Thank God for my ipod! Goodness knows I would be a mess of a human being without a walking soundtrack to my life. It has been the most wonderful addition to my new year. Here's what's new.
1) The MacBook Air computer is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Too bad it's not that effective. I'll wait for the second or third model to come out, then hopefully I can switch to the beautiful world of apple computers...Until then, I'm stuck with the ancient, revolting, dysfunctional Toshiba.
2) Still madly in love with the camera. What I've filmed so far:
- my shoes dancing around
- John Weeden unintentionally dancing during our CODA meeting. Yes, I will be creating a music video and I will absolutely be posting it here. Please look forward to it.
- Lauren Kennedy doling out words of wisdom regarding art.
- Random dancing about.
- My poor roommates, who I smothered in black eyeshadow in a sad attempt to create Tim Burton-esque characters. It was a miserable failure. They basically just looked like race confused insomniacs. Not attractive.
3) This week has been insanely busy/drama packed. Thus, I indulged myself in Sleepless in Seattle. Do not laugh at me. You can poke fun all you want, but it's a lovely movie. The hero of my life wrote it: Nora Ephron. I'm sure I've talked about her before on here because I'm madly obsessed/want to create a shrine for her, but you all really need to read "Crazy Salad" and "I Feel Bad About My Neck" Then, watch "When Harry Met Sally," "Sleepless in Seattle," and "You've Got Mail." Seriously, she's brilliant. Not all fluff, I swear. She was an intern for JFK, for crying out loud. If that means anything. Apparently, she was the only intern he didn't hit on. That's gotta hurt.
4) I've lost my camera battery charger, thus I have an absence of photos. When I get a car and then consequently get a job then subsequently get money, I'll buy myself a new one. Then I'll post beautiful pictures here.
5) I think I've lost the ability to dance. Seriously. I tried to do some of the dances from my company last year, and it was a miserable failure. Something needs to change here.
6) I am a COD-ette failure. Somebody PLEASE hit me over the head with a brilliant CAP idea! Seriously, folks, I'm braindead. I have about ten supremely mediocre ideas and nothing geniunely good or necessary. If anyone can give me a problem in the arts world--an absence of something they really deem necessary, comment or email me at genke@rhodes.edu. You'd be my hero for life.
7) Juxtap'art planning has officially begun. I already have two meetings next week, a host of scheduling issues, and some really random ideas coming at me at all directions. I can give you an idea of the incoherence occurring. Here's the ideas floating out there in the abyss:
My current ideas, centered around a magical backyard on steroids:
1. Hammocks tied to all possible trees
2. a wall of mirrors
3. Fog machine producing colored smoke all around the ground
4. Lights coming up from the ground onto the trees around the sides
5. Hubcap sculptures
6. Flourescent Lights stuck together as the two main lights on each side of the stage
7. Potentially projecting images onto smoke
8. Screens and projections in front of the stage and each side of the gardens--with videos/pictures on all three. Sometimes the videos would coordinate--like someone running through them all
9. Everytime an event happens, the screen in front goes "5-4-3-2-1" and then bam, something happens
10. Having music playing at all times, not necessarily live. Maybe just mix of student composed/other music. Question is, what kind? Do we want a laid back bluesgrassy feel? Or do we want like art gallery elevator/techno music? Foreign music? Does it change as the evening progresses?
11. Sculpture of TV screens
12. Something involving glitter
13. Something involving umbrellas--like an umbrella tree, or something?
14. Silver balloons in odd shapes all floating around the top
15. Chinese lanterns
This is going to involve a lot of electricity. Al Gore's coming after me.
Other kids ideas:
1. Belly dancing
2. Karaoke
3. Middle Eastern jewelry display
4. Paper mache human figures wandering around
5. Finger Painting
6. Smore Making
7. Graffiti Painting
Anyone have any ideas on how to make this all work together?
Okay, kids. That's the update for now. Have a lovely day.
(Yeah, yeah. My Title is a music lyric. I'm arranging it for a cappella, okay? Don't judge.)
1 comment:
Hey KB,
No offense, but I feel like so much of these "art" ideas you list for the Juxtawhatsit (which I am looking forward to and to which I will gladly lend my support) seem like the kinds of faux art that you speak against so regularly. I feel like it would be a better festival if you didn't try to plan a million projects a head of time, but rather let individual artists create whatever they want when they want to. So, you will lose any semblance of a theme, but it will be so real. I don't know if you have ever heard of the Burning Man festival, but I have been reading a lot about it lately. Kevin Collier, the theater manager and our chapter advisor attends every year. The basic idea of Burning Man is radical self expression. Lots of people plan their projects ahead of time and there is usually a really open ended theme, but all of the art is created on site in the nevada playa. There is a huge emphasis on art for art's sake, and because the festival goers basically build their whole city in a matter of days, the art has functional elements, but form is stressed over function.
Basically what I am proposing is that you lay down some guidelines for art and rules regarding personal safety and what crosses legal lines (e.g.: public nudity) then just let the festival goers make the festival. Also - at B.M. sharing and involvement are highly stressed, so one of your guidelines could be a recommendation that artists leave room in their creation processes or displays or whatever for spectators to involve themselves in the creation. I know that this seems way too far left for what you are looking to do, but maybe you can take something from it. J'adore,
Ton Frere, ACP
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