9/10/2017 0 Comments Deep Time: Growth Growth Reflection
Introducing and Framing The process of hair growth is as much a physical act as it is an entrapment of time; our experiences become imprisoned within the framework of a social extension. Once it becomes too long it is removed in an act of ritualistic social conformity that transforms it into an inconvenience. Memories trapped within its ceased growth become victim to discarding rather than reflection. It has lost its mantle as moment of transition from physical growth into emotional. Physical growth is a comparatively instantaneous event in comparison to emotional and the essence of hair is framed by the two: its instantaneous removal and gradual decay. Shaving is a very preordained routine. My movement toward CMU was in my eyes exactly the same. I have a brother who recently graduated from CMU whose interests are very similar to mine. I went to the same high school as him, did the same subjects as him, and now I have moved into the same university as him with the aim of following the same path as him. Yet, I act as my own guide now, with my movement out of a harder CS course (which he managed in his first semester) to an easier one immediately diverging our paths. On top of this, this was the longest my beard had ever been. At my old school we were required to be clean shaven and so its growth commenced in the very instance that I left the school, acting as a bridge and indicator of the transitory period. But it also acted as a partaker within my experiences of this period, while also storing those experiences. In a way my beard was a social extension of me, acting in my first impressions upon people and soon became part of my social sphere. My facial hair was part of the character that I was presenting to those I was meeting. Therefore, as a partaker of the transitory period it needed to go to finalise the transition. On extension, this was my first ever performance piece. It was for me a step out of my comfortable creative niche and in a way I hoped to learn about this new realm that previously been of little interest to me. I had also initially planned to also shave my head as a greater extension of this performance element but I held myself back from doing that. My own social conformity pressured me to not follow through with it, which indicated that I have much further to go with my personal and artistic growth. Intentions My titling the piece of ‘Growth’ speaks to both the element of physical growth of hair, which comes to an end within it and transitions into emotional growth which I feel the process of moving to university is really all about. The preordained routine that lead up to that point is reflected within the arranged shaving tools and routine of the ritual itself with the societal framework of that ritual acting as a form of predetermined process. Shaving without a mirror acts as an indicator of the process of guiding myself through this period, except that of the societal framework of the period which is reflected in the ritual itself. The act of accidentally cutting myself is in my eyes an indicator of the hardships of guiding yourself through a transitionary period and growing from your mistakes within that. This is extended by the imperfect shave which reflects the act of looking back upon these mistakes and learning from them within a later physical act of cleaning up the shave. The photographs of me post and pre process act to highlight the occurrence of the transitionary period within a snapshot, the space inbetween them already framed within the viewer's mind in watching the piece. By wearing the orientation shirt I feel I am indicating that I am still within this defined orientation/transitionary period and in this act I am bringing that to an end, while also reflecting upon my own personal experience of going to CMU. By leaving the hair within the water I felt that I was indicating an act of purification of the experiences and memories that the hair contained while it decomposed and so allowed for a greater act of unbiased reflection upon the events that were trapped within the hair. The gradual letting go was of great significance to me as within the process of growing I felt that instantaneous removal of memories is not a healthy way to undergo emotional growth. By shaving away the hairs I hope to instantaneously end the transition period and so allow for the gradual reflection period. This is also reflected within placing the hair bowl within my art locker. In this act I indicate that I wanted this growth process to occur with me as I work as an artist, my works coming just as much from my previous experiences and growth from them as it is from the physical media I take from the locker. Process Once I had conceptualized the piece, I had to find a location that would feel disassociated from people’s preconceptions of the act. I wanted the act of the piece to be the most significant element so a clear setting was of importance to me, which I feel the white walls of the art studio provide. I initially possessed all the materials I needed to undergo the act, except for the bowl which would allow me to frame shaving within a more displaced sphere rather than out of a sink which would be more familiar. Once that was acquired, a leftover salad bowl, I set about arranging the tools to shave on the table setting aside another table for the camera. With the lack of a tripod I resorted to some books from my room to prop up the camera. When I realised that when the camera zoomed in it was too front heavy I added the wallet, being the right thickness, to prop it up. I recorded several framings of the piece and found that I liked a portrait orientation the most as it framed the act of shaving the most instead of giving unnecessary background. When I felt that I had reached a point of readiness I filled up the bowl with cold water (the studio lacked warm water) and underwent the piece. Once I stopped filming I photographed myself post process, this was when I realised I had forgotten to take a photograph beforehand and so in the end used a frame from the film. Since I had cut myself in the process I made sure I cleaned the cut before I got to tidying up the performance setting. I then photographed the aftermath of the piece. After placing all the hair in the bowl, I placed it in my locker for class on Monday. After cleaning away the rest of the piece, I set about editing the footage. I wanted to title the piece so as to make it stand out as the event that the overall documentation described and also set about making a sped up version if required. Reflection I was initially apprehensive about showing the entirety of the length of the piece and had come up with two solutions to what I felt was a piece that was too long to view within the time frame given: a sped up version or skipping into what I felt were the more significant moments of the piece. But the critique cemented that for the piece to work the piece needed to be a complete entity within the time frame so that a sense of reality of the ritual could take place. It was made apparent to me that really the process of shaving, and indeed the time that it takes, gives the meaning to the piece rather than hoping to give a general sense of the act. What made this even more apparent was that later I was told that there wasn’t a clear distinction between the performance and the documentation. While I feel the nature of the piece is framed within that, I couldn’t help but feel that within this point I was missing a clarity in the presentation of the piece. I had placed elements of the process that hadn’t any conceptual intention (for example holding the camera on a stack of books) next to elements that were conceptually loaded (the arrangement of the shaving equipment). This was an element that I feel I could improve upon, a greater distinction of that which is intentional and that which is pure process. Within this vein, the lack of clarity as to what I was burying/dissipating/decomposing was made evident to me. Initially I had framed this within the decomposition of the hair but it seemed that instead it was read that I would eventually throw the hair out and that would act as the indicator of dissipation. This was another quality that I felt was a significant downfall of my presentation of the piece, in that I hadn’t given enough of an indication of the future of the piece. The bowl of hair was physical evidence of the piece, but wasn’t enough of an indication that it was still undertaking the piece itself. One strength that was pointed out that I found particularly pertinent was that of the framing of this artwork within the locker that my artwork comes from, wherein by framing this conceptual artwork within the very traditional essence of storage of artistic materials I was also grounding it within a sphere of art rather than performance. This was a point that I hadn’t considered at all and I felt really resonated with my own hesitations toward performance pieces. With regards to looking forward in my work, I feel that a greater respect for the significance of recording and the extent by which layout of recording can inform the piece should be taken into account.
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