These are some pictures from the Denver Museum of Art. The walls of the interior are angular and create an indescribable atmosphere. I think that this museum is definitely not comparable to a mausoleum!!! Also, the museum uses a lot of outdoor space which can be seen from indoors.

Promo For Weaving Sound!

Listen with headphones for the full effect!
Eliana

Toddler Observation

I took this video while babysitting for the "Life in a Day" documentary project. It was fun to observe what fun a toddler can have doing simple activities, in this case running and hiding!

Eliana

T-Shirt Skeletons: Rags to Rags video as complex framing system

Those of you who have followed the progress of the Lexicon 97 Project (now up, in an unfinished way which is the status the project should maintain until an end of any possible way on any scale in any location that any iteration of the project may exist; the configuration of tines of the project are subject to reconfiguration at any moment in any location on any scale for any duration of time);

those of you who have followed the progress of lex97 may be aware that the T-Shirt skeletons themselves were an unintended project tine whose existence became apparent only after the cutting of the 97 shirts to mine them for the only words that would form the project's lexicon was underway.

Because the lexicon was extracted in such a way that the 97 previously discarded shirts retained a basic t-shirt structure and were wearable, locations of extraction became frames for the absence itself or for any substitute content. This absence became quite intriguing, and the mined shirts avoided another disposal through reconfiguration of their contribution as collaborators, in form of upgrade to T-Shirt skeletons that many of you modeled, in headless fashion of course.

Because the initial idea was flexibly framed, that pliable (of a putty related to the taffy served up by The Mid-Hudson Taffy Company) framing system could be easily configured in any form that becomes necessary, so any particular form is treated as a temporary form though being temporary does not mean the configuration does not become part of the frame's identity (on some scale), information infiltrating, on some scale (could be super-diluted) the internal structure of the frame, on the level of frame genetics (which becomes, as outcome of this infiltration —mild or profound— a mutation, a reconfiguration of evolution).

THOSE T-SHIRT SKELETONS ARE THE BOMB!

—Think of as many configurations as you can to frame meanings and implications of that statement, and then extend the boundaries of that frame system of configurable meaning systems to include implications of the lexicon 97 project and circumstances related to the existence systems of t-shirts.

BUT SUCH CONSIDERATIONS DO NOT PREVENT THE T-SHIRT SKELETONS FROM BEING CONFIGURED AS EXQUISITE AND DESERVING OF BEING FEATURED IN THE SLUSSER GALLERY SHOW WITH A RAGS-TO-RAGS FASHION SHOW (captured and put on youtube to give back to the world, the world that is involved and entangled in all facets [all possible t-shirt system & subsystem framing systems] of t-shirt existence, including the materiality of t-shirts, the fiber of which they're made, their complex substance):

Please listen to Are My Hands Clean (the story of a blouse) 
as performed by Sweet Honey in the Rock  
(Lyrics and music by Bernice Johnson Reagon. Songtalk Publishing Co. 1985)

and let the song have a chance to mingle with some aspect of your frame of thought (possibly tweaking its configuration here and there, if but for a brief moment) before going on to see the T-Shirt Skeletons: Rags to Rags video again or for a first time. Thanks.

  

Buy Are My Hands Clean, live at Carnegie Hall
at Amazon  or at iTunes

Are My Hands Clean  (lyrics)

Moving Pictures

Sometimes accidents can be good. While framing pieces in Slusser with my physical frame to give them new context, I accidentally recorded this video, giving the frame an additional context. One could imagine that this serious matter (in this case murder) could come to life when framed by something that evokes memory (a frame with flowers and a mouse, that conjures memories of childhood or even a grandparent's house).

Eliana

Pushing Sound

I am currently exploring the boundaries of sound. I'm interested in its ability to weave in and out of the mind, and our ability to manipulate the mind so it feels as though sound is being pushed, pulled, stretched, torn, etc. What are the boundaries of sound? What are the boundaries of our own mind? Are they real boundaries if we only perceive them to exist even if they don't?

The following clip is a piece of my experimentation. In this experiment, I am trying to push air from one ear to the other. When I've done similar experiments like this, I give the piece more fluidity by tweaking, but I wanted to see what conclusions can be drawn by listening to a more raw version created only be moving pieces of the sound to the other ear. Note: MUST LISTEN WITH HEADPHONES!!!



Eliana

boundary system: garments/fashion/clothes & bodies.

I'm interested in how clothes on a body can manipulate and transform the boundaries of each other. The clothes themselves bend and fold in relationship to the contours of the body; the bodies have a new silhouette that is ruled by the stitchings and texture of the clothes. It's an interesting set of boundary system because they depend on the other for the new form. I did some research in the library, looking at fashion books that talks about the manipulation of the body and clothes. Here are some pictures I took that I found interesting in the books.



This is a garment that covers the entire body and manipulates the silhouette into a cone. The boundaries of the body are now completely hidden and changed from what we can see visually.



In this image, the body boundaries have changed in terms of contours. But visually, we can still see the body inside as well as the garments themselves. I find this relationship interesting because it challenges what boundaries are for this specific system --- wearing something like a see-thru garment over the body would create what kind of a boundary? Visually, we can still see everything, and the wearer would still feel exposed as if they were a naked body. So do see-thru garments constitute as successful boundaries of which clothes are suppose to set for bodies?

One unit of measure I choose for this is by the number of different patches of fabric that are attached and sewn together to create the clothes, and the other unit of measurement is by number of heads. In fashion, it is common to use heads to measure bodies in order to determine where the neck is placed or where the waist lies, etc. I've always enjoyed this form of measurement for the body because it is so subjective to the individual's head shape. There are no exact numbers involved.

I'm more interested in the clothes as boundaries for the bodies (as opposed to the vice versa). At my studio, I experimented with this on my dressform and made this random motif for the shoulder/neck area -




It was interesting because the fabric I used was transparent organza, and that is see-thru material if you only use one layer of it (which goes back to my question about see-thru garments as boundaries). But I bunched it up in layers and it not only created a new silhouette for the shoulders and neck, but it is also no longer see-thru. "Successful" --- in accordance to what supposed clothes boundaries are for the body.