方 璐 FANG LU

Today I decided I should document this New Genre seminar in some form. It’s a class conducted by Tony Labat and I am the teaching assistance. Starting from August 30, today it’s already the fifth section of the seminar. Thinking about art exercises and art learning is fundamental for most artists, and also an initiating point for critical debates, documenting this three months weekly seminar could not only leaves marks for memorable projects but also be a self-reflexive process of art making.

Remember back in March 2006, I happened to be in a lecture of Yvonne Rainer in Goldsmith College in London. On the black stage, Rainer sat down next to a small table and a lamp. Unlike most of the artist lectures that present archieves of master projects, she read to the audience her journal that recorded one of dance workshop she taught. Every day and every small occasions of the workshop, between her, students, her friends and the organizer had been described. The hour long narrating as speech more or less became a performance that revealed her as an artist and a post-modern dancer that investigated relationships and situations that constructed by her and other dancers.

Anyway back to New Genre I seminar, I will start from today to document it every week with texts or images (hopefully I won’t get bored before it’s all over). It’s not my purpose to comment on the work being presented in the class. I will try my best to be simply a discriptive recorder, but obviously my subjective views will leak through my text time to time.

So here it go, this is what happened today in session #5 New Genre I :

Irish first showed her project for Burning Man. She presented with laptop projection of sketches and photos of the project. The quality of the images were not very high and she explained they were all downloaded online after the event and she seemed a bit regret that she didn’t do better documentation of it. Her project involved a group of people that created a big dome as living and activity space. While Irish spoke of the project and Burning Man experience with great passion, me and Tony started to raised questions on contradiction between the over all idealism and reality such as pollution, legistration of the action, etc.

The assignment of this week for everyone to present is “Space Between Your Knees”. Last two assignments prior to this are “Timeline” (Significants of your life) and “Horizon of Prejudice, with Oxymoron”. This week people were going to show the third assignment, in combination with the last two for the people who haven’t shown.

After a short break Irish continued to present her “Horizon of Prejudice” piece. There is a pile of open-shaped paper boxes on the floor she made. She asked everyone in the class to take one, read the word in the box and standing facing to each other with that text facing to middle of the circle. These words are antonyms group including: difficult, easy, order, chaos, whole, incomplete, etc. People in the circle needed to match with the others with their word, and read the word out the each other, then Irish put a string between the two matched people. Finally the two matched people will put their box together into one. For some reasons Rachael burst into laughter that she couldn’t control. I asked her why she couldn’t really explain, just said: you know, sometime you have that kind of laugh that you can’t stop that you end up just want to cry?

Afte lunch break, Kate showed a sculpture piece for her “Space Between Knees”. She used cotton masses to create shape between her legs. Most of the cotton are black and dirty, and they form some gradien from light to dark in the pile. Kate states that she had put charcoal all over her body, and used those cotton to clean her body up. The sculpture has a sensitive nature and a present of its process, which seems quite consistent with Kate’s previous work.

Interesting information Peter today revealed in conversation that he’s raised by back-to-earth parents, and he had “alternative education”. Peter first showed his “NOT Space between Knees” piece in DV. First couple second I was stunt by the quality of the video, but very soon I realized it’s a ready-made video that he re-edit. But still the content kept me great interest. It’s a porn video of girls’ life in a Russian school. Of course all the girls and teachers were nothing normal but super sexy models. Peter edited out all the sex intercourse part and only left the pretentious narrative and plot. It reminded me my approach in “The Plum in the Golden Vase” video. After he showed I asked out front that where’s the uncut version.

Peter’s second video was for “Timeline” project. A straight shot of medical drug bottles on the table on the table, Peter’s self-narrating in the background. The shot was simple but well managed. It speaks to the culture and influence of drug and psychiatry. Tony and people in the class were very well responded to this project.

Rachael always gives sweet surprises to the class. Today she gave people cookies before she showed her work. She told me in case people hated her work at least they would have cookies. She’s a very charming being, and meanwhile needs a lot of attention. In her both of her previous work, there were always some kind of tension and anxiety that came out from her dramatic persona. Today she brought in her friend to help her on the project. With black dress, high heels, she first showed the audience a sign “How does a good girl sits?”. Then push away the sign and chair, she laid on the floor with her legs leaned on the wall up side down and half open. Slide projector projected on that wall area, with negatives of daily legs shots. Again, Rachael well prepared and carefully orchestrated the whole process.

In the end Tony assigned for next week: 1) make a one minute work (consider not just in time-based sense. And do not bring in a clock.) 2) bring in something ready-made that is either charged or loaded. (Can a person be charged? or do we normally think of object is charged and person is loaded? Do not bring in a charged battery. Haha, I like this one)
So check back for the next episode.