"SEISMIC CALLIGRAPHY"

Todd Selby x Christine Sun Kim on Nowness.com.

Cult photographer and filmmaker Todd Selby's latest short is a revealing portrait of performance artist Christine Sun Kim. Deaf from birth, Kim turned to using sound as a medium during an artist residency in Berlin in 2008, and has since developed a practice of lo-fi experimentation that aims to re-appropriate sound by translating it into movement and vision. "It's a lot more interesting to explore a medium that I don't have direct access to and yet has the most direct connection to society at large," says the artist. "Social norms surrounding sound are so deeply ingrained that, in a sense, our identities cannot be complete without it." Selby filmed an exclusive performance from Kim in a Brooklyn studio as the artist played with field recordings of the street sounds of her Chinatown neighborhood, feedback and helium balloons, and made “seismic calligraphy” drawings from ink- and powder-drenched quills, nails and cogs dancing across paper to the vibrations of subwoofers beneath. Working with sound designer Arrow Kleeman, Selby carefully choreographed the film's ambient score to reveal the Orange County native's unique relationship with sound. "Her work deals with reclaiming sound because it's a foreign world to her and one she's not comfortable in," explains Selby. "I wanted the film to act as an artistic conduit for her to tell her story to the world.”

Meet Ilona Royce Smithkin

yohji

YOHJI YAMAMOTO: THIS IS MY DREAM from Huge Conglomerate on Vimeo.

Ethnic Minority Textiles - Miao of Guizhou, China

I'm just going to put this here for now. Some information about the Miao, from Minnesota Institute of Art's flickr page:

The Miao are one of several ethnic minorities living in the
subtropical mountainous areas of southwestern China. Different groups
include the Dong, Yi, Yao, Shui, Bouyi, Li, Gejia, and Bai among many
others. For thousands of years, these migrating peoples have developed
rich, cultural traditions and they are increasingly being recognized
for their extraordinary handcrafted textiles and silver jewelry. It is
the area of costume where mythology, technical skill, and cultural
identity coalesce in vivid aesthetic expression. Until recently, most
of these remote, ethnic villages were relatively isolated from the
majority Han Chinese population. China’s rapid modernization, however,
has penetrated even the minority districts of Guizhou, Yunnan,
Guangxi, and Guangdong provinces. The resultant economic, educational,
and social changes have already begun to erode the look and use of
traditional festive costumes worn by the Miao and other ethnic groups.

I'm thinking about making a new blog on textiles and design but I'm still researching/trying to think of better things to blog about. so keep an eye out for that.

I Hate My Collection

I Hate My Collection - 1st TEASER from Markus Nylaander on Vimeo.

let's make this film happen. more on it here.

きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅ

spring did not happen this year.

I want to wear this everyday (if I moved to a cooler climate). it is my exact color palette. seriously considering getting my hands on a pair of those slingbacks.

"Please Vote For Me" (2007) dir. Weijun Chen

perhaps a microcosm of people's perception of democracy and the voting process through the eyes of a group of Chinese third-graders.

by the way, I found this via a Wholphin dvd set, just as a personal note to myself and any other interested people to check out the rest of those jawns.

ULTRA 10

I wonder if I could do something like this.

A 10-piece wardrobe project for one year.

But, in order to further project the idea ofminimalist living, I'd have to get rid of all of my other clothes. That's something that was off for me about the Uniform Project. Even though the same dress provided the basis of her outfits for a whole year, she wore different clothes, shoes, and accessories every day. I think I read that those were all donated but I don't know about that..

Anyway, it's definitely something to consider.

Green Porno

I love her.

Melancholia

this looks kind of interesting. it is written and directed by Lars von Trier, who also did Dancer in the Dark with Bjork.

Marianne... Renoir

illustration by ree*rosee

Pierrot Le Fou is my favorite Godard film for a number of reasons, but let's talk about Anna Karina's clothes. for someone who was on the run, she sure had some good duds. I really enjoy this illustration by ree*rosee (who also does a bunch of other fashion illustrations with references to cinema!) as a color palette for the summer.

a title from my list of books to read:
Terrifying Muslims: Race and Labor in the South Asian Diaspora by Junaid Rana

might I direct you here to read an excellent interview with the author about the politicization of the Muslim body.

and related to this, threadbared also posted a link to photographs by Shadi Ghadirian that I think are fantastic.

my first thought today was the possibility of my being a masochist.

are you affected by self-defeating personality disorder?
do you:

1. choose people and situations that lead to disappointment, failure, or mistreatment even when better options are clearly available
2. reject or render ineffective the attempts of others to help him or her
3. following positive personal events (e.g., new achievement), respond with depression, guilt, or a behavior that produces pain (e.g., an accident)
4. incite angry or rejecting responses from others and then feels hurt, defeated, or humiliated (e.g., makes fun of spouse in public, provoking an angry retort, then feels devastated)
5. reject opportunities for pleasure, or is reluctant to acknowledge enjoying himself or herself (despite having adequate social skills and the capacity for pleasure)
6. fail to accomplish tasks crucial to his or her personal objectives despite demonstrated ability to do so, e.g., helps fellow students write papers, but is unable to write his or her own
7. is uninterested in or rejects people who consistently treat him or her well, e.g., is unattracted to caring sexual partners
8. engage in excessive self-sacrifice that is unsolicited by the intended recipients of the sacrifice

I am developing more of an interest in personality and emotional disorders, and with the upcoming graduation I will have a lot more time on my hands to do some reading.. so if you have any suggestions, let me know. actually, let's make this a call for any good reads/music/blogs/events/cuisines/adult classes/hair braiding techniques/whateva.

... yeah right!

a return to sunday thoughts, due to popular demand

nights and weekends (watch)

saudade (read)




these explain everything.

YES

strawberry shortcakes (2006)

Good Timing

This is an excerpt from my journal that I wrote on April 18, 2010, 22:43:

I should be 'working myself to the bone' right now but I just re-re-re-re-etc-watched The Science of Sleep again and I just realized that I am Stephane Miroux. maybe you're really fucked when you are at the point of reading IMDB discussion boards for life advice but this one 'really spoke to me.' from thegrue:

[I think the Science of Sleep is about being let down and the realities of the search for love and meaning in life... it's about building up images of things and people in your mind only to set yourself up for rejection. Stephane does this with everything in his life... he trusts his own mind instead of what he sees in front of him and he keeps getting let down by the reality of situations. whether it's with his job (which he dreams a certain way but in reality is nothing like what he wants) or his love life.

Stephane is originally more interested in Zoe but finds himself having to compromise and go for Stephanie because he thinks she is more interested in him. then he starts to convince himself that Stephanie is really the right one, building up this image of her in his head as somebody who is much more creative, deep, and in need of encouragement/stable love than she really is... and then he's consistently let down by her the more he learns about her... and the more he starts to realize that he was never so much in love with the actual Stephanie than the one he had built up in his mind. then that last scene, he becomes defensive and childish because he wants to place all his bitterness on Stephanie for the tricks his own mind played on him. I took the last dream sequence as his one last attempt to dream up what would be the perfect ending for the relationship he had wanted but wasn't meant to be.

I think one of the reasons why Science of Sleep didn't get better reviews when it opened was that people were fooled by the dream sequences and the style into expecting a flowery and dreamlike movie, when in reality the message of the movie is really rather realistic and more depressing than anything.]

Speculation says that the Science of Sleep is somewhat autobiographical for Michel Gondry. how does one feel like this and channel it into something so beautiful and so comprehensible? I always feel so crazy and like no one could possibly like me if they knew this side of me. you empathize with Stephane though. I guess pain makes very good material for art. and pain in the very fit form of Gael Garcia Bernal doesn't hurt either.



and now I'm writing this part on may 5, 2011, 3:19: it is funny and tragic that one year later I have landed at the same exact spot. I have not been at this spot the entire year, but perhaps just half of it. happy anniversary, feelings. you can go fuck yourself now.

It's that time of year again..

sun is shining, flowers in bloom, love in the air, and CULTURAL APPROPRIATION OF "OTHERS" seem to be some kind of contagion, particularly in warm weather. It is of great interest to me how brands like Free People and Anthropologie keep bringing back that "Indian Summer" theme every year (both Native American and from India). The most recent Anthropologie catalogue is set in India.




For most fashion catalogues of this variety, the models get to travel to different countries to model the brand's clothes. In every image, they seem to use the background of native people as props [appropriation] to further emphasize the tallness and whiteness of the main model. It is a bit unsettling to me. What exactly do these clothes have to do with India? Furthermore, the company and its advertisements seem to promote a kind of well-rounded and conscious lifestyle (the Anthropologie woman can look chic even while travelling in a third world country!), but there is never any semblance of interaction with the native people, so what exactly is the point of having them in the photo?

I'm not saying that fashion has to be a political thing or that you can't wear clothes that don't "belong" to your culture. It's iffy territory, I think because clothing as something that you can change in and out of so easily is not necessarily considered a very vital part of cultural identity, outside the realm of religious or ritual regalia (even this is not altogether recognized, as evidenced by the number of hipster heads adorned by Native American headdresses at summer music festivals). Personally, I think it is really dumb when white people wear dreads, for instance, or when they wear a bindi on their forehead or something like that. It's great that you are interested in other people's cultures but for something that has more cultural and historical significance, you better have a better reason than "it looks cool." I know that in the case of garments like the keffiyeh, harem pants, and even fabric that have used batik dyeing, people have appropriated it so much to the point that we don't even think about its origin, but that is the very root of the issue.

I might have posted about this before, but Yellow Apparel: When the Coolie Becomes Cool is an excellent film about this very topic. Look, I'll even embed it for you.

yellow apparel: when the coolie becomes cool from Yellow Apparel on Vimeo.

shitty-chic

This is from my new favorite blog, Talking Barnacles. It makes me feel better about my likely situation post-graduation. shitty chic, baby.

...Yesterday my bank account was down to one hundred and twenty dollars, but today it shot up to one thousand because of my tax returns. On top of that, with the freelance work I did this month and all the publicity of T.B., I have another month’s rent and living expense covered so I am basically in the clear for the next two months, which is great. I can eat something besides tea and two slices now… But in a way, looking back at it all, I kind of liked the hunger pains and the lack of energy that I felt everyday. I was kind of miserable then, but at the same time, it made me feel like I was at war with the world. And when you are at war, you don’t need anything – because you have a mission and a point in life – which, basically, is what anyone ever really wants.

Now I am sitting in a café writing this after I found out I had money in my bank, which for me being in a café by yourself and spending five bucks on a drink instead of on food to keep you going is a luxury… and I am ashamed because when you are at war, you don’t drink soy tea lattes.

But the struggle against earthquakes, radiation, unemployment, my parents, and society is basically over and I can’t deny it; and I feel like a vet at the end of a bad war movie going back home and not being able to adjust… or maybe it’s the opposite and I am adjusting too well, growing fat and dull and dim-witted when I just want to keep fighting dead enemies, whom now I view fondly like old friends.

War (not necessarily the one with guns) may be miserable, but at least, for once in a person’s life, it makes them feel like they had actually lived and, just as important, had something to say... Bob Dylan’s best work no doubt was when he was fighting the man, and when he had finally stopped, his work became shit. And that’s my biggest fear…

TINKER POT

TINKER POT
TINKER POT
TINKER POT
TINKER POT
TINKER POT
TINKER POT
TINKER POT
TINKER POT
TINKER POT
TINKER POT

ナイスの森

Funky Forest: The First Contact

A: show me your dance moves.
B: show me your feelings!
A: what feelings?

Free Ai Weiwei

Who's Afraid of Ai Weiwei?

Between the Folds

I watched this today in my fibers class with eyed peeled, mouth open (granted, I saw a life-size origami Hachiko at the cherry blossom festival this weekend and thought that was pretty neat). I thought it was cool that many of the artists featured had or had had careers in the science and mathematical fields. Anyway, it's available on Netflix instant play.

One of the people in the video (I forget his name but he apparently started university at age 12, got his phd at 20, and was the youngest professor at MIT) talked about how the act of folding paper changes the memory of that piece of paper. I really like this idea, of a fiber's memory, which is something I started thinking about when I was researching shibori dyeing for my last project. I used a book called Memory on Cloth: Shibori Now by Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada as my primary source and found this quote to be especially useful:

Shibori recognizes and explores the pliancy of the textile and its potential for creating a multitude of shaped-and-resisted designs. When the cloth is returned to its 2D form, the design that emerges is the result of the 3D shape, the type of resist, and the amount of pressure extended by the thread or clamp that secured the shape during the cloth's exposure to the dye. The cloth sensitively records both the shape and the pressure; it is the "memory" of the shape that remains imprinted in the cloth. This is the essence of shibori.

Streets Dept

Apartment Complex vol. 4

Thanks to no. 18 for the tip on Philly photo/fashion/street art blog, Streets Dept. All of his featured Philly apartment photos and Becky's talk of dream houses, makin me itch for a nicer place than 733... one day.

Patrick Tsai

My Little Dead Dick

Modern Times

I really liked Patrick Tsai after reading his 7-day diary that he kept during the earthquake and subsequent events in Japan. His writing led me to his past photo projects, most notably My Little Dead Dick. It's not anything new in terms of subject or style. He's 29, he just got laid off, and in a recent post on Talking Barnacles he wrote about how his parents have no idea who he is but seem to disapprove of everything they do know about him. well, this sounds like what I may have ahead of me.

Girl Kat

Help Japan part II

I was reading this article on Tofugu about how there is no room for more funding towards the Japan disaster relief. This means that the amount of money that has been donated specifically towards the relief efforts has far exceeded the amount requested by the Japanese. So some organizations may use part of the donations towards other causes, unless the donations were earmarked specifically for Japan, in which case the money is not necessarily being used effectively because they seem to have more than they know what to do with. I think it's great that so many people are doing what they can to help in terms of monetary donations. I myself have donated, but at this point there seems to be other ways to help. This may be easier for those living in Japan at the moment, but for those of us here, Jason Kelly is asking for donations of new pairs of socks for the many who are currently homeless as a result of the quakes.

Yohji Yamamoto

via mermaidhair

must see this!

Sentenced Home

this past weekend, I went to an event at Asian Arts Initiative about the deportation of Cambodian refugees from America. they screened a very pertinent and moving documentary film, Sentenced Home, which you can watch here. the tagline: "Raised as Americans in inner-city projects near Seattle, three young Cambodian American men are deported back to a country they barely remember, caught between a tragic past and an uncertain future by a system that doesn't offer any second chances."

it's not necessarily an issue that receives much attention in the media, at least not so much outside of the sphere of Mexico, so the film offers some very personal positions on the issue as well as provides information about US immigration legislation and how this has changed since 9/11.

Takashi Iwasaki

Littlebonbon (2006)

Fishbonbon (2008)

Kazuteru (2006)

Isogashiyumekojo (2006)

Hohonashi (2006)

Harikmodome (2007)

Denshinhappa (2006)

a collection of inspiration for my next project. more from Takashi Iwasaki here.
they kind of remind me of the Maishima incineration plant in Osaka - designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser - to impress everyone when they were running to be the host of the 2008 Olympics.

"MOVE"

"MOVE" Rachel Roy Spring 2011 film from Dominique Palombo on Vimeo.

clothes you can move in. to be honest, I was much more drawn to the dancing than the clothes but I really like this idea of showing the clothing form in movement rather than just walking down a runway. then again, I'm not usually into sportswear which is more suited to this type of display. maybe I am just buying into this new fashion film thing.

via Omoi

Help Japan

Designers and artists are quickly coming up with ways to do their part in helping Japan. James White of Signalnoise creating this heartbreaking, minimalist poster. All profits made by the sale will be donated to help with the relief efforts there. Signalnoise also lists several charitable organization where you can donate. via Signalnoise Store

reblogged from tinyatlas

sci-fi

2046 (2004) dir. by Wong Kar-Wai

I'm a Cyborg But That's OK (2006) dir. by Chan-Wook Park

some films I'd like to see. 2046 is supposed to be sci-fi but Cyborg is a romantic comedy I think.

happy v-day

indulge me

L.D. Tuttle

Tokyo Bopper

shoes and pants are the items of clothing that I am most willing to spend a considerable amount of dough on. anyone who knows me in real life has undoubtedly had to suffer through my (continuing) gripes about the most perfect pair of pants that I destroyed last summer. I am still in the personal process of sartorial identity formationblahblahblah but I like things that I consider to be versatile. I think if and when you find the perfect pair of pants, buy two, three pairs! Even the best quality pants will eventually wear out in the worst places, so I think it is a good investment.

In the meantime, I will hopefully be getting my hands on/feet into those tokyo bopper ballerina platforms when my friend makes a trip to tokyo next month! as far as shoe care goes, I think it's important to find a good shoe repair place for heel tip replacement (is this possible to diy?) and re-soling. If you are in the Philly area, Dom is wonderful!

SCOPE | NEW YORK 2011

March 2-6

320 West St (West Side Highway)
Across from Pier 40
New York NY 10014

General Admission Hours
Thursday | March 3 | noon - 8pm
Friday | March 4 | noon - 8pm
Saturday | March 5 | noon - 8pm
Sunday | March 6 | noon - 7pm

Admission
General | Thursday - Sunday | $20
Student | Thursday - Sunday | $10

info here

行きましょう？

p.s. I've been having issues publishing posts with images. what's the deal? other multimedia-heavy blogs that I follow seem to be functioning. I've tried different browsers as well as different computers..

Nikola Tesla

Earth is a conductor of accoustical resonance..

Jack Shows Meg His Tesla Coil in 'Coffee and Cigarettes'

just snatched this movie up from a closing video shop, along with The Brown Bunny, The Life Aquatic, Alphaville, and Under the Tuscan Sun (score). As with much of Jim Jarmusch's work, this one does not really follow a script, there's no story. It's probably the worst acting I've ever seen from Steve Buscemi, whom I love unconditionally, but Bill Murray with RZA and GZA was a treat, as was Cate Blanchett vs herself. If I had netflix, I would rewatch Permanent Vacation..

Wool 100%

I have probably posted about this movie before but I am particularly fond of fibers and the color red recently.







sometimes I feel like that weird girl in the red dress, 24/7.

I don't know what it is but I find that in the past year or so I have become quite an emotional person. I would say that I am usually perceived as a kind of serious, darkly sarcastic person or something along those lines. Today was spent crying over an old episode of project runway (episode 10 of season 8). It was the episode where they had to design a textile inspired by a personal memory. Everyone got a surprise visit from their moms, which was super emotional, and Mondo, my absolute favorite from all the seasons, revealed at panel that he has been HIV positive for the past ten years, and I just lost it. It's kind of like when someone barfs near/on you and you just can't help but to barf as well. Lately when I see people cry, I feel like crying too or I at least get that tightness in the back of my throat and need a few moments to simma down. Maybe this means I am becoming a more compassionate person? doubtful.

♥♥♥
oh, and happy new year by the way. If you are reading this,
I probably love you too.