mobile

melanie: art camp, yes please! i think it is a good idea to incorporate the locality of where the exhibition takes place into the piece. and to make it mobile. if we make a sort of diagrammatic structure of the project we could have a changeable parts (variables) that are dependent on the exhibition town/city.

susanne: where are you?

gabriella: beautiful pictures! are those the ones with the macbook? i can't wait to see the medium format ones. what were you up to in tuscany?

jorun: it's been about 470 days since i last saw you. :-(



every that camera i own (super8, nikon dslr, flip video, video dv, tiny digital canon, AND even macbook) has either broken down completely or begun to malfunction quite often, all during the past month.
of course this all happened just after graduation, so i no longer have access to the school cameras. this has greatly changed the way i work. i now have to rely either on generating images through the computer (in after effects or sketch up) or by using the camera on my cellphone.
i visited LA a couple weeks ago for the first time. i travelled to the desert and saw some truly fantastic things that i could not sufficiently capture. it made me think about the frustrating moment that happens quite often when visiting a new place and being in a state of wonder. the optical properties of lenses and putting a frame around your view are incapable of capturing your state of amazement.









[figure 1,2,& 3: a rainbow stretched across the entire mojave desert for a brief moment. i was lost on a dirt road trying to find a hot spring. it was an awe inspiring moment, that was impossible to capture. these photos were taken with my cellphone]

Being in a new place is not necessarily acting as a flaneur, is it? that is more the role of a tourist. A flaneur is more of an acutely aware urbanite, scrutinizing his own city. not necessarily in a state of amazement and awe, but more in a critical state of mind- attempting to unpack the details of his surroundings, rather than capture the panoramic landscape.


-lily

character - development

jorun, i like your suggestion of developing a single character.
i think that is an interesting way of fulfilling what was discussed a while ago of having a unified group show. where the difference between artists is hard to distinguish, and instead forms an unstoppable eclectic force.

i'm at a loss as to how we can develop this as a group on a blog.
let's all meet at my house on friday to discuss. new york, ny.

-lily

shall we decide and diagram a structure that we can all begin to fill in?



-lily

Hello Ladies!!!

Just back from Tuscany, Italy. What a wonderful time...

Made many new pictures with my middleformat-camera. I will develop the films this thursday. Junst wondering....

Sometimes I was on the road with my Mac-Book and took some pics with the photobooth-programm, without seeing anything because it was so sunny. But I was acting as a flaneur and I wanted to it by the way. And though the eyes of a female beloved girl.

I like the idea doing an art-piece together. Nice! An art-camp: what a nice thing Mel!

As soon as I get the pics I will put it in here.

Now everything is growing. Like that!

Hugs

Gabriella

love it!

melanie! all your ideas sounds great! I really like the idea of the exhibition flaneuring aswell (going from place to place), and it could be like chapter one, two etc... in the same way I flaneur travels from place to place and developes during the journey! I also like the idea of the exhibition developing during the exhibition time, I will work like this on this years exhibition at my school. I will write about that in my next post!

It feels like we're finally getting somewhere!

/jorun

for me the idea of slipping into the role of female flaneurs sounds
very temptating,
each one of us could start to collect in their city, surrounding,
pictures, drawings, ideas... and the blog could be the cupboard, or
the table to gather all of the collected things. a flaneur is in a way
a hunter too. an urban hunter. let's start to discuss about this very
subject!
we, or someone of us should then maybe start to write a concept for
this project to present to different art spaces.
gaby and i could as well find one here in switzerland... ? if it turns
out to work in sweden we could move on with it to switzerland... or do
something like part two over here. which i'd like when we choose the
figure of the flaneur... cause our project itself would wander.

maybe it coul be great to produce toghether, just shortly before the
exhibition in a week's "camp" or something like that, or maybe we
would all work inside the exhibition so that in the beginning, the
opening, there is nothing but us and during the time of exhibition we
would let our project grow toghether... so we would be in there and
one could watch the piece growing.
i like the idea of showing the process to the viewer.
so blog for collecting, developing, discussing.
exhibition for building.
?
have a beautiful sunday!
*m

let's go!

I am glad that you like the idea Lily! what does everybody else think of it? do you think we could work like that? I also feel that we could develope the idea of the female flaneur more and maybe make a group art piece about that, we could all start something about that "character" or "image" and maybe post something that we think we would like to do, and then maybe see how it can fit together? should we invent a character or should we ourselves (pretend to) become flaneurs? Let's do something or decied on something!

/jorun

Excellent idea Jorun. I think things will move faster if we begin inventing and working, rather than seeking an abstract commonality or theme. Editing can always happen later.

The model of exquisite corpse drawings is usually the cliché method for collaborative art projects. However, its formula insures a humorous and cohesive outcome. Maybe if we combine the process of equisite corpse with the model of a puzzle, we can start generating GROUP-ART.

While it maybe frustrating, I think it is funny how slowly this project is going. I think it demonstrates the value of person-to-person discussion, which moves much more rapidly. I think the results of our distance and slowness can be echoed in a reflective way in whatever ends up being the final piece.

Incongruity and contradiction are the interesting parts of when individuals merge as one. I hope that by unifying the piece, a potent and disjunctive whole will be created.

I just emailed my friend Jordan Burgis to see if there is any documentation of a group project he did several years ago. It was one of the most interesting and successful collaborative pieces I have seen. A bunch of different artists made pieces under the name of one fictional deceased artist/inventor. The prompt given was his name and biography, and each one made a sort of artifact/piece/relic of his work and life. The fact that the show was fictional and made by many was kept secret, and was a really smart choice, it made for a very uncanny exhibit.

I am still intrigued by what we could produce in response to the FEMALE FLANEUR. Any ideas of how that could factor in here?


SINCERELILY

new idea to make it come together...

I just had a new idea; what if we instead of trying to find a common theme for the exhibition, tried to make one piece together? Could that be interesting? I don't really know what the difference would be but I think it could be fun!? And maybe it would make it more like we worked together in a way, instead of working seperatly and force it to be within the same "theme"? What do you all think of this? I mean, the piece could consist of different elements, but if we saw it as one piece maybe it could be more consistant but with more levels and "voices"... I think it could be interesting to do one piece and work on it on different places! (I am sorry for the picture, but it could be like a puzzle...)

/jorun

congratulations

to lily for being a graduate!
I really liked your films. are they shot at dubble speed to get that nice slowmotion effect?

I also wanted to say that the next deadline to send in an application to the gallery is the 3 of may. Should we agree on that we should try again and now have a more clear view on what we want to do with the exhibition? I really think we could do something good, but we have to get going. Maybe we should just decide on a theme or something? And after that figure out how to install it in a interesting way? But I think that the instalments of the pieces should connect to the theme, because that sounds interesting to me... But I would like to hear everyones opinion!

/jorun

WORK FROM MY SHOW

HELLO HELLO.
please excuse my extended absence.
i am now a graduate!

here is a bit of documentation from the show, which was called LIL' MEGAPLEX.
i'm still building my website that will house the installation shots, but here are two of the videos. both are silent.


Explosion (1 of 3). 16mm neg transferred to DV. 1 minute loop. Silent. 2010.



Peer Pleasure. 16mm transferred to DV. 2 minute loop. Silent. 2010.

"The Damocles of the anecdote was an obsequious courtier in the court of Dionysius II of Syracuse, a fourth century tyrant of Syracuse. Damocles exclaimed that, as a great man of power and authority, Dionysius was truly fortunate. Dionysius offered to switch places with him for a day, so he could taste first hand that fortune. In the evening a banquet was held where Damocles very much enjoyed being waited upon like a king. Only at the end of the meal did he look up and notice a sharpened sword hanging directly above his head by a single horse-hair. Immediately, he lost all taste for the amenities and asked leave of the tyrant, saying he no longer wanted to be so fortunate.

The Sword of Damocles is frequently used in allusion to this tale, epitomizing the imminent and ever-present peril faced by those in positions of power. More generally, it is used to denote the sense of foreboding engendered by a precarious situation, especially one in which the onset of tragedy is restrained only by a delicate trigger or chance. "

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown"

" Damokles tatsächlich gelebt hat, ist nicht gesichert. Er wird als ein Höfling beschrieben, der mit seinem Leben unzufrieden war. Er beneidete den Tyrannen um dessen Macht und Reichtum und hob in seinen Schmeicheleien stets deren Vorzüge hervor. Dionysios beschloss daher, Damokles anhand des sprichwörtlichen Damoklesschwerts die Vergänglichkeit, vor allem die seiner Position, zu verdeutlichen. Der Herrscher lud Damokles zu einem Festmahl ein und bot ihm an, an der königlichen Tafel sitzen zu dürfen. Zuvor ließ er jedoch über Damokles' Platz ein großes Schwert aufhängen, das lediglich von einem Rosshaar gehalten wurde.

Als Damokles das Schwert über seinem Kopf bemerkte, war es ihm unmöglich, den dargebotenen Luxus zu genießen und schließlich bat er darum, auf die Annehmlichkeiten (und die damit verbundene Bedrohung) verzichten zu dürfen. Damokles hatte seine Lektion erhalten, dass Reichtum und Erfolg keinen Schutz vor Gefahren bieten.

Das Damoklesschwert wird auch heute noch als Metapher der bestehenden Gefahr in einer scheinbar komfortablen Situation gebraucht. Cicero weist in seinemGleichnis jedoch auch darauf hin, dass Dionysios wegen dieser allgegenwärtigen Bedrohung gezwungen sei, seine Macht durch Unterdrückung zu sichern."

 my idea  is to take the viewer into a situation which is at first sight of great beauty (the slightly glowing globes in the dark, floating dream like in the room) but if he/she stays in the situation longer, those globes become a heavy weight hanging over his/her head. plus (don't know if it'll need this) the light in the room starts to go off and on on an irregular base, representing the rythm of our planet which is getting out of order more and more.

i don't want all this to be too obvious and of course it is all in a conceptual state at the moment, i'll just have to try out to see how it looks... 

but still i'd be glad to hear your opinions!! 

*m

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melanie kempf     

idaplatz 4

8003 züri

tel: 079 633 57 14

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http://www.fraeulein-m.ch

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Am 05.03.2010 um 10:55 schrieb the blog:

Hi melanie!
I think it sounds like it is going to be a nice and mysterious experience walking around in a globe lanscape, but could you please explain more about the title choice? I don't really know what that means...

/joru

--
Upplagd av the blog på on the blog 2009 den 3/05/2010 01:54:00 fm

title

Hi melanie!
I think it sounds like it is going to be a nice and mysterious experience walking around in a globe lanscape, but could you please explain more about the title choice? I don't really know what that means...

/jorun

i might call it
"damokles" or "damokles' disco"

and the globes would maybe hang down quite far, so that the viewer has
to bend down a little...but just a little

what do you think?

hello again,
an idea i'm working on:
i will collect glowing globes, turn them into some kind of lamp that i
hang down from the ceiling of a room. so if you come into the
room(maybe dark, or maybe the light would switch on and off in an
unregular rythm) the ceiling is full with them, those earth balls
would float over your head, maybe, at best, one hundred of them.
the problem is, that they are terribly expensive... so if you happen
to have an idea how to get them, tell me!
*m