Response || Justification of Putting the Audience Through a Difficult Evening

Aunt Dan & Lemon

Justification of Putting the Audience Through a Difficult Evening

Written by Wallace Shawn

Wallace speaks about creating a theatre piece, called Aunt Dan and Lemon, where difficult questions are asked, contradictions are visited, and sometime the lie is the result in the story.  This can leave the audience without a comfortable resolution in the end. Why does he tell his stories this way? Because a comfortable resolutions isn't the way our lives usually play out outside the theatre.  He wants to challenge the thought process of the audience goer by sending them home with more questions than they arrived with, that they can only look inward to find the answer.

To me this is real art.  It causes the viewer to really think.  To re-evaluate their livelihood and lifestyle and maybe make a change for the better.

It's very important to always be reflecting on your perspective on a topic and try to self-examine as to where your perspective may have come from.  Is your perspective something that you just acquired through your friends, community, or from news and social media? Or is this something that you've analyzed, researched and come to your own conclusion as a result.

Wallace was asking himself how he, as "...a superficial American, nurtured in the citadel of privilege, sheltered from the winds of history...", has the right to write about such things. At times I struggle with this exact thought when trying to create my own work.  One quote that I thought was really helpful here was when he stated, "anyone has the right to think or speak about them [these subjects], because it's in fact impossible to say in advance whose contributions might be of value-- just as it's impossible to predict which of the 12 jurors in the jury will...point out some crucial bit of evidence that no one else had noticed." I think that as much as I admire what Wallace is saying here, I feel like it can be hard to approach particular topics from this perspective as not everyone is on the same page, culturally, politically, etc.

At the end of the essay he talks about the importance of changing our behavior and the attitudes behind our behavior.   If that means putting the audience through a difficult evening, that sparks an internal self-examination, then I feel like it's a great thing he's doing.

Response || Whitney Biennial

I didn't do any previous research about the exhibition before going to the Whitney because I didn't want to have any predisposed ideas of how I might feel about the work or topics addressed. First I have to say, that I was really blown away by this entire exhibit. This was my first Biennial, of the 78 that have been installed.  I didn't realize that these exhibitions focused around critical discussions around contemporary art with a deep focus on cultural concerns of the given historical moment.  This was a very impactful exhibition for me considering the current political climate.

This Biennial arrives at a time rife with racial tensions, economic inequalities, and polarizing politics, and many works in the exhibition challenge is to consider how these realities affect our senses of self community.

This exhibition did just that for me--- I reflected and took pause on how I felt about my initial thoughts on the subjects that were addressed.

 

Particular pieces that resonated with me

Cauleen Smith

I really enjoyed walking into the lobby of the Whitney and experiencing the protesting banners hung against state-sanctioned  anti-Black violence. I feel like these were very important pieces for all to see.  I think that possibly they should have been lower from the ceiling and they might have had a greater impact.  So that they were more in your face.

 

Real Violence (2017) - Jordan Wolfson

This installation was presented in a VR headset.  Since I am interested in this medium, I immediately got in line for the VR experience, not knowing what the piece was about.  I noticed the people that had taken off their headsets were not often eager to chat with their friends about what they saw, which I found this odd.  I waited only about 5 minutes to be able to view the piece.  Once I put it on, the VR experience was only about 2 minutes long, but it felt a lot longer than that.  It's described as, " the viewer is transported to a nondescript urban street where a brutal assault occurs".  In the middle of a bright and sunny day, one man beats another man very aggressively with a baseball bat.  Once the victim falls to the ground, the assaulter continues to stomp on and hit his head with the baseball bat.  The attack was created in a game engine like Unity or Unreal Engine, but that didn't make it feel any less real. The beauty with VR is that you are able to look around in 360 view and because this assault was so hard to watch, I found myself looking in all directions I had access to.  I didn't even notice, but read later, that the victim maintains eye contact with you. "His constant gaze rendering the viewer both spectator and victim."  At times I found myself looking away at the cars as they drove by wondering why they weren't stoping to help. This piece really made me reflect on the Bystander Effect which refers to cases where individuals do not offer any means of help to a victim when other people are present because they assume others will help.

 

Henry Taylor and his pieces on Black Identity in America were very powerful. Especially his piece, The Times They Ain't a Changing Fast Enough, where he depicts the unarmed Philando Castile in his car shot by the Minnesota Police Officer.  I think the title of this piece is very poignant and says a lot about where we are today with racial inequalities.

 

Kaari Upton

I found her pieces very interesting, and her reasoning for creating them even more so. Bodhidharma (2014) "were flaccid forms of furniture suggest at once an interior and exterior of the human body... Sagging against the walls or hanging loosely on them, the objects lose their identity and original purpose, taking on a state that is both abstract and visceral." There were a couple of quotes from the artist that really stuck out at me:

When something is outside the body it becomes disgusting, but when it's inside it's as natural as blood

These pieces from our home that are put to the sidewalk and discarded

People have to project the other outside of them and create hate, and the fact is that the other is inside

 

Dana Shultz

It is interesting that there have been protests to one of her paintings the depicts the mutilated body of Emmett Till, the teenager who was lynched by two white men in Mississippi in 1955.  The protests were as a result that Dana is a white female painting about race and violence.  The full story of the protest was covered by New York Times. The artist's response was the following: “I don’t know what it is like to be black in America but I do know what it is like to be a mother. Emmett was Mamie Till’s only son. The thought of anything happening to your child is beyond comprehension. Their pain is your pain. My engagement with this image was through empathy with his mother.” She added: “Art can be a space for empathy, a vehicle for connection. I don’t believe that people can ever really know what it is like to be someone else (I will never know the fear that black parents may have) but neither are we all completely unknowable.” For myself, I am constantly trying to learn to be a good ally. This was an interesting situation to take pause on because sometimes good intensions are not always taken the way the were intended.

Collective Narrative Final - In Memory

For my final project in Collective Narrative, I wanted to go out of my comfort zone and try a concept that I wasn't sure how it would play out.  I wanted to combine technical aspects with storytelling, the classroom space and also attempt to include all the students in this storytelling experience. I wanted to have this projects to be a collective story.

PeddleProject.jpg

In Memory

I wanted to create a man's life, that had passed away, to appear in our minds as the students in the class participated in telling the stories about the man from pushing a peddle at their will.

Premise

I created funeral scene.  In the middle of the circular-position desks of the class room I built a coffin and had it draped with a black cloth.

I recorded stories of friends that have had a male pass away in their lives.  It could either be someone close to them or a friend's story.  I recorded 14 stories, one for each student in the class. I asked that each story not include a location, name, or reason for why he passed away so that there were not conflicting stories in the project.

Hardware

I then wired up 14 foot peddles to an Arduino and played the audio pieces using serial communication and p5.js on a local server.

Here is the Arduino code:

const int switchOnePin = 19; // the number of the pushbutton pin
const int switchTwoPin = 2;
const int switchThreePin = 3;
const int switchFourPin = 4;
const int switchFivePin = 5;
const int switchSixPin = 6;
const int switchSevenPin = 7;
const int switchEightPin = 8;
const int switchNinePin = 9;
const int switchTenPin = 10;
const int switchElevenPin = 11;
const int switchTwelvePin = 12;
const int switchThirteenPin = 13;
const int switchFourteenPin = 14;

bool switchOnePressed = false;
bool switchTwoPressed = false;
bool switchThreePressed = false;
bool switchFourPressed = false;
bool switchFivePressed = false;
bool switchSixPressed = false;
bool switchSevenPressed = false;
bool switchEightPressed = false;
bool switchNinePressed = false;
bool switchTenPressed = false;
bool switchElevenPressed = false;
bool switchTwelvePressed = false;
bool switchThirteenPressed = false;
bool switchFourteenPressed = false;
// variables will change:
int switchState = 0; // variable for reading the pushbutton status

void setup() {
 // setup serial
 Serial.begin(9600);
 // initialize the pushbutton pin as an input:
 pinMode(switchOnePin, INPUT);
 pinMode(switchTwoPin, INPUT);
 pinMode(switchThreePin, INPUT);
 pinMode(switchFourPin, INPUT);
 pinMode(switchFivePin, INPUT);
 pinMode(switchSixPin, INPUT);
 pinMode(switchSevenPin, INPUT);
 pinMode(switchEightPin, INPUT);
 pinMode(switchNinePin, INPUT);
 pinMode(switchTenPin, INPUT);
 pinMode(switchElevenPin, INPUT);
 pinMode(switchTwelvePin, INPUT);
 pinMode(switchThirteenPin, INPUT);
 pinMode(switchFourteenPin, INPUT);
}
void loop() {
 if (!switchOnePressed) {
 switchState = digitalRead(switchOnePin);
 if (switchState == LOW) {
 Serial.write(1);
 switchOnePressed = true;
 }
 }

if (!switchTwoPressed) {
 switchState = digitalRead(switchTwoPin);
 if (switchState == LOW) {
 Serial.println(2);
 switchTwoPressed = true;
 //Serial.println(switchState);
 }
 }
if (!switchThreePressed) {
 switchState = digitalRead(switchThreePin);
 if (switchState == LOW) {
 Serial.println(3);
 switchThreePressed = true;
 }
 }

if (!switchFourPressed) {
 switchState = digitalRead(switchFourPin);
 if (switchState == LOW) {
 Serial.write(4);
 switchFourPressed = true;
 }
 }

if (!switchFivePressed) {
 switchState = digitalRead(switchFivePin);
 if (switchState == LOW) {
 Serial.write(5);
 switchFivePressed = true;
 }
 }
if (!switchSixPressed) {
 switchState = digitalRead(switchSixPin);
 if (switchState == LOW) {
 Serial.write(6);
 switchSixPressed = true;
 }
 }

if (!switchSevenPressed) {
 switchState = digitalRead(switchSevenPin);
 if (switchState == LOW) {
 Serial.write(7);
 switchSevenPressed = true;
 }
 }
if (!switchEightPressed) {
 switchState = digitalRead(switchEightPin);
 if (switchState == LOW) {
 Serial.write(8);
 switchEightPressed = true;
 }
 }

if (!switchNinePressed) {
 switchState = digitalRead(switchNinePin);
 if (switchState == LOW) {
 Serial.write(9);
 switchNinePressed = true;
 }
 }

if (!switchTenPressed) {
 switchState = digitalRead(switchTenPin);
 if (switchState == LOW) {
 Serial.write(10);
 switchTenPressed = true;
 }
 }
if (!switchElevenPressed) {
 switchState = digitalRead(switchElevenPin);
 if (switchState == LOW) {
 Serial.write(11);
 switchElevenPressed = true;
 }
 }

if (!switchTwelvePressed) {
 switchState = digitalRead(switchTwelvePin);
 if (switchState == LOW) {
 Serial.write(12);
 switchTwelvePressed = true;
 }
 }

if (!switchThirteenPressed) {
 switchState = digitalRead(switchThirteenPin);
 if (switchState == LOW) {
 Serial.write(13);
 switchThirteenPressed = true;
 }
 }
if (!switchFourteenPressed) {
 switchState = digitalRead(switchFourteenPin);
 if (switchState == LOW) {
 Serial.write(14);
 switchFourteenPressed = true;
 }
 }
}

Here is the p5.js code:

var serial; // variable to hold an instance of the serialport library
var fromSerial = 0; //variable to hold the data
var buttonValue;
var currentVoice;
var lindseyD;
var orianaNTwo;

function preload() {
 lindseyD = loadSound('assets/LD.mp3');
 orianaNTwo = loadSound('assets/ON2.mp3');
}


function setup() {
 noCanvas();
 serial = new p5.SerialPort(); // make a new instance of serialport librar 
 serial.on('list', printList); // callback function for serialport list event
 serial.on('data', serialEvent); // callback for new data coming in 
 serial.list(); // list the serial ports
 serial.open("/dev/cu.usbmodem1421"); // open a port
}

function draw() {

}

function switchAudio(newVoice) {
 if (currentVoice && currentVoice.stop) {
 currentVoice.stop();
 }
 currentVoice = newVoice;
 currentVoice.play();
 playing = true;
}


// get the list of ports:
function printList(portList) {
 for (var i = 0; i < portList.length; i++) {
 // Display the list the console:
 console.log(i + " " + portList[i]);
 }

}

function serialEvent() {
 var inString = serial.readLine();
 if (inString.length > 0) {
 inString = inString.trim();
 buttonValue = Number(inString); 
 if(buttonValue === 2){
 //lindseyD.play();
 switchAudio(lindseyD);
 }

 if(buttonValue === 3) {
 //orianaNTwo.play();
 switchAudio(orianaNTwo);
 }
 }
}

The only rules I gave to the class when I started the experiment was that you can push you peddle whenever you like, but you only have one chance to do so.

There are two aspects to this projects that I was curious how it would play out:

  1. the social dynamics of how groups participate in a collective storytelling experience. Are people shy with participating? Are they quick to interact? Especially since they were only able to contribute their story once.
  2. We we be able to create the life of the individual that has died at the funeral by having different stories told by different people and be able to know him better even if he is a fictional person? Can we create this "man" in our minds from the stories that we hear from his loved ones in the room?
I wanted to observe the dynamics of a group storytelling experience where each person was given the agency to contribute to the overall narrative by asserting their contribution by hitting their foot pedal which triggers an audio recorded story.