Report on 1st Performance Installation class session…

Assignment: Etude #1 (Ready Made)

Etude – a French word meaning study) is an instrumental musical composition, usually short, of considerable difficulty, and designed to provide practice material for perfecting a particular musical skill.

I see what he did there.

We have weekly assignments to bring in installations. This first one doesn’t seem to have any performance applications.

The assignment is to “make” (construct?) a readymade, a la Marcel Duchamp, so I guess this is my Green Box.

Within this assignment are parameters.

We must use several objects, and they must satisfy the following categories: historical, cultural, spiritual, personal.

One “found” object for each.

Of course, putting requirements like this on a ready made is somewhat counter to the whole point of Duchamp’s readymades as he often chose objects at random that he was “indifferent” to.

Picking objects that satisfy something historical, cultural, spiritual, and especially, personal, seems to fly in the face of the spirit of the form. But, okay…

I tried to start using Duchamp’s method. I casually looked around my apartment for objects I felt indifferent to. Of course, this is close to impossible. And given the assignment, not intended to be?

So, what about those categories? Cultural, Historical, Spiritual, Personal…

And, we’re supposed to think outside of the box. Using objects to represent something other than their intended purpose.

My process was a lot of playing around. Something that’s difficult to document without filming myself.

I came up with this…

Spiritual – My macbook pro. I’m reminded of a story that goes, when future civilization find the ruins of ours, they’ll naturally think that our deity was a box at the center of our main living spaces. This is meant to be a statement on our addiction to television. But of course, times have changed. Now, if they were to find my body now, they’d find my laptop in front of me. It is holy to me, and all of us, on some level…

Historical – An old acting trophy from middle school – yes, that was a thing. It reminds me of my origin in the arts. That time in junior high drama really set me on whatever course I’m on now…

Cultural – My Ice King vinyl Pop figure. In the set up of the installation, he represents me. As an expression of pop culture, I’m saying that I too am mediated and constructed by pop culture. My identity is socially constructed, as is all of ours, to a certain extent. It may be a bit of a stretch, but I’ve got an assignment to do…

Personal – My yellow legal pads. I work exclusively on yellow legal pads and usually, in blue felt tip pen. I have dozens of them full of ideas, notes, random other things. They are a big part of my life and who I am. When I die, the story of my life can be pieced together in these notebooks.

Construction notes to follow with pictures…

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