Hair ideas from ages ago...

Thought i better put these up and discuss them a little bit. I really didn't know what to do with the hair, after bathing in it, eating it, making balls, photographing it, drawing with it, i'm out of ideas. When i arranged them like this i liked that you could see each individually formed ball. The linear format suggested time which i liked because it showed the process of collecting the hair each day. I thought about putting each ball with other items and objects i had cast off that day such as make up removing pads, dirty clothes etc. This would be a lot like Tracey Emin's 1999 work 'My bed' in the way that it would use things just 'as they were' as such just taken ot of context. THis would not convey the message i would like though, i want people to look at the work and be fascinated and drawn to the aestheitc of it as well as feeling uncomfortable and repulsed.Some of them are quite beautiful and sculptural, the way the hair curves and is so three dimensional. It also looks beautiful just stuck to the wall of the shower, very art nouveau with the curves, dark lines and organic shapes. The above image is like some sort of mythical bird or fairy i heart it.

creating spaces

"Don't look for the disco ball and laser light show, look for the light on light off"


or put sunglasses on it.I had a talk with tim the other night about things and stuff and life in general. Mostly about how i keep everything, i have so much STUFF and i love it. I like decorating my room and making little personal spaces that i feel comfortable in. It stressed me out so much moving in to a house where i had nothing and we weren't meant to put posters on the wall. I collect lots of little things I like and make them into an interesting bunch of amandaness. yay for me.
My artwork seems to be a bit disjointed, i like only certain parts of it like the hair on the mirror, the lips collage, and a few of the photographs. I like the dampness and wet, the grotesque hair, the references to the body, the bathroom. None of these things stand alone as a work for me so i thought maybe i should apply what I do in my personal spaces to my artwork and create an environment with aspects of all of my little art works. I would like a space like my bedroom or a bathroom, somewhere with more artificial light, darkness, water, dirt, damp, enclosed. Pretty much somewhere unlike my studio which is bright white with sunlight spilling through.

Unrelated junk...
Blu Tac. I went to buy some blu tac to stick all of the doodles to the wall and seriously, what the fuck is blu tac? Its rubbery plasticy shite, probably raping the environment with its production. I never thought about it like that until i calculated my carbon footprint here and found that it will take 1.5 planet earths to sustain my lifestyle... that is quite depressing. What else is interesting... walking to the bus stop and seeing fat little children with arms full of pies and chips for breakfast, or eating an entire packet of squiggle tops. Child abuse! I took my takeaway mocha into the bathroom with me and knocked it onto the floor so it was covered in sludgy brown spalshes like chronic dihorrhea. so gutted. I heart huckabees, why had i not wached that until now? I love the scene with the family that had taken a Sudanese orphan into their home, so funny! and people are so like that...

pizza. mmm.

Three works of art by moonday... Here's the tune,

1. I video myself putting on makeup and whatever i do to get ready which can't take longer than 12 minutes or my camera will die. I then play this back and record myself looking at myself, Gazing at myself that was gazing at myself in a mirror. what...

2. Place the beautiful hairball on a table with lots of other nice feminine things, jewellery, makeup, scarves, womanly goodness and crap.

3. Penis pictures

4. Frame the small photographs of me and my hairbally

5. Film something in the bathroom then project it, hair in the sink, my hair in the bath, something short because of the lack of camera until i do the course at school to be able to use it. for fucks sake.

writings from manapouri

I once spent $320 on a pair of boots. Leather of course because it lasts and it means QUALITY. They broke three times and have a hole in the toe. I can't wear them anymore, I'm not that keen on wearing someone or something elses skin on top of my own. I did a project on tattoos earlier in 2008, peoples opinions on skin are wonderful, the permanence of tattoos (permanence?) people aren't permanent. Its pretty precious to have that mind set. We all love our skin in different ways, we need it to live, to experience the world, to touch; it defines us.
Race-colour-tattoos
Tattoos are bad, so are piercings. So abnormal and SO extreme. Watching the body modification DVD i could not believe the breast implants and face lifts, yet somehow these are acceptable, 'normal' because they fit the standard beauty ideal, they 'enhance'. Tattos are beautiful and personal to their owners, they are unique. Breast implants. well.... they're tits.

I can't believe i own leather boots, or that i was proud of them, polished them, conditioned them, whatever.

On my own skin: It's nice. I have scars on my arms, neck, and chest mainly from burns. They don't worry me and I don't dee a need to change them or hide them. I like having my skin, i wouldn'twant anyone else walking around in it, not that they would want to you would assume.

I want to fix my precious boots, patch up the hole in the toe just to make them whole. I'm not throwing them away, giving them to anyone or selling them i don't see any point in that and it makes no statement whatsoever rather it ignores something very important, a change in ideals that has taken place. I feel that I should try to give something back after taking so much, always taking indirectly to avoid guilt and blame.

I will talk to some tattooists around auckland to see if anyone does scarification, also to a tanner or someone that works with leather products to find out what sort of process is involved. I want to get a small section cut out of my toe, cured and tanned then sewn onto my boot to fix the hole. My boots already disgust me and i am unsure how I would feel about them after doing this.

On Tattoos
I thought about getting one to mark a big change in my life, outwardly altering my body to let people know about it. This is a very personal project, i want to say that in doing this that the work is just for me but it can't be. I'm not hurting or pressuring anybody else, i think i will just show them what i have done and see what they think. People are so stupid. I expect people to be repulsed (if they thought hair was gross see this...)

ummmm, why?
I'm doing this to show that I strongly believe in something. I want to explore the term 'activism' and what this means in the way that i relate to people through my artwork. It's not a huge statement when you look at some of the people on BMEZine, it's pretty weak actually. One small piece of skin when I ate the flesh of other animals for twenty years, and the wound will heal. I'm in two minds about who this work is for, the process and action is for me, the result is for them.

DOCUMENTATION
I loathe it. A lot of the time i see no point in it but i guess it is necessary when you are at school. In this case however i will thoroughly document the process because it is so important, even the simple things like cleansing my skin and looking after it. Recording audio as well as images will allow a wide variety of combinations when putting the work together, it could possibly be quite performative.

HUMANE

random thoughts and unrelated ideas

they have places everywhere in the city where you can dispose of cigarette butts, specially made bins for this 'dirty' habit. Playing with those words it would be interesting to have little stations similar to cigarette bins except distributing lube, tissues and porn.

Looking at gender and sexuality a lot it seems, departing from animal human body issues and becoming more interested in our perceptions of ourselves. After displaying my work in a female bathroom I thought more about gender, sexuality and stereotypes. We have so many choices and decisions to make yet when it comes to these little toilet symbols we ave only tow. Next time I'm on photoshop I'm going to play around with the symbols and colours and create some simple altered images.

On the gender sexuality buzz, i want to collect images of penises, not REAL ones just silly ones that people have drawn, perverse like Sarah Lucas' work in that the images can be cucumbers, anything phallic. Just as a side project and something fun.

I want to paint some hair onto the wall, so that its under the surface but still there all bumpy. If only i had some paint.

Our disregard of animals extends to human life, people starve while we spend thousands on necessities like heated towel rails and ed hardy tshirts (if you have or want one of these you are ridiculous. and should die) I saw a zebra skin floor mat at Mansion house on Kawau Island. It was eew yuck. It would be cool to make a human floor mat, treat others the way you want to be treated.. photocopy myself and stick it to the floor, maybe paint my skin first, have me lying all romantically and feminine on the floor with feminine aspects but also animal. It makes me think of Ophelia, hair floating in the water, dreamy, beautiful, tragic.

Guilt free mashmellows? say what?? Weak soy latte in a bowl with marshmellows you say? *dies* Its almost as bad as a decaf short black, just doesn't make any sense. I work as a barista, people feel guilty eating marshmellows because of the sugar content. Nobody really thinks about the cost of their actions in terms of others, most people have a very short sighted view and can only think of the effects their actions have on themselves and their immediate community. Probably because you can see directly how your actions effect others. Oh well Keep trying! Its hard to see past the here and now and whats convenient, especially in a city like this.

I was thinking of a way to display the self portrait photos i took and think that something small and intimate would be nice. I don't want the body to be too identifiable, main reason being because I would be embarassed (changed my tune on that one...). It looks almost like a landscape because of the perspective and viewpoint, putting it into a small frame would subvert this and make it more like a body again. I know what I mean but I can't put it into words :(

I went to a lecture given by cellular biologist Bruce Lipton on Wednesday night. Very interesting but nothing new in terms of concept. It covered key ideas in his last book and introduced ideas from his new one. It discussed evolution and how our consciousness effects our genes, fractal evolution, nature based on fractal patterns. Positive change, think positive BE positive. I did an essay on body and mind in second year i wish i could find it!! It had a lot of Merleau Ponty's ideas on phenomenology in it and it ruled but my disposable fingertip google knowledge means i don't retain information for any amount of time.

"We can't solve the problems by using the same kind of thinking that created the problem"-Albert Einstein, who by the way was vegetarian like all the other cool kids

seventysevenwords

animals hair fur skin body adornment exploitation use beauty aesthetic fetish sexual context repulsion discarded waste skin leather purpose precious scar vegan hunting tradition consumption compassion human jewellery activism derived equality rights flawed eternity tattoo dead luxurious glamorous permanence decay suffer exotic drawing relational disgust experience normality beliefs opinions reaction perfection idealist modification extreme publicity boots tanning industry commodity life object placement documentation fascination tactile honour esteem longevity humane acceptance process pain normal livelyhood routine feathers products

DAY I

First day at Elam.
New school, new people, new lecturers, new cafe that burns my soy milk. Coolies.
Project one requires that we create two works of art by next monday to present in our space (if you can call thirteen people in a room space). A smaller space brings about a new set of confinements and implications to work with so can be quite exciting. Lots of room for interaction within the room, high ceilings, grey floors that are almost the right colour to project on to. I think i will use this short project as a social experiment to get an idea of people's feelings and reactions towards the materials I plan to experiment with.
I want to explore skin, people's skin, animal skin, leather, fur, shedding skin and hair-waste, reactions to all of these materials and how they are revered/ repulsive. I am interested in how we use leather so carelessly without really a thought to where it has come from, yet we are so precious when it comes to our own skin, not wanting to burn or scar it, wanting perfection.
Tattoos and scarification do not fit the beauty norm as plastic sugery does even though sugery is far more extreme, body mods such as piercings and large tattoos are considered more extreme. WELL theyre not.
I want to use materials from humans, and my first thought was to use some of my hair. Combing my fingers through my hair a lot of it falls out. It's gross unless it's still attached to your scalp, nobody likes stray hairs! It reminds me a lot of Mona Hatoum's works, she uses both internal and external elements involving human hair and images and recordings of her internal organs.