Conversation Project with Victor Valqui Vidal: E-mail #4

Last Friday I went to an opening where I received a tip: Jonathan Crary is currently teaching a course named ”Origins of Visual Culture” at Columbia University. I asked if it was possible to attend, when you're not student at Columbia. I was told ”yes, but he wants to meet you then”. Early monday morning I took the Q-train then the 1-train to Columbia University. I have studied and used Jonathan Crary's writings a lot during my master. Especially last semester where I did a video project followed up by a verbal and theoretical presentation.

My investigation was centered around the kaleidoscope as a way of seeing. I asked following question: How does the kaleidoscope influence on subjectivity, the human vision and our perception of reality?

 

A kaleidoscope is a collection of narrow mirror pieces that are put together inside a circular tube. In the tube and between the mirror pieces are loose beads and other colorful small objects. When the subject keeps kaleidoscope up to the light, looking through one end of the tube while rotating it, a symmetrical dynamic and imaginative patterns can be seen. The word 'kaleidoscope' comes from the Greek words 'kalos', which means 'beautiful', and 'eidos', which means 'form' and 'skopein', which means 'see'. So overall 'vision of a beautiful form'. The optical device was invented in 1816 by David Brewster and is today most often used as toys. At that time, the kaleidoscope was used as a tool for philosophical wonder and amazement. Since its birth the kaleidoscope has found its way into the language as a metaphor for an expansion of consciousness, which "Lucy in the Sky with Diamond" by The Beatles (1967) is an example of:

"Picture yourself in a boat on a river / With tangerine trees and marmalade skies / Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly, / A girl with kaleidoscope eyes"
 

 

The words "kaleidoscope eyes" have later - and especially with the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) - developed to describe the state you are in when you are high on drugs. The poet Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) used the kaleidoscope as an image of modernity's emergence, where being a "kaleidoscope gifted with consciousness" was the goal for "the lover of universal life" (Crary (1992) 113).

The kaleidoscope as a visual form builds upon the mathematical concept of the Cartesian perspective, which has dominated the human vision and our ideas of perception since the Renaissance. In the Renaissance the visual arts became realistic, the surrounding physical world was rediscovered, religion superseded by science, and mathematics was available as a tool for the painter, why the Cartesian perspective was invented. With the Cartesian perspective the artist could create a window directly to reality through precise, mathematical markings. The same counts for the Albertian window and Dürer's grid. But the Cartesian perspective, the Albertian window and Dürer's grid also established an ideal towards the relationship between the observer (in this case often the painter) and his object with the observer placed in the center, totally focused on the object. Feminist theorists refer to this as 'the male gaze'. This kind of passivity has since been both criticized and challenged.

 

In the book Techniques of the Observer Jonathan Crary describes how these historical and technical changes in visual culture is inseparable from a major restructuring of subjectivity.

 

With my video project I wanted to examine how the kaleidoscope as both a visual form and a way of seeing affects our perception of reality, our self-understanding and behaviour. It was my hypothesis that the kaleidoscope provides a non-hierartic way of seing, which expands the human vision and decentralizes the human subject. As Jonathan Crary, I prefer to use the word 'perception' instead of 'the gaze' and 'beholding', since the word allow to involve other senses than vision.

 

The video project is called Let Him Eat Cake is pieced together from various fragments of personal memories.  Let Him Eat Cake is about unrequited love and the relationship between fantasy and reality, to re-use the image from The Beatles; being in love is like being on drugs.

What happens to my self-understanding and perception of reality when I'm both the observer and the observed and when I write a fictional text upon my own biography?

You can read the text which's being read aloud in the video here:

Sidst jeg var hjemme hos dig, havde du igen købt gulerodskage fra Netto. Det var den der med råhvid ostecreme og noget, der ligner knuste nødder eller ristede havreflager, drysset ovenpå til 18,95 kroner. Du havde kun spist lidt af den. Du ved sikkert ikke, at jeg bemærkede, at den lå på gulvet ved din seng og var pakket ind i plastik. Det gør ikke noget, at du ikke tilbød mig et stykke.

Gulerodskagen var af mærket Coolmore Foods. Den indeholder valnødder og hvedegluten og æg og mælkeprodukter og soja og cirka 13 procent revne gulerødder og bør opbevares i køleskabet efter åbning. Den var mindst holdbar til mandag d. 30. marts 2012.

Du havde en skjorte på med en, to, tre, fire, fem, seks knapper, som jeg knappede op.

Persiennerne var rullet ned foran det ene vindue, og der stod flyttekasser stablet ovenpå hinanden og ved siden af hinanden i det aflange rum.

Hvis mine øjne var en altan hvorfra du kunne stå og se ud på verden, ville du så være i stand til at se det samme som jeg kan se?

Jeg kan huske dine hænder og bilen og Museumsgade.

Jeg kan huske, at vi drak rosévin og Gyldne Damer på Dronning Louises bro i de sene timer i oktober, mens vi så på stjerner, der faldt.

Jeg kan huske, at du var træt af at blive sammenlignet med John Mayer.

Jeg kan huske brevet til Berlin og trusserne og citatet af PJ Harvey.

Jeg kan huske, at jeg sad bag på din cykel iført en kort orange kjole, og du var i Flower Power sæt med voldsom vidde, og at fuglene var begyndt at synge i parcelhuskvarteret i Århus, og dit dæk var fladt.

Jeg kan huske, at jeg lagde mærke til dig, og at du kom hen og spurgte, om vi skulle følges, og at vi stod af på Kottbusser Tor og delte morgenmad på et fortovshjørne på Oranienstrasse, og at vi senere kyssede på Mariannen Platz i 26 graders sol.

Jeg kan huske den nat i din opgang, og at det regnede med konfetti.

Jeg kan huske kjolen med lynlåsen.

Jeg kan huske de ord og de billeder, der voksede i min mave, da jeg kom hjem og lå i min egen seng den morgen, og at jeg manglede søvn, men at jeg ikke kunne finde ro.

Jeg kan huske, at jeg overvejede, om du ville have mig til at være en anden.

Jeg kan huske, at jeg tit har tænkt, at det er svært med den her slags situationer, og at jeg ikke ved, hvordan man bør forholde sig til dem.

Jeg kan huske, at du ikke ville kysse mig.

Hjemme hos mig er vinduerne åbne, og på bordet venter en gulerodskage med flormelis, drysset let henover den lune og fugtige overflade. Jeg har bagt den i tilfælde af, du nu skulle komme forbi.

Hvis mine øjne var en altan hvorfra du kunne stå og se ud på verden, ville du så være i stand til at se det samme, som jeg kan se?

Phuc Le: Forced Entry

Forced Entry features work from Phuc Le's three continuing projects: So Hip!, Grindr Tests,
and Expedition: Southwest.

So Hip! is an ongoing photographic series spanning from 2007 to present. In each photograph, Le dresses his father in an outfit from his own wardrobe in order to emulate youth fashion - mainly, ads and images from American Apparel, Vice Magazine, and similar sub-pop-media. The series evolved from commenting on cultural commodity to re-connecting with family and in its current state, he finds beauty in making these images as a chronological catalog of portraits, simultaneously, of both himself and his father.

To produce Grindr Tests, Le uses Grindr - the first phone-app of its kind that utilizes GPS technology to locate gay men who are, by chance, online at the same time in close vicinity to one another. Discovering the app through friends who are active users, he is interested in opportunities that this technology may bring to a community living on the fringe. With the approach of a fashion "test shoot", Le puts himself in the position of both participant and observer as he flows  in and out of his subject's bubble. The photographing session is almost always arranged for one to two hours in the late afternoon, and afterwards, a mini-date of sort continues either at a bar or a restaurant as compensation for the men's cooperation (instead of money exchange).

Expedition: Southwest came out of the notion that a new cultural identity is able to establish without assimilating to an existing group of people. For Le, the approval from the land holds more validity than the approval of any hegemonic group. As he journey out on road-expeditions in hope of understanding the regional landmass that he calls home and creating myths in the manners of Darwin and Lewis & Clarke, Le projects himself onto unyielding landscapes of the American Southwest.

Even though the three projects are seperate, Forced Entry is supposed to be viewed upon as a Whole - to be experienced in the same way you would with different tracks on a music album. His photographic works are as traditional as they are contemporary, combining family portraits and landscapes with fashion imagery to emulate mythological portraits of religious figures and pop icons. Exploring the roles of an anthropologist, a photographer, director, stylist, and even casting agent, his photographs start as a visceral viewing experience then slowly reveal the layers of interactions between himself and his subjects. Being part participant and part observer, he explores the limbo space between an insider and an outsider of cultures, gender, and systems.

Born in Vietnam (1985) and developed in Orange County and Los Angeles, he is currently living and working in New York as an artist-in-residence at Flux Factory. His residency and the exhibition Forced Entry is made possible in part by the New York Community Trust Fellowship.

Text by Mille Højerslev Nielsen in close collaboration with Phuc Le.

Conversation Project with Victor Valqui Vidal. E-mail #3

As a student of Visual Culture my aim is to decode visual phenomena (of any kind) relevant to today’s society, sociality and the subject’s self-understanding. But as my major interest is contemporary art I also use the field of Visual Culture to expand common art historical and aesthetic concepts.
I'm not an art historian and before I was accepted into the master program of Visual Culture I studied literature. What I know about contemporary art I have taught myself. It started as a new way of seeing. I want to be able to gain or rather maintain the sensitivity and curiosity of a child, but at the same time navigate like an old adult. Within the last 3 years I have met with and worked for different artists and gone to exhibitions in all the cities I have visited around the world. Latest I have initiated and organized my own artistic projects, but actually and to be honest, what I know about contemporary art, I have learned through my writings. To me writing is also a way of using my eyes, it's really essential to me.

I wanted to become a part of Flux Factory not only to test and develop my professional competences and improve my English, but also because I want to get a deep understanding of an artist collective by observing it from the inside. At Flux Factory I will assist with organizing exhibitions and events and I will develope (new) strategies for marketing the exhibition program. But besides this opportunity which I'm really honored and excited to have been given, most importantly I'm at Flux Factory to do research and collect material for my future master thesis. Flux Factory is a non-profit art organization that supports and promotes emerging artists through exhibitions, commissions, residencies, and collaborative opportunities. Flux Factory produces four major and dozens of smaller exhibitions per year, runs a residency program, and presents monthly events. I find Flux Factory interesting because it divides from traditional art institutions by taking form of an experimental laboratory and a dynamic and ever changing collective.

My interest in this field started in the winter of 2009, when I became a part of Party and Lost, a social and aesthetic experiment, a group of groups, founded by 8 women from 4 different artists group. As Party and Lost Bank & Rau, Hesselholdt & Mejlvang, Randi & Katrine and Ingen Frygt ('No Fear') made an exhibition, also titled Party and Lost, which were presented at Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, in the summer of 2010. For 5 months I was their assitant and I helped with fundraising, promoting their thoughts and writing texts, I took part in some of their discussions and I assisted in the art production proces and with installing the final exhibition. We all (artists as well as assistents) gave our hearts, minds and bodies to this project. Party and Lost worked around these question:

”Does the relation between the individual artist and the strivings of a collective mirror the challenges of any group? Is the collectively executed artwork closer to life? Or does the single group member’s renunciation of self just result in a self-sufficient social-ego? Is any artist group, intentionally or otherwise, an artwork in itself – a laboratory for social relations?”

 

 

 

Party and Lost truly changed my life and my perspectives – mostly for the better. I don't think it's too much to say that thanks to Party and Lost I am where I am today. For my master thesis, I'm interested in contuining the investigations of Party and Lost and trying to get closer to answer these questions.

 

I will elaborate on this next Sunday. To be continued...

Conversation Project with Victor Valqui Vidal. E-mail #2

Sunday January 12th

Dear Victor.

Thank you for your reply to my text. Last Sunday was only my third day at Flux Factory. While I was writing, it felt like my jetlag had returned. In Brooklyn I had a whole apartment to myself and most of the time it was really quiet, almost too quiet for a city like New York. So it was really strange to move in at Flux and suddenly be around a lot of people. My studio is next to the kitchen, which is the biggest space we share, so it gets quite noisy easily and there's a lot of distractions. It's not just fragments from the other residents talks and discussions, that goes trough my walls. There's a ventilation duct in my studio. It's connected to the kitchen in some way. It makes heavy noices when people open the refrigiator, turn on the oven and boil water. Or at least, that's what I imagine. Sometimes, I'm also able to hear when the N or Q train enters the 39 Av platform, which's located close to Flux. In general, noises calm me down. It makes me less restless. I like these new sounds. So after all, to be at Flux Factory feels like home. I feel more comfortable here than I did in Brooklyn.

Your text made an impression. You're not the first one to call me brave. Most of the people I have met so far, have admired the fact that I moved to New York all by myself. I didn't have any friends here to begin with or any other connection to the city besides Flux Factory. People, both friends, family members and strangers, back in Denmark have called me brave too. To be honest, I'm not sure if I consider my act as brave. I'm actually not sure how I would define the word 'brave'. But I have spend a lot of time this week trying to understand that one word.

It's funny you mention "The Ugly Duckling". That fairy tale has always been important to me. Especially as a child. I was happy back then, but still, through out my childhood, I had a constant feeling of being different, as if I came from another planet. My first friend was named Tommy and he/she was invisble. Our ways seperated when I started school, because we both thought it was for the best. In school, I tried to fit in, not because I wanted to, but because I felt I needed to. When it became too much, I would go home to my room and draw or write stories. It got easier with time. As I grew older I established new relationships, made dear friends and learned to navigate in different landscapes.

In folklore (in this case fairy tales), the characters don't try to be anything they're not. And if they go against their nature, they will fail. In reality it's different. It's easier to pretend and get away with playing a role - in short, not to be you.

I guess for me, to be brave is to have the courage to be yourself and not go against what your heart tells you. To be brave is to stand two feet tall, even when people around you want to change you, make you act a certain way, or just put you down.

To re-quote H.C. Andersen and remember his words in another context: “To be born in a duck’s nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan’s egg.”

In that sense, I see myself as brave. And for each day that passes, New York teaches me to become even braver.

One of the things I like about Flux

 

Tonight it's Flux Thursday! Dinner prepared by us from 8 pm and ARTIST SALON with presentations by Fluxers from 9.30 pm. IT'S FREE! Bring friends and drinks!