The Coming Insurrection

if you are interested in anarcho-communism (which is in no way linked to the communism your grandparents talk about), read this book:

it makes a lot of sense.  part "political" philosophy, eye-opening prose, and motivation for action. you can read the entire book online, here: http://tarnac9.wordpress.com/texts/the-coming-insurrection/

Jill Zevenbergen

i saw my professor's art for the first time today, i love it:

   

Test Site

2007

giclee print, screenprint, lithography, acrylic, gouche

 Fluo (#36 of 40)

2006 

digital print, screenprint, painters’ tape

Moments Ago I Lost It 

 2008

accordion book: archival ink jet and screenprint 

see more here (site is under construction): jillzevenbergen.com

surface research/facade

materials: watercolor and block printing ink on watercolor paper, plexiglass, scrap birch and pine.
for this assignment we made stamps combining our three previous projects out of linocut blocks. we were instructed to print them any way we wanted on paper, and then somehow make these printed images into a three dimensional piece.  i wanted to make the papers i made (which resembled wallpaper) to look as though they were scraps from a destroyed home.  i held the scraps off of the wall using plexiglass (also printed), and held the plexiglass to the wall using scraps of plywood that i snapped into strips instead of using a saw to give a broken feel.  the plexiglass is also intentionally hard to see from a distance, but intricately stamped so when discovered it adds a few extra layers of depth.

Deerhunter show

Bradford Cox and his Jazzmaster

i saw Deerhunter last night at the canal club.  it was really great, Ducktails (lead singer of real estate) opened with a hazy, lazy guitar/drum machine set full of nodding rhythms and loops. i feel he could have played a little longer though - his set only lasted about twenty minutes.  Casino vs. Japan was next, playing sleepy, heavy bodied electronic ambient.
Deerhunter played a lot of their new songs, with a few of the old ones. Halcyon Digest, their newest album, is growing on me.  i feel it's significantly happier sounding than their previous releases, which was kind of hard to get used to at first.  hearing the songs played live really made me appreciate the album much more, however.  especially with "Helicopter" (i think that's the title of the song), which they extended for the show.  they also extended "Nothing Ever Happened," adding a crazed experimental guitar solo from Cox, reminiscent of late 80's/early 90's post punk and college rock.  they came back on for an encore and played a variation of "Cryptograms," with their amps turned as loud as they would go...i was standing beside Cox's stack and i still can't hear out of my left ear.  they threw lots of extra energy into an already energetic song, giving it a saturated, obnoxiously loud punk rock feel to make something new yet nostalgic for the fans of their older work.
Deerhunter is one band that really sound like the sources they claim to be influenced by.  i read in an interview recently that Bradford Cox (lead singer/guitarist) pulls a lot of his musical inspiration from spending his entire sixteenth year in a coma.  he was pumped full of morphine and various other narcotic painkillers.  the combination of those two feelings...being lost in sleep and a morphine-induced dreamlike consciousness really come out in Deerhunter's music.  repeating rhythms, wailing guitars, reverb, all tightly wound together and seeming to be coming from the bottom of a dark lake than from your stereo speakers.   Cox was diagnosed at a young age with Marfan Syndrome, a disease of the connective tissue which leaves the sufferer abnormally skinny with extended arms/legs.  it also affects eyesight and many other parts of the body.  due to his disease, he was alienated from other kids, spending a lot of time separated from other people.  this influenced his musical ideas greatly as well, especially with the songs "Hazel St." and "Twilight on Carbon Lake."  Cox's musical influences include the likes of My Bloody Valentine, Echo and the Bunnymen, and Stereolab.

abstract surface project

this is an abstract assignment for surface research. we brought objects in that could fit in the palm of our hand, sketched the object in contour multiple times, cut the sketch into eight equal pieces, then rearranged it how we wanted. we then transferred the collaborated sketch onto a new paper and made a work from it.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor

a really great musical influence of mine over the years has been the anarchist post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor.  i just found out that they're reuniting for a tour this Winter, and coming to the 9:30 club in DC next February.
their music is highly orchestrated, it waxes and wanes through different movements, using multiple instruments and samples. Sometimes the music is very minimalistic and at others it has multiple layers of french horns, guitars, violins, and voice samples (the members never actually sing).  their songs are usually about twenty minutes long, but each one is very non-repetitive and moves in and out of different sound scapes.

they are really skilled in my opinion because they give a feeling of uneasy beauty by using only music.  They paint a picture of a broken down, hopeless America without using lyrics and very few words.
the style of music has really influenced my art for the past few years - which is also struggling to portray the "dark shattered underbelly of the american dream." - jello biafra

blogspot won't let me put a video on here from youtube, but here's a link if you're interested.  it's a portion of a song from their album "lift yr skinny fists like antennas to heaven"

fifty characters

our first project for surface research was to create a work utilizing fifty black and white, abstract images that were all related somehow.  i chose to do a set of abstracted door hinges, representing all the paths one goes down in life - it's a little cliche, but those doors of opportunity that open and close all around you couldn't work without the hinges.  these hinges come in all shapes and sizes.

i designed the work to look different from all sides, and even change as the viewer interacts with it.  the viewer can open and close each hinge, revealing the opposite sides of the hinge - which are for the most part aren't symmetric.  the hinges are also very close together, making it impossible to open or close certain hinges when others get it in the way.

which is also a sort of metaphor for life, you have to set everything up as a puzzle in order to make it work.  certain things aren't possible without others being absent or present, in the background and foreground.
i have a better picture with a frontal view of the work that i will post tomorrow.