Yes, I know I’m feeding the fire but it’s kinda of catchy with its line dancing and cool break dance moves.
What has life come to that Justin Bieber’s video, “Baby” is the most viewed video of all time on YouTube, with at the time of this post, 309,828,691 views. Just in case you weren’t one of these views, I don’t want you to miss out.
Interesting article that makes me wonder if I really am apart of this “emerging adulthood” stage. Cause let’s face I am exactly the demographic they are talking about and have gone/going through similar experiences. It’s a 10 page article but definitely an interesting read.
Why are so many people in their 20s taking so long to grow up?
This question pops up everywhere, underlying concerns about “failure to launch” and “boomerang kids.” Two new sitcoms feature grown children moving back in with their parents — “$#*! My Dad Says,” starring William Shatner as a divorced curmudgeon whose 20-something son can’t make it on his own as a blogger, and “Big Lake,” in which a financial whiz kid loses his Wall Street job and moves back home to rural Pennsylvania. A cover of The New Yorker last spring picked up on the zeitgeist: a young man hangs up his new Ph.D. in his boyhood bedroom, the cardboard box at his feet signaling his plans to move back home now that he’s officially overqualified for a job. In the doorway stand his parents, their expressions a mix of resignation, worry, annoyance and perplexity: how exactly did this happen?
Easily my favorite video. Thank you Jess Andrews for finding this and thank you Michael Salter for continually playing it in class. Best 8 am class that I can remember.
Still smiling is a video installation that captures a common phenomenon of social awkwardness – the polite smile – and focuses in on it, without extraneous factors.
Influenced by being in-between cultures, I often find myself in situations that I do not completely understand, but yet still must keep up appearances. Over the years, I have mastered this smile, and have successfully feigned full understanding to family members and other viewers alike. Although well-intentioned at first, Still Smiling exhibits the tension that inevitably appears as the muscle strain seeps through my face, and body language dissolves politeness into honesty.
DISPLACE
Sand paper, vinyl stencil
Variable
Displace is a text piece that visualizes my interior reaction to a moment or a situation of social awkwardness. Displace arises from the words, “space” and “place” and plays upon how language occupies both.
The most poignant example in my life is a family dinner. All at once, family members will talk to each other in Taiwanese, address the waiters in Cantonese, discuss money (and other private affairs) in Thai, and then attempt to include the kids in English, as a good-natured gesture. Despite the intentions, I often feel confused, awkward, and overwhelmed by the multitude of inaccessible conversation swirling around me.
I feel displaced a level below my family, unable to understand all the nuances because my Mandarin skills are not on par with the rest of my family.
‘Displace’ is the visual representative of those feelings – the word ‘Displace’ has been sanded into the wall – it does not appear on the same surface level as other pieces in the gallery, but must fend for itself, sanded into the wall.
If you haven’t already, our BFA show will be up today and tomorrow at the White Box. The show ends on June 25th and 6 PM.
Read this article in Business Week about the World Cup in South Africa this past week.
The World Is Watching the World Cup A spectator’s guide to the soccer tournament in South Africa. Whom to root for—or against—and who has the coolest uniforms
By Roger Bennett
I hope you are watching the drama unfold.
(On vacation but will be posting some new installation photos of still smiling and DISPLACE in the near future.)
