Wednesday, January 12, 2011

First Boundary Exploration



The first boundary I chose to explore, was the boundary of a footprint (barefoot and/or the print of a shoe.) I experimented both barefoot and with my shoes on in the snow, and then I froze a shoe print making a mold of ice. First, I was focused on the shape of these markings and how the boundaries seemed very prominent. The barefoot print was invisible to the human eye, which would make the boundary almost non existent, allowing the footprint to go unseen for as long as it survives. BUT even though we can't see it, does not mean that it doesn't exist. (Maybe I'm actually focusing on the boundaries of invisibility? Perhaps.)
Next, I focused on the snowy footprints. I realized that footprints can be connected, to form a larger print, and sometimes even patterns. Through the snowy experiment, I came to the conclusion that I don't believe footprints have set boundaries, and they can be manipulated and morphed into something that in the end, isn't even a footprint at all.

For the remainder of the class however, I really want to focus on body boundaries. Throughout my 6 semesters at this university, I have had the resources and opportunity to focus on health issues, body art, sickness, and many other issues regarding the human body, both positive and negative. Recently I watched a film about a man who was basically a "vegetable." He was paralyzed from the neck down, but his brain was fully functional, yet he was stuck. He wanted to speak, he couldn't. He wanted to hug his wife, he couldn't. His body was containing him and there was nothing he could do about it.

3 comments:

  1. I'm quite intrigued by boundaries of invisibility!

    I think that in your description of the man stuck in his body you've uncovered another iteration of invisibility, in this case, invisible or inaccessible identity.

    Have you heard of EyeWriter? EyeWriter technology allows paralyzed artists to draw. So many have valiantly sought ways to keep creating after severe physiological deficits. Indeed; I'm rethinking now my own situation of legal blindness, acquired this summer, in my left eye —it is difficult to read now, to type because of stereo vision, both eyes working together to process visual information, a complete visual field. With the left eye covered, I feel lopsided; half a world disappears visually, the right eye's peripheraL seeing having a range, a boundary, and the left eye generates its own pattern, kind of an open weave of horizontal and vertical outlines of squiggles —the squiggles appear transparent inside these hair-thin outlines, but these hair-thin outlines are visible all the time, left eye open or closed.

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  2. Sorry about that faulty link to EyeWriter; this link (and the one next to it) works.

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  3. Snow waffles

    revealed inside the boundaries
    of the footprints.

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