alison-franco-studioconcept-blog

[alison-franco-studioconcept-blog]

Identity Project Ideas

1.      I would like to make a piece that discusses my struggle identifying as an oil painter. While I prefer oil painting, in school I sometimes find myself with concepts that may not be best captured on a canvas. I have to decide whether I want to force the idea into a 2D medium or experiment with 3D. Additionally, the aspect of painting I despise most is building the canvas, which I consider the most 3D part of the process. For this piece I would like to make a deformed painting, with stretchers bars set at wrong angles and perhaps one breaking through frayed canvas. I haven’t decided if I will just put paint on it or include other materials such as beads, sewing, or clay. The form will be an object between painting and sculpture. Hopefully it will convey my frustration with expanding into 3D territory and the silliness of trying to force art onto a canvas.

2.      Two years ago, I faced a major life change. I went from being a “housewife” to single very suddenly. The situation demanded that I immediately become independent, and I fell into survival mode. In the past two years I have accepted new facets to my identity and I feel more confident about independence. However, I still feel as though I’m just surviving, on the brink of having to face another identity shift. I would like to paint a portrait in oil on canvas board or panel that is an amalgamation of parts of my face using photos from different times in my life since the divorce. I may also omit features or block them out. I would start with Photoshop to create an initial digital collage and use it as a reference image.

3.Sometimes it is nice to identify with a very small, specific group of individuals. I am a daily Sudoku-doer. I would like to show my enthusiasm for my daily ritual and combine it with my identity as an artist by making a piece that uses information from completed (or incomplete) sudokus. I would take a large sheet of newsprint paper, like the paper I usually do sudokus on, and create an enormous grid. Instead of translating the numbers from the finished puzzles into the grid I’d color code the numbers, so each number had a different color. This would be my way of reflecting the importance of color in my art. If the puzzle is incomplete, I’d leave squares uncolored. I have yet to decide whether to use marker, acrylic paint or gouache. I will need to test the materials on the paper first.

[alison-franco-studioconcept-blog]

Update Project 2

Weaving and melting imitation sinew ends together

[alison-franco-studioconcept-blog]

Update Project 1

2 grams of salt for 10/2

[alison-franco-studioconcept-blog]

Loom for Project 2

[alison-franco-studioconcept-blog]

Project 1 Update

September 28 salt intake

[alison-franco-studioconcept-blog]

Project 2 Intent Statement

Form: For my language project, I plan to recreate a wampum belt. The belt is a piece used primarily by Northeastern woodland tribes that serves as treaties and as a means of recording significant events. Traditionally the belt is made of shell beads, animal sinew, and deerskin leather. For my piece I plan to use mostly man-made materials. The belt I make for class will serve as a rough draft piece which I would like to recreate later on using some traditional materials such as real leather and sinew. The imagery on the belt will also be non-traditional.

Process: I plan to build a loom which I will use to create the belt. The loom will be made out of wood. I will use a waxed string in place of the sinew, faux leather strips, and acrylic beads. The weaving is relatively simple. I can download templates for the beading online as a guide for creating the imagery.

Content: My belt will comment on the issue of drug and alcohol abuse that is prevalent among Native tribes. Many of the struggles are a result of historical trauma suffered by Natives through the process of colonization. Using the Two Row wampum as a model, I will build a belt that shows the chemical structure of alcohol. Native imagery was usually abstract pre-contact. After contact with Europeans, the work became more representational. The chemical structure will stand in as a symbol in my piece and would appear as an abstraction to most viewers but it is actually representational. The work will appear quaint at first glance but will call attention to one of the negative consequences of colonization. 

[alison-franco-studioconcept-blog]

Language Reading Response

What interested me most about the reading was the discussion of language as transparent/opaque. In our class lecture on language, I was thinking about how intangible internal thought is. I learned from the reading that a better way of stating that is to describe it as transparent. In psychology there is a demonstrative test called the Stroop test where a person is told to name the color that appears on the screen. However the trick is that the color appears the typed word of another colors. Because we are programmed to process language so quickly, participants of this exercise find themselves truly struggling to name the color and not say the written word (see example below). I would describe this test as an example of translucent text. It is difficult to ignore but not totaling overpowering the overall message. I also like the idea that language opacity increases as the letter size increases. The text starts to appear as an object or figure.

The article also discussed artists who point out meanings that are lost in translation and how the people who control the naming of things have the power. I have a personal to connection to this topic. I am an enrolled in a federally recognized Native American tribe. One of the requirements for federal recognition is that the language still survives. Throughout American history, the process of “killing the Indian and save the man” involved forced repression of the language. Speakers of Seneca language are becoming fewer and fewer as we continue a less aggressive assimilation process. I would like to deal with this contradiction in one of my projects.

[alison-franco-studioconcept-blog]

Jordan Peele - The Shining

https://hyperallergic.com/136474/the-shining-in-emoji-is-pretty-great/

Form: The work is a list of emojis signifying key moments from the movie The Shining.

Content:  This is a fun way of expressing the narrative of The Shining. It seems the artist’s challenge lies in how little information he needs to convey the narrative using imagery alone. He is hoping that the images are universal enough to signify the meaning he intends.  It helps the viewer to know the story of the movie beforehand as well as to have some familiarity with emojis.

Process: Using the symbolic language of emojis, Peele was able to tell a story, separating the scenes of the movie he referenced by line. He posted this onto his Twitter to disperse the information to a broad audience.

Benjamin Patterson – Questionnaire from Flux Year Box 2

https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2011/fluxus_editions/works/questionnaire-from-flux-year-box-2/index.html

Form: This piece is a card with black print. It was included along with other odd items in the Flux Year Box 2 kit.

Content: I believe the artist is questioning binary opposition.

Process: The piece is print on cardstock dispersed through art boxes that could be purchased. The boxes were mass produced and relatively inexpensive.

John Gutoskey - Queer Pop

http://johngutoskeystudio.com/works/printing/

Form: This work is a print of colorful soda caps where the brand name has been replaced playful/insulting references to homosexulatiy.

Content:The artist is referencing the name-calling he experienced as a child. He is toying with the concept of labels. The artist used an iconic symbol of a brand label, a coke bottle cap. He used the associations people have with these caps and subverted their purpose with his message about bigotry.

Process: The artist modeled his image from real bottle caps and used printmaking techniques.

Scott Northrup - MEN

http://nokturno.fi/en/poem/men

Form: This pieces is a collection of poetic collages made up of bits of news headlines.

Content: Context informs content. The artist turns ordinary news headlines into snarky one-liners by simply changing the context of the phrases.

Process: The artist cuts out pieces of headlines, reorganizes them and pastes them on what appears to be cardboard.

David Carson - Bryan Ferry interview, Ray Gun Magazine 1992

https://www.designboom.com/design/interview-with-graphic-designer-david-carson-09-22-2013/

Form: A magazine spread where the font is entirely in Dingbat font.

Content: As a graphic designer of the magazine, Carson felt that the article was dull and run of the mill so he converted the text into Dingbat font making the interview illegible but more interesting visually. The appearance of the symbols completely hides the content of the article.

Process: Carson used digital means to quickly change the typed text to illegible font.

[alison-franco-studioconcept-blog]

Time Project - Intent Statement

My time based project will involve measuring the amount of salt eaten on a daily basis over the course of the semester. It will cross multiple disciplines including scientific exploration, behavioral psychology, cultural influences/sociology, and artistic expression. The physical piece will be pictures of daily intake, written records, and piles of salt. I will measure out each day’s salt dose and keep it in a plastic bag until I have decided whether I would like to display the salt in little piles or vials or as one giant pile. I have also considered a performance piece where I attempt to dissolve the entire pile in water and see how much water it would take. A food log or just the salt measurements will also be displayed.

 I plan to keep a food log and record everything I consume in the day. At the end of the day I will tabulate the sodium total by reading food labels or searching for nutrition information online. I will purchase a food scale to weigh each day’s salt. Since nutrition information usually records sodium levels in milligrams, I will use metric to record the measurements. I would like to photograph the piles, write the measurements in a separate log book, and keep each pile in a labeled plastic bag.

The content of the piece is reflecting time through consumption. I expect the total amount of salt to be overwhelming. Historically, salt was a luxury and used as currency in trade. It was associated with the higher socioeconomic classes. Now salt is ubiquitous, used as a preservative and flavor enhancer. It is found in large quantities in the cheapest packaged and fast foods and higher intake levels have been attributed to the lower socioeconomic classes. I hope that the final display will convey the excessiveness of consumption and the irony of that undesirable excess. I’m also interested to see if the data shows a personal change over time as my diet fluctuates through the semester. Will I try to be healthier or will I seek out food that is easy to calculate later on? Will I be disgusted by my salt intake or will I just eat whatever I can because of stress? I hope that the piece will help others to self-reflect and will stimulate some concern of their own consumption patterns.

[alison-franco-studioconcept-blog]

Language Project Ideas

1. I would like to construct a wampum belt and replace the traditional imagery with a chemical symbol for alcohol. Wampum is a bead made of Quahog shells that is woven into a belt used in Northeastern Native American culture. They beads are white and purple. Traditionally, images were created using the two colors to record important events, tell stories, serve as treaties, and used in religious ceremonies (most Native languages were oral and not written). Post-contact wampum belts changed with the introduction of European symbols, which tended to be more representational than the traditional Native imagery. Alcoholism is an issue that greatly affects many Native communities. This piece will be a post-colonialism response to a pervasive and ongoing result of assimilation. I would like to use the chemical symbol for alcohol because it is a more abstract and symbolic way of representing alcohol.

Another symbol I was considering is a simplified hydraulic fracturing tower.

2. My second idea is to convert the DSM 5 pocket guide into emojis. I would love to take on the entire DSM 5, but that project would extend beyond this semester. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is a tool for psychiatrists that offers a description and lists symptoms of all mental disorders. It is a controversial tool because in some cases it offer practitioners the opportunity to over-diagnose. They find that clients can meet at least the minimum qualifications for multiple disorders. The conversion of this diagnostic tool into silly emoji symbols will be an attempt to embody my distaste for trying to neatly categorize an individual’s particular struggles. I will stick to the Unicode emoji list.

3. My third idea is to build a story with receipts. It would be displayed as an ordinary book. Each page would contain the appropriate amount of receipts to convey the “scene”. The receipts may be artificially manufactured. I may try to depict a cliche or imagined horror story. 

[alison-franco-studioconcept-blog]

Short Response and Short Story

I am intrigued by information communicated through ideograms. I like the challenge of conveying complex ideas through simple symbols or pictures. I enjoy seeing how different modes of ideograms express information differently. Emojis, wingdings, computer code, laundry tags, and road signs are all types of imagery that may look semi-similar but can mean different things depending on context. How much conceptual information can be expressed with a minimal amount of visual information?

Stories can be told through pictures painting/drawing/graphic design, novels, poems, podcasts, radio, blanket weaving, puppet shows, dance, sign language, music, newspapers, food (especially holidays), rumors, treasure hunts, memes, message in a bottle, emojis, timelines/news feeds, receipts, flip books, films, clothing, furniture, tree rings, twitter wars, letters, criminal records, medical records, blood spatter, obituaries, bank statements, resumes, trash…

A book is a record of events or perceived truths.

I would like my project to be ironic. I like to pair old fashioned or traditional imagery/concepts with the modern and contemporary.

Short Story:

Once upon a time, there was a girl. It was a dark and stormy night. She looked at herself in the mirror. All of a sudden, there was a knock at the door. It was her worst nightmare. Little did she know, she was the chosen one. A voice came from above. It was all just a dream. He was her knight in shining armor. They lived happily ever after.

[alison-franco-studioconcept-blog]

Time Reading Response

This reading helped me consider how I define time. I see now that I stubbornly view time as linear; one moment constantly and rhythmically leads into another. I do not consider memory of the past as a jump back in time. I still continue to get older as I sit reminiscing. I do not enjoy movies that portray events out of order, such as 21 Grams. However, I would like to believe that time is relative. I can relate to the feeling that one hour spent bored seems to pass slower than one hour spent busily painting. I understand that perspective plays a large role in the experience of time.

A phrase that stood out to me was a quote from Douglas Fogle. He called our smartphone addiction “an epidemic of forgetting”. It is ironic that I remain so staunchly linear in my thinking when I am one of those people who demands constant access to infinite information through the internet. The process of learning is reduced to seconds, and the knowledge that I can access the exact same information again means that I don’t need to retain it. As a result, a lot of the information I take in is not committed to memory. I feel a sense of lost time because I feel that my memory isn’t what it used to be before smartphones. In this case is linear time lost because it passed without a mental record, or cyclical because I repeatedly seek out the same information, or simultaneous because that information exists in my phone at all times whether I’m looking for it or not? I am interested in keeping a record of some of the time that I normally consider as lost or wasted.

[alison-franco-studioconcept-blog]

Research Journal - Time

Shinichi Maruyama – Nude #1

http://www.brucesilverstein.com/other-works/nude

Form: This piece is a collage of photographs of the movement of a nude dancer.

Content: Similar to Balla’s Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash, the artist shows multiple views over time in one image. He compresses a period of time into a single frame to emphasize the motion.

Process: The artist collaborated with dancers and took thousands of photographs which he digitally combined into one. The images are superimposed rather than lie side by side to show progression.

Bill Gerhard –  01.11, 02.11, 03.11, 04.11, 05.11, 6.11, 07.11, 08.11, 09.11, 10.11, 11.11, 12.11

http://billgerhard.com/artwork/4150243-Touched-Gallery-224-The-University-of-the-Arts.html

Form: This series comprises paper that has been discolored by sunlight and is recorded monthly.

Content: Despite repeating the same activity, each iteration has its own identity.

Process: The paper was left outside in the sun on the same date of each month for a year. The exposure pattern was different for each month.

Markus Kayser – Solar Sinter

http://www.matterofstuff.com/marius-kayser-solar-sinter-3d-printing-with-sand/

Form: A 3D printer uses solar energy in a desert to make a glass form out of sand.

Content: Kayser comments on the potentials of solar energy which he feels will be increasingly necessary in the future. He is trying to get viewers to focus on raw materials and different sources of energy. The piece is dependent on the time of day.

Process: The printer is powered by sunlight. The sun is magnified by glass and concentrated on points in the sand to melt it into glass. The machine builds by sweeping layers of sand on top of already melted parts to create a solid form.

Video : https://vimeo.com/25401444

Reddit - /r/place

https://www.reddit.com/r/Art/comments/6393x4/rplace_digital_2017/

Form: In this social experiment designed by Reddit, users were able to fill in space on a large digital canvas over a 72 hour period. They were given a choice of 16 colors and could only fill in one pixel per post. The users had to wait from 5 to 20 minutes between posts.

Content: The piece reflects the community of Reddit. The work changed over time as people decided to either work together or rebel against each other’s color choices.

Process: Via coding, the Reddit users were able to use a program to place pixels on empty parts of the canvas or replace existing pixels.

Andy Malone – Retrospective Loops

http://www.andymalone.com/projects2/#/retrospectiveloops/

Form: These pieces are motorized flipbooks that are controlled by pressing a button. The pacing is determined by the viewer. They allow for looking at individual slides or viewing an “animation” if the button is pressed continuously.

Content: The works reflect memories of the artist. In sharing his experiences, they are made more intimate through the control the viewer has over the speed of the animation.

Process: The pieces are crafted out of wood and require a motor in order to create the flipbook effect. The artist will draw or transfer images onto slides and attach them to a mechanized wheel. This creates stop-motion loops. The pieces are mounted at eye level and designed to be interactive.

Gifs : http://www.andymalone.com/animations

[alison-franco-studioconcept-blog]

Project Ideas

1.      A record of salt intake: I know that my diet is high in salt. I would like to keep a biweekly record of my sodium intake. This would require keeping a food journal and seeking out nutrition information. I would measure out my daily intake using salt on a food scale. I would take a photograph as well as record the amount. I would continue to compile the salt over time and store it in buckets. The form is a visual log of my salt intake. The content is awareness of what is amassed over time.

2.      Sudoku: My puzzle of choice. I would fill out a daily Sudoku. I’d color code each number and translate that day’s puzzle into a color grid using marker. If I completed more than one in a day, I would stack them in a row. Each day could be recorded on a separate piece of paper, with date and location included. If I didn’t fully complete the puzzle, it would still be recorded with empty squares. The form is a record of my downtime. The color translation de-emphasizes the individual puzzle outcomes and makes the piece’s content more about the amount of completions/failures.

3.      Mileage: Three times a week I would sketch my car travel for the day. I could download an app to track my driving on a map. Mileage would be recorded at the beginning and end of the day and included on a sketch of the day’s routes. The form is a visual documentation of miles put on my car. Often the mileage goes unnoticed and this piece will help bring awareness to where those miles are spent.