . benefits are great though, discovering them slowly.

Boat Construct

a few ideas coming forth have finally landed in a conglomeration:

Starting with my first gandering walk in SF along the embarcadero, I had been pondering my new floating home on the marina. Seeing this building:
















I mixed it with these in my mind:




and while listening to a lullaby that a new friend of mine wrote about sewing a winding sheet into a sail for a boat...

i came up with something like this: (with the help of the constructing mind of dax tran-caffee)















and voila:






that is all that will be let on for now. essentially, a boat is puppeted, inverting itself into a home upon the breaking of its' sail, and once sunk, will become a ship, once again.

ingredients are:

a very large glass beaker and stand

boat puppet (to be made)

dax and his tuned glass set for music (dipping his fingers in the water for the boat, for his glass instrument)

a fish tank

two live shrimp (who reside in the fish tank)

two pairs of stilts

a few glass jars (with other small boats inside)

water
and me

Clarke just showed me this: proof that analog will not die with out a fight

http://www.the-impossible-project.com/

Hired

First day at the job:

http://www.photolaboratory.com/index.htm


!!!

Discoveries happen as goings happen

The difficulty presented when thinking about having to design work for public showings when you actually are in the open field, and your work is not simply going to be presented in a work shop or class critique, struggle is upfront when considering broad ideas such as : who is the audience going to be? Where, what am i going to actually look like doing this? How do I want to present myself to the open public? All these people i do not know? Behind schools closed doors I became comfortable - with myself and what i do. . . But perhaps I could have felt this same way approaching my first days of critiques in school, and this feeling of hesitance is just another obstacle to surmount and think of again later in the past?

Watched the film of the opera of La Boheme from the recommendation of my history adviser. It was a san francisco version with Luciano Pavarotti. realized that bohemian friends could be useful.

and. . . figured this one out again:
One walk can lead to many other walks, you just have to take the one walk first.


and, read a good summary of something thought to be unexplainable:
"... siezed him like an obscure poem in which everything is slightly distorted and displaced, and revels a drifting meaning fragmented in the depths of the mind." Robert Musil, man with out qualities.

The Project List

Teachers Ready to Advise My Projects:


Blair Thomas’s Advising: Street Performing with Puppets (3 studio credits)

Concept: Stilt Walking Puppeteers
Organized by walking down the streets of the Bay Area, two puppeteers on stilts will walk puppets that will interact with each other. These puppets will be need to be made with forward facing knees that will be arranged for the walking movement with a long stick in the puppeteer’s hand, arm control sticks, non fixed heads, be light weight, and made out of cardboard or papier-mâché. The stilt walkers will have packs on their backs for donations as they hunch over to operate their puppets when performed for the public.

Lay out of the semester:
1. Proposal of the story
2. Prototype (building of the puppets)
3. Mock performance (preview designs with the puppets/set/layout of happenings)
4. Performance for a friendly audience : 20 minutes in length
5. Final performance(s): the revised performance for the public


My first opportunity to work with Blair Thomas was his recent production of The Ox-Herder’s Tale, performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago this November 2008. I gained valuable insight for the set up through completion of a production, was able to witness how he, as the director, operated and was overall inspired by the way that he has chosen his pathways for life. Hence I have asked Blair to advise me in my endeavors due to him being an instructor at SAIC. I will need Blair to critique my work through digital documentation, discuss problems that might occur, how to speak to the audience and deal with their reactions, advice on acquiring performance permits, and the continual advice on “what should I do or alter next?”


Roberto Sifuentes Advising: Performance (3 studio credits)

The specific projects I will be creating for this section will have the aim of producing a small body of performance shorts, ten minutes in length or shorter. I will walk away from the semester with 3 concrete works that I will be able to put in my portfolio and be able to perform wherever I travel. This means they will need to be adaptable for street performing and venue specific stages or museum rooms.

These 3 performances will include my abilities for dance and conceptual movement, writing, sound, stilt walking, theatre, durational experiments, puppetry, and photography.


Lay Out of Semester:

1a. Concept design due by February 10th
1b. First Performance by February 24th

2a. Concept design due by March 10th
2b. First Performance by March 24th

3a. Concept design due by April 10th
3b. First Performance by April 24th

4. During the entire semester I will search out multiple sites to do my public performances. The final attempts will be to perform these 3 pieces in more than one site each.


My adviser has a long history of constant travel and moving locations for his art, and will offer invaluable insight for my goals of operation. More specifically his company, La Poncha Nostra, is based in San Francisco, so he has a foundation of knowing venues and how the area works regarding performance artists. Overall, Roberto will look over my research for finding venues, my applications for these performance spaces, and critiquing my performances that I will be applying with. The performances that I will be catering for indoor venues will be variations on the street performance concepts.


Robert Clarke Davis Advising: Photography (3 studio credits)

Producing photography work away from school, I will not have access to a darkroom with fresh chemistry. I am proposing to use an 4x5 camera and a hand made pin hole camera with paper negatives and a medium format camera with film to take portraits of the artists that I meet and of the areas of influence. Using 4x5 paper negatives will cut down on the costs of chemicals, allowing for contact printing due to the large format and the use non-silver chemistry under the exposure of sunlight which eliminates the need of an enlarger. This alternative processing is what I focus on with my photography, but doing this outside of the school is a completely new experience, providing for strategizing my set up in the future once I do not have access to the schools equipment. For this project I will only need to supply myself with: paper developer and fix for the negatives, and multiple choices of non-silver developers for the prints.

Lay Out of Semester:
The Work:
1. February 11th: Grant Proposal due for SAIC Artist/Project
2. February 24th: First negatives and trials due
3. March 10th: Second set of negatives and prints due
4. April 24th: A display or book made of final prints
5. May: Final prints and a second display

The Grant proposals:
An on going application process- minimum of 5 proposals by the end of the semester

I will be applying for grants with my photography in San Francisco and other sites that I will have to mail my work to. I will use Robert Clarke Davis’s background of alternative processing, travel photography and social skills to help recommend how to get into various upcoming shows in the Bay Area as an unknown territory, making it a point to also apply for grants and shows abroad. He will aid me in writing these applications and grant writings.

Rolf Achilles Advising: History Research Credits: (3 history credits)

My history research paper will incorporate three different elements. First, the Bay Area’s artistic history and ideals from the turn of the 19th century compared to the artistic history and ideals of the present day mentality. The third motif will incorporate the bohemian lifestyle of Europeans in the 19th century. It will be written in a historically researched non-fiction, where a bohemian man from Europe travels to San Francisco, bringing his ideals from his past to the immerging American city. It will touch base on sites such as the Sutro Baths and Heights, the building of the city, the people there and their artistic attitudes and tastes, and the general feeling of the time. This bohemian man will then travel to the present 21st century to compare and contrast the same concept, but a hundred years later. Who are the leading political figures that influence the mentality of the masses? What are the artistic lifestyles of the time, where do the artists reside, what do they do for work? Where does the audience stand, how much to they appreciate art and what do they look for in artwork?

The term bohemian, of French origin, was first used to describe the untraditional lifestyles of marginalized and impoverished artists, writers, musicians, and actors in major European cities. The reason that I want to do research in this area is because of my desire to involve travel into my artistic practice. The romanticism of the Bohemians has been very enchanting and I would like to involve their beliefs and lifestyles not just into the way that I treat life, but also using their ideals to influence what I make. Research will be done in local libraries to form written research papers on the topics but will also accumulate by interviewing locals that I meet through street performing and by my general presence in scenes that could be beneficial. For example, if I spend enough time in one local like a wharf, I will compile the artistic ideals of today that is evoked from the locals I meet there.

Semester Lay Out:

1. February 24th: Show proof of research and an outline for paper
2. March 24th: Rough draft 4 pages minimum
3. April 24th: Rough draft 8 page minimum
4. May 15th: Final Paper due: 15 pages minimum


All Advisers: The Website: Accumulation of Projects (3 studio credits)

I will have biweekly meetings over Skype with my advisors, and of course, we will have contact by email. Most prominently, I will be designing a website so that they and whom ever else I collaborate with or have connections with have the ability to continually view my work. Digital documentation involved for each endeavor will be posted on a new website being created specifically for this project on Adobe Dream Weaver software. There will be a blog/forum section for my teachers to leave their critiques, a journal section for my thought process, continually updated progress images and descriptions, finished projects, and a resume page. The cite will expand eventually to show past projects in order to be an accessible portfolio and CV.



Total = 15 credits (one semester’s worth of studio/history work)




Possible Performance Spaces and Galleries Include:

Southern Exposure - is not-for-profit arts organization and alternative art space founded in 1974 in the Mission District of San Francisco, California. They Support emerging artists and youth in a dynamic environment in which they can develop and present new work and ideas. http://soex.org/index.html

Intersection for the Arts - Intersection for the Arts is San Francisco's oldest alternative art space (est. 1965) and has a long history of presenting new and experimental work in the fields of literature, theater, music, dance, and the visual arts, and also in nurturing and supporting the Bay Area's cultural community through service, technical support, and mentorship programs. Intersection provides a place where provocative ideas, diverse art forms, artists, and audiences can intersect one another.

The Luggage Store – a non profit artist run multidisciplinary arts organization. Their mission is to build community by organizing multidisciplinary arts programming accessible to and reflective of the Bay Area's residents.

New Langton Arts - New Langton Arts’ mission is to cultivate experimental and innovative contemporary art. Founded in 1975, Langton’s history is closely tied to the emergence of new art forms – performance and time-based art, video, installation, improvised and electronic music, and language poetry.

The Fish Tank- an independent in home run space dedicated to invite only performances in Berkeley.

ODC Dance – Dance company with their own theatre.
The Lab
The Crucible
Works Gallery
Anno Domini
Jack Hanley Gallery
Fraenkel Gallery
Bound Together Books: artist book collection
Art Institutes

Streets of Choice for Performing:

Emeryville Marina and Pier in Emeryville
Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley
Embarcadero in San Francisco
Pier 39 in San Francisco
Haight Street in San Francisco
Knight Drive in San Rafael
Etc.


Updates since I have arrived: January 1st to the Present

Within the first two days of mapping out downtown San Francisco, I had the opportunity to usher for a Lunatic Fantastique puppet performance. I arrived at the show hoping to see the performance, but they were sold out. Talking my way into being an usher, I met the artistic director, theater director, house manager and the puppeteers, amounting to an upcoming audition to perform with them.

Since the New Year I have found an amazing site to live in for my studies. I came into the opportunity to live aboard a yacht in the Emeryville Marina over looking the entire Bay. So far I have been able to try out stilt walking in the park on the marina much to the happiness of passers by, and have a performance/music group over to the boat to rehearse and plot about upcoming performances.

I have also applied for a part time jobs at various photo galleries and at printing/retouching/digital-imaging/sales shops.

Independent Study Has Begun. Cheers!

Welcome so something that I thought I would never create!
I am no digital person, but what lies here is something to keep track of myself and for my advisers from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to share their thoughts of my work for this semester's worth of independent studies.
I have arrived and been residing in the Bay Area since the first of the new year, aboard the Cinnabar... not where you get all cinnamon drinks, but the boat that I am learning cello in and devising my plans for standing patiently on street corners.


a new motto:

"nothing in life is built, however, without the stones having to be broken out from somewhere else." robert musil- man with out qualities


next to

"it is better to travel than to actually arrive" - rcd

More to come soon...

Please leave comments, questions and hellos as frequently as you wish!