link to year 2 project:

http://asmfa2.blogspot.com/

my videos on ArtFem.TV

3 projections

during time-based night -
the audio worked well as a three way canon.

stimulating art making

In my current project, I have been examining the idea of physical pain as a creative force and relate it to my childhood dream of becoming a classical dancer. My videos and barre drawings document the process of invoking memory. The videos deal on the one hand with rather concrete, painful memories that I associate with ballet, be it the forcing of one’s feet to stand en pointe, or the tying of one’s hair into a tight knot, fixed with pins and spray. Then there are more dream-like sequences, such as the recording of the seamless arc and dependably balanced noise of a squeaky swing. Dreams may be invoked by memories but are not controlled by facts, only by imagination – if there is a limit to imagination. The reality of every-day life catches up with scenes of a quarrel with insomnia and a car ride while listening to Heidegger’s reflection on Sein-zum-Tode (being-onto-death).

The barre drawings are traces of my feet on the studio floor. Rosin on my ballet slippers marks the steps, jumps, and tendus of my dance exercises. I photograph this evidence of my effort to demonstrate the ephemeral quality of my childhood dreams.

This method of self-analytical art making has sparked the desire to closer examine my heritage in terms of identity, cultural constructs, and the importance of historical events on a society. I started this examination years ago with my series of photographs referring to religious icons; I am planning to continue my observations; I will probe various media, considering performance and public intervention in my future process.

projection

this is the installation i envision for the traumraum revised piece: three videos being projected onto one wall, on the bottom: insomnia, above it: memory, to the side: dream

intro

2 videos/play them simultaneously

video columns

groupings of individual videos according to theme/visuals

5 barre drawings

twisting hair roots

preparing for ballet class entails getting one's hair pulled back into a very tight bun, which needs to be secured by pins and spray. my friend and collaborator melanie serves as the willing and suffering model for the procedure in this video.

my feet in agony

listen to my bones crack....

when i was trying on the pointe shoes i eventually bought, the sales woman said that young girls often complain about the discomfort of pointe shoes, that they hurt, that they don't feel like they fit. she tells them that that's what they're supposed to feel like, that dance en pointe is supposed to be painful. in the video i'm taking off and throwing away my stilettos and subsequently squeeze my feet into pointe shoes - both symbols for feminine sexuality, both associated with discomfort and women's traditional roles in society.

barre drawings

this is something that miriam cabessa's body paintings inspired me to do. actually, it started with the prints of the bottom of my ballet slippers all over my studio floor - results from using rosin....barre exercises drawn with my feet on paper, photographed. there will be more.

video test

model for video installation

TraumRaum - i'm fabricating a room, defined by four floating video screens, referring to illusory spaces created by painters of the Baroque. i investigate the creation of dreams and the obstacles relating to the realization of our mental constructions. how do we channel the energy that dreams initiate in our lives? how do we deal with challenges like time, age, gender, and ambition in the interpretation of our dreams?

sketches

these photographs show the set up of the videos. it's my face and my feet in the photos for now, i haven't taped dancers yet.

train of thoughts

the piece: four screens to create a room. on those four screens are videos of four women. they are dancers but that's not immediately recognizable. i'm filming only the face with pulled back hair, and the feet in pointe shoes. these women will be performing but the viewer can't see their bodies, only facial expressions and moving feet. the women are of various ages, a teenager, a woman in her late 20s, me, and a ballet teacher in her 50s. the set up to film the videos of the dancers will be a white background on which i will project a video of a fast rotating room. so, you see the face of a dancer in motion (maybe part of her shoulders and/or arm/hand) in front of this rotating background, on the next screen you see only the moving feet of another dancer, again in front of the rotating background, and so on on the other two screens. the videos will be in a loop.
my virtual room is a dream, like the ceiling paintings in the churches in southern germany. the sky, the clouds, the light, people floating, one wants to get sucked into these paintings when looking up at them. dreams stimulate and release energy. dreams are created but also restricted by civilization, by society, people. there are two opposing forces attached to dreams: no limits to ideas but limits to their realization. that's where the concept of restricted energy comes in, like in the merry-go-rounds. i looked back at works by bill viola, whose videos are often dreamlike. i needed to create a connection to myself, my own dreams, my method of art making, my story. how far would i go to pursue my dreams? coming to the u.s., becoming - or not (that's why one of the dancers is me) a ballerina, an artist, re-inventing myself in a new country. i will be taking ballet lessons, something i've been thinking about on and off for many, many years. it just never seemed to be the right time, i thought i was too old, etc. now is the right time.
it's important to me that the dancers are classical dancers, the restrictions are more pronounced, it's less about self-expression, like in modern dance, more about discipline. it also refers to the baroque as the era when classical ballet developed into the formal performance we know, in Louis XIV's court.

colors and rotations

the resemblance of the colors in these photographs to baroque paintings is striking.
taken during sunset.

carousel

carousel making - head drilling - angel hammering















explosions are great but they are too uncontrollable for me to achieve my goal. i'm using mass produced kitsch figurines whose courtly poses have always been guides of good behavior. especially images of saints, angels, little girls and boys in prayer, etc., but also dancing couples and people in various chivalric mannerisms. the idea was to make these figurines burst and photograph the explosions. however, this is pretty much impossible since the shards and fragments are supposed to be still recognizable. i have to take a different, more mechanical approach. that's why i'm building merry-go-rounds - they have the potential to release explosive-like energy which is being controlled by attachments and defined space.






















this is a far cry from my original idea of re-creating a baroque ceiling painting in a photographic composition - but i feel that this is becoming my piece. it will have the idea of creating an imaginative space in common with the ceiling paintings. that's all. my room will have pictures of broken angels on rotating carousels, videos of people gesticulating without making sense and without connecting to the viewer, and a floor that exists as the roof of the room below, with a mirror on the ceiling to reflect it. this installation definitely hints on the concept of a fairground, and a virtual world (religion?).




















the blurriness of some of the carousel images

refers to its rotating movement, but also to

the quality of photography. building carousels

and using video to make art has focused my

interest in photography on its quality, on its

aspects.

i want to explore this some more....

mirrors

i've been photographing into mirrors to achieve an angle created in ceiling pieces, looking up at something. i'm actually looking down into the mirror, it's on the floor. i've been video taping these photo shoots, too. they will be part of the installation.

A ROOM ABOVE A ROOM

the installation will consist of videos, the floor piece, a mirror on the ceiling of the space, large format photographs.

creating space above

collage of groups of people in conversation - photographing them from above, from a loft - creates exact opposite of ceiling piece, namely a floor piece. viewer looks onto people's heads, as if in space above space. this way i'm creating an imaginative space on top of an already imaginative space - virtual reality - important: gestures/behavior, i.e. seeing a baby, gossiping, etc.


etiquette, self-constraint, courtliness, civility, reason, all properly chronicled and utilized in enlightened Europe -- vs. chaos, precariousness, faith: in my mind, ceiling paintings describe both conditions.