SEPHORA RANT!!

This blogpost will serve as the introduction to what my project is trying, keyword trying, to tackle.

I’m unmasking the mask behind my clients at Sephora. I’m going into the life of a client that I don’t know, nor do I necessarily want to know their background. I’m just imaging based on a conversation that I have heard, and been a part of and reacted to and experienced and had to react to a scenario that made me question what this girl’s life is really like outside of the walls of Sephora. I’m diving into what I think her life would be based on my cultural experience and knowledge of the beauty industry and its effects on the coming generations of the world, but with a gay man’s twist.

Within the world of retail exists a world of frustration and anger that resides within the employee.  Sometimes thanks to the retailer that you work for, sometimes because of the sheer idiocy that one has to put up with from time to time.  

an retail employee probably wrote this drunk or high, or both

A retail store is a space that welcomes anyone and everyone; the store doors do not discriminate.  My method of coping often involves deconstructing specific interactions and moments of shock, stupidity, what be it. Often it takes place at a bar with a few beers with friends that also work the retail scene, and also down for making a mockey of whatever happened that day.

My goal here is to document short little insights into the world of retail that is often seen through gifs on Buzzfeed articles, but rarely seen in the real. Or is it the hyperreal?

see what I mean?

Ultimately, I want something that I can look back on that will remind me to never work retail again.  And that's real enough for me.

An Unnamed Need for Beauty

Angus hard at work!

Friday night's gallery opening was a welcome sight for eyes that deal with all things beauty on the daily. Professor Tilghman encouraged us to look at the details of the beautiful collections, with an emphasis on texture and surface. As an artist, texture is one of my favorite components of a piece, regardless of the artist's choice of medium. I feel that if an artist is able to manipulate and incorporate texture in a new and exciting manner, I'm a happy and satisfied attendee! Ability to manipulate texture and create something new has always been of high interest to me, and I definitely was able to experience something truly breathtaking at the show with the insanely perfect arrangement of insects that we were met with upon entrance of the space.

I was immediately intrigued and stunned by the sheer beauty of Jennifer Angus' installation of wallpaper patterned insects. In her artist statement, she states that she hopes top take the adult viewer back to the magic pull that insects had on us as children. Although I never really bought into the magic of insects as a kid, obviously opting for Barbie and Ken dolls instead, as an adult I undeniably felt the magic of her use of color, texture, and pattern. I have to say that Angus was successful with her mission because I walked into the front room and immediately had an ear-to-ear smile plastered onto my face. After getting over the initial shock/fascination of her masterful patterned arrangement, one can truly dig into the beauty of what Angus has set forth before us.

Don't they look like they're sleeping so nicely?

DO RE MI MI MI | A Musical Relational Art Exploration

As a musician, I'm almost always thinking in sounds, pitches, music notes, rhythms, etc.  So usually this translates into turning almost any pitch I hear in normal, everyday life into a song or pitch in my head. Seriously, it can get annoying and overbearing, especially when trying to sleep.  Remember that part in Shrek when Fiona outsings the bird and it explodes? That’s what it feels like sometimes, especially at bedtime, but you learn to cope and deal with it and move on with life.

This project is an attempt at explaining what it's like to be inside of my brain.  I'm kind of obsessed with how other people think, especially when their train of thought isn't focused on anything specific and it's just jumbling around.  To get into someone else's brain and have a lasting encounter (page 19) on it is extremely fascinating to me.  Consequently, my video is also attempting to prompt the audience to think like me, in song and pitch.  The conductor is a guide, much like a real musical situation, for the audience to sing the pitch either in their head or out loud.  I'd actually prefer the latter, especially if it was an unexpected reaction and gut instinct to sing aloud.  Due to my musical pursuits for the majority of my life, I don't know how to sit still still whenever a conductor gives a cue. It's a problem.

Ideally, this would be projected onto a much larger screen in a darker room, much like that of Christian Marclay's  The Clock, to isolate the audience from their own thoughts and ease them into mine.  This would also be much longer with more pitches and everyday sounds from my life, but I chose to only include the three sounds I hear most often for the purpose of saving class time. 

I hope you enjoy! You can view the video here on my YouTube account if the embedded video doesn't work.

Cosmogony 2.0 | A Carol Emmons Intergalactic Art Exploration

"Where do we come from?"

A question I'm sure we've all pondered and entertained at some point in our lifetime and one that will probably run through our mind at some point again while trying to go to bed.

"Hmm.. I wonder like where we come from.. is my mascara running?"

As light-hearted and cheerful as I try to be, I definitely have had my share of "existential" moments where I've endlessly let my mind run through the endless possibilities of how we as a human race have come into existence and where our future is headed.  For me, Carol Emmons was able to capture the sentiment of one of my bouts of existential pondering.  When I walked into the room, my eyes immediately started scanning the text spanning the entirety of the Kohler Gallery.  Being an installation artist, I feel that Carol successfully transformed the space into a zen-like meditation and reflection zone where one could contemplate not only the art pieces that Carol offered us, but also our own relationship to the individual and communal worlds that we experience every day.

I was particularly drawn to the idea of combining elements from various creation stories from around the globe.  Stemming from my childhood experiences with religion, I've always struggled with the Christian mentality of "we're right and everyone else is wrong" where it concerns stories of our earth's creation.  It made me extremely happy to see an artist being inclusive of all cosmogenic theories, not only the one King James wanted us to hear about.  

Thank you for an exceptional installation, Carol Emmons!

YouTube Beauty Gurus of Babel

My goal with our final project was to collect various YouTube beauty videos from all over the world and string them together to form a new makeup tutorial in hopes of shedding light on the global beauty village that we are all a part of as a reference to the idea of the global village in Marshall McLuhan's "The Medium is the Massage."

Although I sat through about 12 hours of YouTube makeup tutorials in over 20 languages (Google translate was my best friend), this project was a refreshing reminder that there exists a world of beauty outside of the United States.  It was so interesting to see all of the different nuances that certain countries play up with regards to makeup application.

For example, in South Korea they really value a light application of makeup.  Anything beyond that resulting in a "cakey" or heavily made up face is regarded as undesirable and unnatural looking.  South Koreans would not fare well in India where they apply layer after layer of makeup and really spackle it on.

What's most interesting and refreshing to me is that there are so many different definitions of what beauty is depending on your place of origin, where you reside now, your parent's definition of beauty, etc., and how they're all 100% valid.  Who am I to say that your faintly filled in brow is not as beautiful as someone else's heavily drawn on brow?

If you'd like to browse through all of the videos I looked at for the project, you can view the playlist right here.  You can view my final video on YouTube by clicking this link.

Thank you for a wonderful class, everyone!!

Charlotte Moorman | The Topless Cellist

We were recently tasked with a research report project based on people found within Marshall McLuhan's The Medium is the Massage."  Upon denial of Marilyn Monroe, I chose Charlotte Moorman solely based on the fact that she was a musician like me.  Well, that and maybe this super awesome "cello bomb" that she used in an art piece once upon a time.

"Cello Bomb" Who woulda thunk?

Charlotte Moorman was an essential player in the world of performance art born in Little Rock, Arkansas.  She attended graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin (shout out to Texas, yawl!!) and did postgraduate studies at The Juilliard School.  She was a classically trained cellist, but made the transition into performance art during the 1960s Avant-Garde movement.  Researching her history and huge involvement in the promotion of avant garde art was largely inspiring to keep doing what I do with my own art.  Although she was arrested for performing semi-nude (interview video link), she kept pursuing what she loved and didn't stop for anything, even through her battle with breast cancer that eventually took her life.

I'm thankful for the opportunity to research an important figure that paved a way for an important period of our art history.

Charlotte Moorman with John Lennon and Yoko Ono

Because You're Worth It?

You may be tired of my cosmetic and beauty approach to everything in this class, but you'll learn to love it ;)

My goal with this project was to highlight the beauty ads that we are bombarded with in our day and age.  Like most companies do, all of the major cosmetic retailers have taglines and slogans that they employ to help set their company apart from the competition.

Maybe she's born with it. Maybe it's Maybelline.

Never Dries - it Beautifies!

With the introduction of TV and radio ad spots, companies now have the chance to drill their slogans into our heads relentlessly.  These days when we walk past their products in stores, chances are we're going to be singing their jingle in our heads while simultaneously being annoyed that they were able to get their silly slogan engrained in our brains.  It's almost as if "everyone [is] psychologically attuned to memorization" in an aural sense (McLuhan 113).  Actually, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what's happening.  Although everyone has their preferred or most effective method of learning whether it's visually, orally, or tactile, oral methods of memorization are almost always effective.  There is something about the rhythm of sounds and words that our brains automatically tune into, so hearing a slogan over and over again is no doubt going to cause it to stick with us. Oh, and this is all in the hopes that you'll buy their products forever and ever and ever... because you're totally worth the advertising money they spent.  Right? Right.

My soundscape was focused on the repetitive nature of a few cosmetic company's slogans. I wanted to string together repeated slogans in a way that was harmonious to my ear, but somewhat disrupted by the odd placement of some of the repetitions so that the listener wouldn't necessarily be inclined to naturally internalize the slogan.  I hope you enjoy!

Overload | Escape from Hoarders

As part of my digital processes class, I was tasked with expanding my Flickr Overload photo set into a photo book.  I pieced my photos together in a style that tried to remain true to the Flickr set.   It's hard for me to say if the narrative had more of a say in the process of placing the photos, or if the consumerism had more of a voice.  Maybe they were both equally heard. Who knows…

I wanted the viewer to simultaneously experience my everyday routine that I go through when it comes to beauty and to also be gradually overwhelmed by all of the brand names and logos that I tried to portray through the photos.  The photos that are spread over two pages at the end are photos that I felt drawn to aesthetically.  After all, someone(s) did sit at a desk and design these products for us!

Some lovely design humor, poor guy/gal

As a result of this process, I realize I've seemingly become blind to my own consumerism that I'm totally giving in to.  But at the same time, it's my job as a makeup artist to be familiar with new products and current trends in the fashion/beauty industries.  How do I find a healthy balance between these two problems?  Is there a healthy balance? Is it worth looking into?  Should I start looking into contacting an space organization specialist?  So many questions, so little time.

You can view the photo book here on the Mixbook website or watch the cute little slideshow below.  (If you watch it below, you won't be able to get the full effect of the photo spreads.)  I wanted the theme of the book to remain relatively simple with the emphasis on being this sensation of being overwhelmed as a viewer.  I tried to listen to my intuition, as suggested by Sandy Dyas, to puzzle my narrative together with some semblance of a flow.  Hopefully my intuition was right.

I hope you enjoy :)

| Start your own Photo Books | Create custom Christmas Cards

Overload | A Makeup Artist's Antisocial Routine

For this project, we were challenged with capturing the notion of our environment and our own antisocial actions.  I set out on capturing an antisocial environment that I create daily, my very own morning routine.

During my morning routine, I am faced with countless products screaming for my attention.  Whether products new or old, the cry for attention is the same across the board.  The amount of products that I have for one person is pretty ridiculous, but one can't help buying shiny new things when the opportunity presents itself!  My Flickr set is focused on capturing the essence of a quote from "The Medium is the Massage,""When faced with a totally new situation, we tend always to attach ourselves to the objects, to the flavor of the most recent past" (p 73).

When planning which products to photograph, I found that I gravitated towards the ones that I choose almost everyday.  Although I probably have over a hundred products to choose from, I consistently use only around fifteen of them.  I realized that I am "liv[ing] imaginatively in Bonanza-land."  I hope to expand on this idea and photograph other people and the routines that they run through in the morning, with a focus on the brand name overload.

Why so much?!

Consumerism and our obsession with new products coming to the market almost daily are not only problems concerning our pocketbooks, but the waste that we are seemingly blind to.  Consistently using the same fifteen items means that the countless others I have are wasting away to no use at all.  How many other people are living like me?

Blind

Smoking Causes Film Ideas: An Experimental Film

When presented with the prompt for the experimental film project, I was initially worried because of my inexperience with this type of media.  Or any kind of media project for that matter.

"We thought it was one of those new fancy candle warmers! Oops!"

However, I was not ready to give up solely based on my inexperience with Final Cut Pro!  Armed with a Sony Nex-5 camera and our somewhat trusty friend Google, of course, Zain and I set out to explore the space created when smokers need their separation from the anxieties of the 21^st century life.  What is the 21^st century life like, you ask? Just watch and listen to this.  If you’re not convinced, it’s sung by a cute Australian guy, Sam Sparro.

Mr. Sam Sparro

The song shares some of the sentiments expressed in “The Medium is the Massage.”  Sparro sings about having “21,000 things [he] has to do today,” which I believe can be related to the constant buzzing of iPhones, Twitter, Facebook, etc., that many first world country citizens can relate to.  McLuhan suggests that we have been deceived by this constant technological buzz into believing that we’re somehow being soothed and satisfied by the connection between our thumbs and the Internet, when in reality, we’ve merely been conditioned to be anxious for the latest status update or CNN headline.  “Smoking Creates Film Ideas” examines the zone of silence and solitude that smokers enter when they flick the lighter, exhale, and allow their minds to wander without a screen in front of their face.  Even in sub-zero temperatures. 

We hope you enjoy our experimental short film. :)