INTRODUCTION TO INTERMEDIA
This semester, I had the absolute pleasure of taking my first ever Intermedia course through the University of Iowa's School or Art and Art History. The experience changed the way that I view art as a consumer and transformed the way I created art as an artist. By breaking through the traditional binaries of art--which are neatly organized into labels and categories--I was able to explore mediums and unconventional techniques that I never have before. It allowed me to be curious and bold with my work. However, what I gained out of this experience more than anything was a safe space to be vulnerable and to express myself. I had a supportive instructor and a group of amazing peers who I came to trust. Their authenticity and truth allowed me to open myself up to them to create art that I felt reflected the things I cared about most.
Through intermedia, I learned how to use art to cope. I was able to create art for myself for the first time, not just for my viewer, and that is priceless.
Practice Performance: MUSHROOMS
For our first performance, each student was assigned a fruit or vegetable by random. By chance, I selected mushrooms. Reflecting on the fungus and its significance, my mind went to mushroom hunting and how lucrative the market is for morels. In contrast, every supermarket is stocked with the common white button mushroom in its produce section. In this piece, I address and subvert the standards of value using white button mushrooms.
Although we did not record our first performance in anyway, I wanted to include this in my portfolio because it was my first ever attempt at intermedia art. The experience represents the conception of my appreciation for intermedia.
Performance 1: REPEAT
Throughout my time as a teenager, I dealt with an eating disorder that consumed my everyday routine. At any point in the day, I was thinking about food and how I was going to engage with it, not to eat it, but how I would deal with it. I fell into a strict habit of calorie counting and restricting myself.
Even though I have overcome the most intense parts of the disorder, it still manifests itself into other ways and I am still working on it. It's a feeling that many of my friends are familiar with. In the United States, 20 million women will have an eating disorder at some point in their lives.
This performance is my act of reclaiming my own control over my body.
Performance 2: CLOCKWORK
For my second performance Clockwork I wanted to address addiction, which is affects many of my peers and loved ones around me. Medication heals, but it can also be abused. And like clockwork, it's a habit that can persist.
Utilizing a bottle of pills and audio meditation, I juxtapose the two in order to make my audience question our uses of substances. How do we cope? How do we think it's affecting us? How is it really affecting us? Does the way we physically treat our bodies and how it can inadvertently affect our minds?
Video Project: DIGITAL WITNESS
Over spring break, I was given the task to create video art. At the same time this was happening, the news was completely consumed by horrors of the the Christchurch mosque shootings that occured on March 15th, 2019. The gunman had utilized video to spread his horrific act and manifesto. The content he produced was uploaded onto Youtube and Facebook at a pace that was impossible for website monitors to censor and delete. Conversations about the ethics of sharing and spreading the video started to arise. In this digital age, we are witnesses to so many horrors and so many crimes. The mass amount of content and information we are given can sometimes cause us to become desensitized or even cause us to sensationalize horror. I wanted to address how this has become an issue that we need to look in the eye and solve. Are we aware that we are bystanders?
Intermedia Open House:
BREAKFAST, LUNCH, & DINNER
America has a pill-popping addiction and it's not a secret. We are in the midst of the opioid crisis and according to the CDC, 130 Americans die from an opioid overdose daily. For the Intermedia Open House event on April 18th, I wanted to create a video installation that addresses this issue and how common opioids are in the everyday lives of many Americans who suffer from pain and how quickly the presence of these drugs can lead to an uncontrollable addiction.
I wanted to tie my work from my second performance into this project, so I decided to create visual work involving pills again. I recorded 3 videos: Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner. Presenting it, I projected all three videos in a completely dark room on three different walls. When the viewer first steps into the room they are confronted by a mix of candy and pills on the ground and then completely surrounded by the projections around them, asking them for their attention.
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Soundscape: UNTITLED
For my final project, I explored the art of sound through the creation of a soundscape. It was difficult to extract creating sound with creating music because it's what I instantly associate sound with. More than anything, I wanted to challenge myself to create work that was not beautiful. I wanted to make something that was uncomfortable and not easy to digest.
In this soundscape, I use a low and rumbling jet sound matched with the sound of a gong. I grew up going to mass with my father's side of the family and temple with my mother's side of the family. Both sides had differing views, but the trauma of the Vietnam war and a long migration to the United States brought both sides of my family together. The discussion of war and loss was never something that was censored from me by my family. The soundscape that I created was inspired by that harsh reality, but the sound of the gong symbolizes the ways some of my family members cope through their faith.