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.
With the insemination of computers and the internet into our daily lives, the way we view ownership has been slowly changing. When the printing press was introduced and information was available, for the first time, people were no longer dependent on authority to educate themselves. As such, not only was the common person now literate, people began writing and taking credit for their creative endeavors.
Now we see something very much similar happening. The digital age has created a new sense of ownership. With the availability of handheld cameras, web cams and cell phones with cameras, the common person, has the means of creating. Video work is not longer solely in the hands of a select few. Anybody, anywhere can pick up a camera and film something. We are seeing a familiar trend in information insemination. And in fact, in information multiplicity.
Special thanks to Andrew Parnell for lending us his grandma chairs and help with producing the boxes and signs. The boxes turned out awesome!!!!
i took a nap instead of thinking conceptually. is a collaborative text installation that liz and i worked on this past mlk weekend. here are a few of the install photos. installation photos will be up as soon as i can take em’ thank to andrew parnell for helping us set up a few files, make a website, and mask our loads of vinyl. we took about 3 hours to mask all of the vinyl and then another 10 to install.
we were very proud of our masking skills by the end of the night when we masked “project.” because it was about 68 inches taller than liz and i. intense. so we took pictures aka portraits with it. “the skeezy dad pose” what the hallway looked liked beforehand. i heart this wall. so proud. the spider-since we didn’t have putty to hold the laser level in place. probably around 1 or so in the morning. just 2 more rows of 6 to go. and then around 3 am both liz and i died of vinyl exhaustion.
here are some photos of my work from fall reviews (just below is my artist statement).
hear
these are the three macbook pros that were powering my audio. unfortunately, i ran into a few technical difficulties and learned that mp3 players by themselves do not emit enough power to be loud through my speakers. if i were to do this again, i’d probably get some amps.
touch artist statement (a work in progress)
Language is, by definition, a systematic way of communicating through sounds or a series of symbols. We learn societal norms and culture through language. As a child I was born into many at once, including English, Mandarin, and Thai, with a dash of French thrown into the mix. In response I spoke very little throughout my childhood, to the point where my teacher recommended I take a speech development evaluation. Language became a barrier.
Hear is a soundscape that uses six hanging white spherical speakers which emit nonverbal human utterances. There are no actual words spoken, but rather a collection of sounds that act as communication. A tension is created between being connected and being simultaneously disconnected. Hear attempts to highlight the communication that happens between words and how humans interact with the proximity of sound in space.
Touch is an interactive installation in which a green arcade button placed on a pedestal is waiting to be pressed. If the viewer decides to push the button, a message appears discouraging the act of interaction. This creates a conflict between the person’s desire to push the button and the
installation’s otherwise.
we were very proud of our masking skills by the end of the night when we masked “project.” because it was about 68 inches taller than liz and i. intense.
so we took pictures aka portraits with it.
“the skeezy dad pose”
what the hallway looked liked beforehand.
i heart this wall. so proud.
the spider-since we didn’t have putty to hold the laser level in place.
probably around 1 or so in the morning. just 2 more rows of 6 to go. and then around 3 am both liz and i died of vinyl exhaustion.
