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