Final Source Statement

Final Source Statement

I am interested in the parallels between the principles and practices of the American industrial food system and the embodiment of those principles and practices in the average American consumer. I am interested in both the way the food industry influences our lifestyles and consequently, how the food industry is a product of that lifestyle.

The American industrial food system is built on a basic principle of efficiency: produce the most food, at the fastest rate, by means of the cheapest labor, to net the greatest profit. This is achieved in a mechanized system of predictable, consistent, and uniform mass-production. In order to make the most profit, the system must be controlled from beginning to end - from seed to store shelf. Our food is chemically reengineered in labs, sprayed with pesticides in the fields and fed hormones in their pens. These chemicals are eventually digested by the consumer The natural nutrients and growing processes are supplemented with chemicals and an assembly line. Our meats, fruits, vegetables and grains, are processed and engineered to grow bigger, to grow faster, to look brighter, to yield more flesh, and to taste “better,” (higher in fat, salt, and sugar). They are produced to be the most sellable and to have the longest shelf-life possible. Bigger is better. More is better. Faster is better. The problem with this industrial food system is that it replaces surface for substance. It is a quick fix. It jeopardizes quality and character for speed and profit.

The average American contributes to this system as both a consumer, one who purchases the food and pumps money back into the system, and also by literally consuming the food, ingesting it into our own internal system and therefore, maintaining the Western diet and subsequent health problems. The consumer is content with supplementing well developed vitamins and nutrients with chemicals, nuance with consistency, individual character with slick surfaces, We would rather fill our bodies with pharmaceuticals than fruits, vegetables and exercise. We like this mass-produced system because we want cheap, predictable, abundant, quick and instantly gratifying solutions. The average American consumer is content with this system. They are easily satisfied by it and are in fact drawn to it. We want the quick fix.

As an artist, I am interested in the monumental sculptures of Claes Oldenburg. What intrigues me about his work is he way he reintroduces the audience to every day, mass produced objects and makes the audience confront them. They must physically walk around them or under them and consider them from a new angle. It is a physical experience that makes one question their own bodily presence. I am also interested in the work of Andy Warhol. In particular, his prints of Coca Cola bottles and Marilyn Monroe. I am affected by the duplications - the degenerative copy of a copy of a copy – and the way it loses what makes it special and significant the more it progresses. He Monroes become just another product consumed by pop culture rather than one that is enjoyed and truly appreciated. I am also interested in the still lifes of Raphael Peale, particularly Cutlet and Vegetables. Peale describes meat as being so fleshy you can touch it. As a viewer, I know exactly how the meat feels – cold and moist and bloody. His paintings look the audience right in the eye as if to say, “Hello,” as if the paintings were alive themselves.

project update

Its finally done!!! woohoo! I am very pleased with the way the piece came out. I am also very tired. This has been a very long week. The only issue I have now is getting it to the Brant gallery - this thing weighs a ton. I think if I ask the janitors for some sort of wheel thingy I can just roll it down from the 3rd floor. Hopefully it fits through the doors! See you at the crits!

project update

I have been pretty sick this week and missed a few days of studio time however, I think I am still right on schedule. Ill just have to put in some extra time over the weekend. So far, so good. This week I set the background with the pouring medium on both paintings. Also, I have made all the pill forms for the "synethetic" painting and have began applying them/composing that painting. The only issue this week was figuring out how I would stand the paintings up. My plan is to encase the two paintings, back to back, within a finished frame (nothing fancy), that would wrap around the edges of both paintings, covering the crease. At the base of this frame I will attach some simple L-shaped supports constructed out of 2 x 4s.

progress images

project progress

So far, my project is going well. I have attained all of my materials, built my panel supports and primed the surfaces. I ran into my first obstacle this week. I purchased all my materials from the hardware store and brought them back to the woodshop to build my supports for the canvas. I built the supports (the cradle, or frame) and went to adhere the panel to the top, only to discover that the hardboard panel was not the exact size it had been advertised as. It was 1/4 inch short all the way around! So, I had to disassemble and then resize the frame and then attach the panel. It was a good lesson learned: always take full responsibility and double check/measure your materials before hand. Measure twice, cut once, etc. Tonight I will make photocopies of the graph-paper and collage it to the panels. Tomorrow I will set the pouring medium.

Final Source Statement

I am interested in the parallels between the principles and practices of the American industrial food system and the embodiment of those principles and practices in the average American consumer. I am interested in both the way the food industry influences our lifestyles and consequently, how the food industry is a product of that lifestyle.

The American industrial food system is built on a basic principle of efficiency: produce the most food, at the fastest rate, by means of the cheapest labor, to net the greatest profit. This is achieved in a mechanized system of predictable, consistent, and uniform mass-production. In order to make the most profit, the system must be controlled from beginning to end - from seed to store shelf. Our food is chemically reengineered in labs, sprayed with pesticides in the fields and fed hormones in their pens. We have replaced the health benefits. The natural nutrients and growing processes are supplemented with chemicals and an assembly line. Our meats, fruits, vegetables and grains, are processed and engineered to grow bigger, to grow faster, to look brighter, to yield more flesh, and to taste “better,” (higher in fat, salt, and sugar). They are produced to be the most sellable and to have the longest shelf-life possible. Bigger is better. More is better. Faster is better. The problem with this industrial food system is that it replaces surface for substance. It is a quick fix. It jeopardizes quality and character for speed and profit.

The average American contributes to this system as both a consumer, one who purchases the food and pumps money back into the system, and also by literally consuming the food, ingesting it into our own internal system and therefore, maintaining the Western diet and subsequent health problems. The consumer is content with supplementing well developed vitamins and nutrients with chemicals, nuance with consistency, individual character with slick surfaces, We would rather fill our bodies with pharmaceuticals than fruits, vegetables and exercise. We like this mass-produced system because we want cheap, predictable, abundant, quick and instantly gratifying solutions. The average American consumer is content with this system. They are easily satisfied by it and are in fact drawn to it. We want the quick fix.

3. Flip-Book

For my final project I will make a flip book that describes the assembly line production of a fast food cheeseburger. The book will explore ideas of speed and efficiency, as well as convenience and time.

The covers of the book will be constructed of book-board. The pages will be made of light-weight paper. The content of the book will be images of the ingredients of a cheeseburger being lade one on top of the other to finally produce a finished cheeseburger. They will be hand drawn with colored pencils. The cover of the book will be titled in very large print “A FAST-FOOD FLIP-BOOK.” The purpose of a flip-book is to animate the contents of its pages creating a smooth sequence of events that can be read/consumed quickly and easily. The twist of this book comes in its size and consequently its ease of function or rather, malfunction as a flip-book. I will make the book very large, 24’ x 24’ so that its pages are so loose that it cant function effectively as a flip-book. Also, the progression of images will develop so slowly from page to page that any evolution can only be witnessed after 10 pages or so.

Time is expressed as the viewer experiences the flip-book - in the sequence of pages and the assembly of the cheeseburger. I want to express how our American food industry seems great in concept, in the idea that is convenient, quick, cheap and readily available to the consumer, however, in the end it does not work. In the end, we sacrifice substance and quality.

Timeline:

Week 1 – attain all materials

Week 2 – construct covers, assemble binding

Week 3 – draw pages

Week 4 – assemble completed flip-book

2. Ready-Made

For my final project I will build a sculpture that resembles a cheeseburger. The sculpture will explore ideas of substance vs. surface, consumerism, and the “speed” of the ready-made.

I will build the sculpture out of found materials that are mass-produced and resemble/relate to the burger ingredient they represent in either shape, form, color, or function. The buns will be cardboard boxes. The lettuce will be sheets of latex. The tomatoes will be rubber swimming tubes. The burger patties will be car tires. The cheese will be ShamWow towels. The pickles will be bucket covers. The size of the sculpture will determined by the size of the “burger patty” – an average size car tire. The size and quantity of the other ingredients will follow from there.

I will exibit the sculpture in the 2^nd Floor hallway of South Building on a large pedestal.

The idea is that the food we consume is mass-produced using ingredients that are often times synthetic, or at least chemically enhance/mechanically produced for the sake of quick, cheap labor, and profitability.

Time is expressed as the audience moves around the sculpture to view it from all 360 degrees. Time is also expressed through the concept of the ready-made sculpture and is further enhance by the fact that these ingredients were created on an assembly line.

Timeline:

Week 1 – attain all materials

Week 2 – build pedestal

Week 3 – assemble sculpture, dry-fit

Week 4 – finish sculpture, install in hallway

project proposal

1. Embodiment

For my final project I will paint two large paintings (48’ x 68’, each, my height) exploring how I embody my source. The paintings will each depict a still life of stacked raw meat over a ground of collaged graph paper. The first painting will be in high detail, and will consist of only meat as its figure. The companion painting will be a combination of raw meat and synthetic pill forms.

Each painting begins with the ground. For this, I will make one sheet of graph paper that has been stenciled with circles in each of its square cells. I will then photocopy this original sheet of graph paper making a stock pile of exact copies. I will use the copies to collage the the ground. The ground of collaged, photocopied graph paper symbolizes the controlled, repetitive, mechanized system of the American food industry. I will seal this ground with an acrylic pouring medium. The pouring medium dries into a sheet of even, clear plastic that separates the meat from the background, suspending it on the surface and pushing it closer to the viewer. The meat image is piled high into a gluttonous mound of random flesh and bone described with sensuous, painterly color. I am using meat as a subject to at once describe the role of my physical self (the flesh that I am made of) and also to explore the role of that body as a consumer in the American industrial food system. The paintings are, in a way, self portraits.

The companion painting will be built over the same collaged ground, sealed with the same pouring medium. In this painting however, the meat is replaced by synthetic pill forms. The “pills” look like elongated circles, and are painted with one, solid, fluorescent color over contact paper. The shapes are then cut out and applied to the surface, like stickers. These shapes resemble additives or pills. They are controlled, idealized forms that are perfected in factories and labs and implemented for the sake of “improvement.” Their application echoes the importance of surface to the industrial food system and its consumers.

I want the audience to be confronted with two paintings that are at once, attractive and repelling, both visually and conceptually. I want the viewer to see the meat pile and think about where it comes from and what it will soon be. How is this flesh processed? I want the viewer to understand that this meat was once a living creature and has now become part of a larger, very complex industry of mass production. I want the audience to think about how our bodies are part of this mass production. How do the choices we make influence this industry and how does this industry influence our lives?

Time is expressed as the viewer reads the paintings from left to right and experiences the change or development or improvement from natural to synthetic/idealized. The paintings change from a slow read to a fast read. Time is also expressed as the paintings are read from background to foreground, from the system (the graph paper) to the systems end-product (the meat or pill forms).

Timeline:

Week 1 – attain all materials, build canvases

Week 2 – collage background, set pouring medium

Week 3 – paint,

Week 4 – finish paintings

Artist Book Images

New Source Update

I have not really changed my source from my last update, it is still the American industrial food system - explored through an artist book. However, over the past few days I have been thinking a lot about materials, not just the materials I am using in my artist's book, but materials in general. What things are made of. Suff. I've been thinking a lot about choices artists make in terms of the materials they use to transmit their ideas. I've been thinking a lot about how things are made and where those things come from. I've been thinking a lot about the food I eat. Not should i eat meat or vegetables, but where did this chicken come from, and what does it mean to consume its body? What is the origin of this material or that? What does it mean to be made out of something? Am I the physical thing or something else. What does embodiment mean? What is my role in the food industry and moreover what is the role of my body? Clearly, I am rambling here. But I think these are important questions to ask if I could just figure out how to organize them.

Images of Artist Book in Progress

New Source Statement

I have continued to develop the ideas surrounding my source. Throughout the semester I have been exploring the Western Diet, mass produced food, and notions of improvement. I will continue this track within the American industrial food system through the creation of an artist's book. In researching our food system I have noticed two faults which thread between the industry and the consumers and motivate them, respectively. First the food industry (the corporations in charge) are driven by a short sighted greed in the form of exploitation. They want to yield the most product, from the lowest quality ingredients while using the cheapest labor as quickly as possible. All of this is executed from within a centrally controlled and regulated system which is consistent and readily available to the masses. And second, the masses (the consumers) are driven by a short sighted resolution in the form of negligence. They want the biggest, quickest, easiest, and cheapest food they can get, and they want it to be consistent and readily available. My book will explore the American industrial food system through its most common output: the cheeseburger. In particular, my book will experiment with concepts of speed and materials.

The form of my artist's book will resemble a boxed fast food cheeseburger. The book itself will be 15 inches in height, width, and depth, 3 times as large as the average fast food cheeseburger, a play on 3 square meals a day. The box, or cover, will mimic a McDonald's box in its shape, hinged at the back to enclose its contents and hooked at the front. It will be made of a single sheet of chip board folded at its hinges and collaged with yellow tissue paper. The chip board is a very cheap, low quality material that is readily available and easy to manipulate. The yellow paper will echo the yellow foil used to wrap fast food. Upon opening the cover the reader is presented with a stack of 30 precisely cut 15x15 inch foam-core squares. Each piece of foam-core represents a different layer in this single cheeseburger. Each individual square will be collaged with graph paper on its top and bottom and then crudely hand stenciled with very a simple image of the ingredient (the layer in the cheeseburger- pickles, cheese, ketchup, meet etc.) that it represents. Foam-core was chosen as a material not for its seemingly sturdy appearance, but its actual weightless and empty reality. Like a fast food cheeseburger, there aren't any real quality, ingredients; its all filler. The graph paper is applied in order to represent the mechanized, controlled, ordered system of the food industry in which the cheeseburger is produced. The image is hand stenciled with the lowest artist quality acrylic paint I could find. I chose the most basic, dumbed down colors of red, green, blue and yellow available. My interest is in the dumbing down of the materials or ingredients and in hindering the speed and the ease of which book is read. The "reading" of the book is in the experience of removing each page from the box, consuming its contents and revealing the next layer in the sandwich. This event will not be easy, as each square is large and the box is tight. I want to slow down the viewers consumption. I want to reduce the speed. As the pages continue to be removed the reader will notice the monotony of the images as they are repeated over and over again, slowing the viewers interest. The book is not meant to bore the reader, but rather to make he/she consider their actions, to think about this repetition, and consider the cheap materials used in its production.

Roni Horn aka Roni Horn

The ICA is currently exhibiting the most comprehensive survey of works to date of 53 year old American artist, Roni Horn. The show, entitled, "Roni Horn aka Roni Horn," showcases a wide range of Horn's work, including sculptures, drawings, photography and sound installations.

Horn's art explores concepts of identity (her own and subsequently that of the viewer) and how identity changes with environment and develops over time. I thought that her work at first glance, seemed simple and quick but up close I discovered it is full of paradoxes that invite close inspection and comparison. With time, one notes a comparison of materials and environment, of exterior and interior, and of appearance and identity.

Upon entering the main lobby of the ICA, I encountered "Pink Tons," a 5 ton, pink, glass cast sculpture. This giant pink cube rests quietly in the middle of the lobby floor. Its sides are frosted but its top is clear. The light it traps from the natural day light gives view to the air bubbles, cracks and imperfections within, the result of its cooling process. Like many of Horn's sculptures, Pink Tons seems to glow from within, the effect of which changes with the weather conditions. The staying power of the piece for me, was its contradictions. The sculpture is simultaneously heavy and immovable due to its volume and material but also weightless in its translucent, delicate pink hue. It is at once a concrete, solid cube and an ever-changing liquid.

On the wall behind Pink Tons hangs a series of paired portraits of the artist entitled, "a.k.a." Each photograph was taken at a different stage in Horns life. When read from left to right, the first portrait is of a younger Roni, the second of the pair is of an older Roni. Here I was presented with the theme of change very directly, and was immersed in a game of comparing the artist's physical characteristics, her emotions, and how her personality appeared to develop from picture to picture. In exploring her identity, I found myself actually exploring my own. How have I changed? How have I grown up?

Upstairs in the back hallway of the gallery, facing a full expanse of windows overlooking Boston Harbor, are two rooms full of Horn's photos, drawings, and sculptures. In the first room to the left, I was immediately drawn to what I consider my favorite piece in the show, "Paired Gold Mats, For Ross and Felix." Again, a seemingly simple sculpture in form and material however, executed brilliantly and installed perfectly. Two glinting gold mats rest effortlessly on top of one another upon the gallery floor. Between the two gold leaf sheets the natural light from the hallway windows is captured, harnessed, concentrated, mirrored, and multiplied to produce a warm, brilliant orange glow like burning embers. The precious gold material, is rare and malleable. The surface of the mats ripples like the ocean and changes with the light as the viewer moves around the room. The piece is dedicated to Horn's friends, artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres and his partner Ross Laycock, both of whom died of AIDS. Gold Mats successfully reflects the relationship of two lovers, of companionship, of a pair, of the energy produced by the coupling of two lives being greater than that of those when alone. I stayed with this piece for a while. I had a phenomenological experience, my eyes transfixed on the lively hum of orange spilling out from between the gold. I wanted to touch it. Im sure if I had just held my hand inches above the sculpture I could feel warmth emanating from it.

In the same room, back behind Gold Mats, sits "Ant Farm." The sculpture is literally a very large ant farm and is very appropriate for the show. Again the viewer is presented with an ever-changing world sealed between two elements. Between two sheets of glass, a colony of ants builds their city out of earth. This voyeuristic piece changes with each moment, wether viewed from front or back. Like our own world, it is constantly in a state of flux.

In the neighboring room I found "Opposite of White V.2." It is a glass cast sculpture, in the shape of a disk, rising about 2 feet off of the gallery floor. Again, its sides are frosted, resisting light. But this time its surface is dark and ominous like tar. However, when viewed from an angle, the surface is translucent, and one can see its surface is delicately rippled like the surface of the ocean nearby. The black glass sucks in light and drew me in for further inquiry. I really enjoyed this sculpture and found its subtleties very rewarding.

Roni Horn aka Roni Horn, explores the theme of identity through many different materials and practices. At first glance Horn's art can be read as basic glass sculptures or average portraits. But with time and consideration, often times a change in position or time of day, one will find a wealth of subtleties and contradictions, of visual pleasure and insight and hopefully a better understanding of ones own identity.

Essay Response - What Time Looks Like at the Moment: Artists Sequencing Books

Mark's essay, "What Time Looks Like at the Moment: Artists Sequencing Books," gives a broad overview of what an artist's book is, or can be. The essay presents the many different forms an artist's book can take, from the materials used, to the content of its "pages", to the way the book is bound (or not), to the way in which the reader interacts with its content. Mark partners each book type with an example of an actual artist's book. I particularly enjoyed the ideas of Michael Snow, Edward Ruscha, John Baldessari, Sigmar Polke, and Dieter Roth. I liked the way in which they investigate what sequence means. Snow plays with space and presents the reader with the option of reading the book from the front cover or from the back cover, rendering the use of "front" and "back" meaningless. Ruscha's, "Every Building on the Sunset Strip," also comments on space (location) and gives an actual account of every building on the Sunset Strip. His images locate buildings sequentially along the road so that as the reader travels through the book, he/she travels down the road through L.A. Baldessari's, "Brutus Killed Caesar," uses syntax in a very direct, often humorous way. His images read from left to right like a sentence. Sigmar Polke's, "Daphne," uses photocopying to comment on the ideas of mechanization and standardized processes. By pulling the photocopies as they print he creates smears which denote the artist's hand, manipulation, chance, and a sense of play. It is about the battle between accident and system. Dieter Roth's, "Daily Mirror," is less about the sequence of information than an amount of information. "Sequencing becomes an act of amplification." There is no real beginning, middle, and end. Roth leaves ordering in the readers' hands. This allows for meandering and random encounters. This is what stuck with me the most from the reading, in terms of my own work. A specific sequence is not always the most important thing, sometimes it is about a cumulative effect of so much material. Time can be expressed in the repetition of controlled ingredients, in the build up of stuff. In book form, that build up of "stuff" can be physical pages. The idea develops and is transmitted as the reader physically stacks pages.

Page Sketches

Source Update (Book)

For my artists' book, I will explore the process of mass production. My book will express the construction of a cheeseburger. Each page will depict a single ingredient (or layer) of the sandwich. Like an assembly line, the reader will turn each page and be presented with the next layer or step in the process of building the cheeseburger. The first page will be an image of the top bun, the second page, an image of pickles, the third page, an image of bacon. Then cheese, and a succession of hamburger patties (etc.). More pages, more ingredients. The images will be printed on graph paper (or perhaps foam-board)- the grid used as a symbol of control, order, routine and predictability. The book itself will be very large, about 3'x3'. I want it to be too big for a book shelf and too big for a coffee table. The size of the book will require two hands to read and hopefully slow the process of reading its contents.

Biography: Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol was born on August 6th, 1928 (died February 22nd, 1987), in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He studied commercial art at the School of Fine Arts at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburg. In 1949, Warhol moved to New York to work in magazine illustration and advertising. He eventually took a job with RCA records designing album covers and promotional materials. Warhol's first one-man show was at the Ferris Gallery in Los Angeles in 1962. There, he showed the now famous 32 Campbell's Soup Cans. That same year he exhibited at Stable Gallery in New York, where he showed 100 Coke Bottles, 100 Dollar Bills, 100 Soup Cans, and the Marylin Diptych. Perhaps the most famous artist of the Pop movement, Warhol was a fim maker, print maker, and painter who's work questioned American consumerism, death, celebrity, mass advertising and reproduction among other themes.

Biography: Claes Oldenburg

Claes Oldenburg was born on January 28th, 1929 in Stockholm Sweden. He and his family moved to the US in 1936, first to New York and then to Chicago where he grew up. He studied at Yale from 1946-1950 and then at the Art Institute of Chicago until 1954. In 1956, Oldenburg moved to New York where he befriended Jim Dines, Red Grooms, and Allen Kaprow. Kaprow's "Happenings" inspired Oldenburg to look at everyday objects in a new light. Oldenburg is interested in the physical objects of mass culture and also monuments. In 1961, he rented an actual store on 2nd St., on New York's Lower East Side, and filled it with oversized objects made of paper mache, canvas and resin. He made shirts and socks, a sewing machine, a huge cheeseburger, and slices of pie. He chose objects with a specific architecture - things that were made up of basic geometric structures. Oldenburg changed the scale and the materials of these objects. Soft things were made of hard materials and hard things he made soft and flacid. In these objects, Oldenburg saw metaphors for the human form.

Biography: Wayne Thiebaud

Wayne Thiebaud was born on November 15th, 1920 in Mesa, Arizona. Thiebaud grew up in Long Beach, California where, as a youth, worked in a restaurant. There he was inspired by the rows of pies and cakes, sandwiches and meats displayed in their countertops. Later in his career he would paint those same foods. Thiebaud graduated from Sacramento State College in 1941. He then worked as a cartoonist and designer in both California and New York. As his talents developed, he became more and more interested in the uniformity of American food. The hamburger, the hot dog, the club sandwich - all spoke of America. He was interested in the way they looked. The foods Thiebaud painted have a solidity and nobility. They are full of basic geometric forms- squares, wedges, disks, cylinders. Thiebaud is normally associated with the Pop movement, but he is actually a realist painter, like Hopper. He was not interested in stylistic irony or sign systems. He didn't see a need for it. He was drawn to the look of the frosting, that luscious icing- and he painted it with an viscosity of paint. Thiebaud taught at Sacramento City College and later at the University of California, Davis. He received national recognition in 1962 from 2 shows, one at Sidney Janis Gallery in New York and the other, the ground breaking, "New Painting of Common Objects" at the Pasadena Art Museum.

Bibliography

Fineberg, Jonathan. Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being. New Jersey. Prentice Hall. 2000.

Hughes, Robert. American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America. New York. Knopf.2004.

Latest Source Update

I have fine-tuned my source. My new source is mass produced American food. I still think the common thread between my original sources is "improvement," but I want to be more specific. It is a Western concept of improvement – low cost and high volume. It is the idea that bigger is better. More is better. Faster is better. Cheaper is better. Newer is better. Easier is better. In terms of food that means, tastier meals (foods high in fat, sugar, and salt), bigger meals (enough food to take extras home for lunch tomorrow), cheaper meals (a drink, fries, and a cheeseburger for 5 bucks), and quicker meals (your way, right away). It means food that will satisfy you immediately. I am interested in the quick fix, in instant gratification. Americans want more for less. If you don’t have time to exercise, take some pills. Feeling tired? Drink this energy drink. We want our health and nutrition to come in a bottle of pills or an energy shake rather than fruits, vegetables and exercise. Americans want their food readily available, wherever they are, and they want it to taste the same, wherever they are. Food is so unsuited for mass production that we have to chemically re-engineer our plants and livestock to make them more readily harvested and processed. In doing so, they have to amended with preservatives, flavorings and other additives. Mother Nature just isn’t good enough anymore. Our farms are being treated like factories and our food is being treated like a commercial good.

My video begins with a gas stove being lit. All machines need fuel. And then a cheeseburger is prepared. The cheeseburger is the end product of agribusiness. Corn is grown to feed the livestock which is eventually slaughtered to make ground beef. The cheeseburger is the all-American backyard meal. The video proceeds with me making a “health” shake, to me hand-planting additives and vitamins into a banana, to stacking a junk food tower, and then finishes with me building the Great Pyramid of Twinkies. The Twinkies are supposed to resemble gold bricks or the building blocks of the mass produced food system. The pyramid reaches higher and higher till it is almost out of the frame. In making my two minute video, I found it difficult at first, to fit all five videos into one single movie. It didn’t seem like enough time get across what I wanted to say. So I sped everything up. A lot. The increased speed gives the video a sense of urgency, as if there is an actual clock timing the production of food. It makes any movement in the video look mechanical, like part of an assembly line.

.

2 Minute Video- G.N.H.

Agribusiness

Competition

Nutrition

Convenience/Instant Gratification

Food Science/Engineering

Storyboards

Source Update

I have done some slight tweaking to my source. My new source is the Western Diet. I still think the common thread between my original sources is "improvement," but I want to be more specific. It is a Western concept of improvement. It is the idea the bigger is better. More is better. Faster is better. Cheaper is better. Newer is better. In terms of food that means, tastier meals, bigger meals, quicker meals. It does not necessarily mean quality ingredients, grown by hand, and then prepared for a feast with your family. It means food that will satisfy you immediately. Americans want more for less. We want our health and nutrition to come in a bottle of pills or an energy shake rather than fruits, vegetables and exercise. I am interested in the quick fix. "Dinner" bought from a gas station. Food that is brighter, than any other natural growing fruit or vegetable even though the majority of its ingredients come from corn. These foods are not grown in fields, but created in labs and factories. It is a very lucrative business and is therefor very competitive. They're not growing corn, they're growing money.

5 sources

Agribusiness- Corn! and its inevitable appearance in everything we eat, its incredible influence on farmers across the country and even the cars that we drive. I will use the basic construction of the all-American cheeseburger, our most humble backyard delight, to show how too much corn, is a bad thing.

Nutrition- the Western diet is based around speed. So are our health goals. We like our nutrition in pill form, or a quick drink, or both, if its easier that way. Its about convenience more than anything else. If it were healthy for us to be overweight, we would be.

Competition- Its all connected!!! Big business buys out all the small farmers so they can rehire them to work their very own land but to grow only what they're told. The farms yield more, but the quality of the product goes down. They grow a lot of corn! (for the record, I love eating corn) Corn is in everything we eat, usually as a form of sugar. Sugar sells. We like sweet things. Its easy to package and delicious to eat. You can find it anywhere. Commercial America loves it. I will portray a man counting cheese curls (made from corn), one at a time, as if he were counting gold bricks.

Convenience- Fast food in general. Not necessarily McDonalds, etc., but literal fast food. Food that is cheap and can be found anywhere, anytime (even after a nuclear bomb explosion - Twinkies). This food is about instant gratification.

Food Science/Engineering- The food industry needs new foods to make new money. So why not invent them ourselves! We now engineer (like, in a lab) vegetables with vitamins they never had before. We spray with pesticides to kill insects and disease while creating entirely new species. We tamper with food.

recording experience/tech recitation/readings

My recording experience was alright considering I've never made a video before. Video/Computers in general are really out of my comfort zone. Im more of a materials guy. After playing around with the camera and searching through the menu on my own, i got the hang of it. I learn much more when I do it myself. I did however, get frustrated with my recording conditions. It just wasn't the right environment for what i wanted to portray. It would be nice to have a Hollywood budget and be able to record on a set/studio or in a vacuum. . That being said, I think I recorded some ideas which speak to my sources. I definitely appreciate video/film much more after this experience.

I was home sick with the flu all of last week so I missed the tech recitation. However, I sat in on Sarah Bapst's class on Tuesday evening. The tech recitation was very helpful. Its nice to have someone there to guide you through the basics. And even though I didn't understand everything all at once, it was nice to have a familiarity with FCE for when I went back to work on my own.

I thought the reading was informative. This book reads like a survey class - a little bit of everything. I think its very useful to have when working on a specific project. Its important to know the language you are using in your art. As an abstract painter, non-narrative work comes easily. Or, at least I have an understanding of how to approach it. Narrative work is fairly simple. I think of it as process, like building a sandwich.

New Source

For my final source I am sticking to food science/industry/agribusiness. After reviewing my other sources I realize that they are all connected through the idea of “improvement.” I am interested in the food we chose to eat and how it gets to our plate. I am interested in food because it is something that we consume for nourishment, much like the way we consume art for intellectual, sensory nourishment. Food is manipulated, both physically for the sake of appearance and chemically for the sake of health benefits, commercial incentives and or shelf life. Whether it is basic produce, the all American cheeseburger, or a Twinkie, what we consume is sprayed, injected, treated, and/or processed for improvement. I am interested in the quest of the West to grow, breed, and invent bigger, brighter, "better" foods at a faster pace and for a cheaper price. I feel like our food is being taken out of the soil rich hands of local farmers and into the rubber gloved hands of mad scientists and cold steel machinery of laboratories backed by the fat wallets of commercial America. The sounds I will investigate and record will represent the kitchen, the lab, and the factory. They will hopefully be abstract enough to be used as atmosphere but also recognizable enough so that the listener (viewer) can relate them to his/her own food/agriculture experience. For example, popping popcorn out of context is an abstract sound but when applied to my movie will reference the corn industry and its influence on and presence in virtually everything we eat.

popcorn popping

running motor

microwave

ding of toaster oven

bubbling water

hum of air vent

car wash

snap of rubber gloves

bunsen burner

scraping metal

pills rattling

mortar and pestel grinding

blender

Reading Response

Launching the Imagination

I have always enjoyed watching movies, but have never really been interested in making films/videos so I was very apprehensive about this reading assignment. I felt overwhelmed by the vocabulary and a bit defensive to let it sink in. I realize this language is vital to talking about filmmaking and will be more relevant once i actually start storyboarding but overall, i found it a bit boring. It did however, make me think about how any great artist must make great decisions. Every element of every frame of a film must be considered. I enjoyed looking at the Poussin painting, The Rape of Sabine Women, in the discussion of scope and I think the section Schindler's List: Content and Composition was actually very helpful and resonated with me more from a painter's perspective than anything else.

Source

Food chemistry/food industry/agri-business

I am interested in the food we chose to eat and how it gets to our plate. Whether its basic produce, the all American cheeseburger, or a Twinkie, what we consume is sprayed, injected, treated, and/or processed. I am interested in the quest of the West to grow, breed, and invent bigger, brighter, "better" foods at a faster pace and for a cheaper price. I feel like our food is being taken out of the soil rich hands of local farmers and into the rubber gloved hands of mad scientists and cold steel machinery of laboratories.

motor (car motor)

humming air vent

ding of timer (toaster oven)

conveyer belt (car wash?)

snap of rubber gloves

sizzle of bacon

searing of meat

beeping of microwave

"its alive!"

cows mooing

chickens clucking

popcorn popping (referencing corn industry)

Sports/competition

I am interested in the idea of the ideal, in particular, the goal of the athlete to be the biggest, the fastest, the strongest- the best. I am also interested in the ritual of sport and its role in contemporary America. As well as baseball's steroid scandal and its effect on "America's favorite pastime."

marching

cheering

drumming

chanting

heavy breathing

heart beat

trumpets

whistles

horns

sneakers squeaking

"swish"

pills rattling

Vices/pleasure/instant gratification

I am interested in pleasure and hedonism but only in terms of instant gratification. The quick fix. I am interested in how art can be a vice (?) in the way it effects the senses, like a drug.

rattling pills

inhaling

exhaling

water boiling

bong bubbling

lighting a match

gulping

moaning

foot tapping

scratching

ice cubes

bacon frying (fat, sugar, salt)