Your Secret Here.

Your Secret Here is a commentary on the confidential nature of coded and encrypted communication and the growing concern for privacy and protecting our identities. This age of electronic information has created a fear of public exposure of private life, thus building distance, dishonesty and secrets amongst people. Your Secret Here urges the viewer to participate through writing or speaking their secrets in a confessional booth. A conflicting tension is created by both the fear and the desire of being exposed. With the popular use of online social networking venues, such as Facebook, MySpace and Blogspot, private lives are willingly exposed. As the viewer participates, this tension is addressed and exploited. The spoken secrets will be aurally shredded through audio manipulation. The written secrets can either be posted on the gallery wall, or shredded and dispersed. We urge the viewers to participate in a cathartic ritual with their shredded secrets. The viewers are invited to walk around the space, dispersing their secrets along with others. As the carefully arranged floor design is eventually swept away, so are the secrets.

Here are some photos of the floor in progess…

Adam Butler took this last photo of the floor queens.

Photos from the Installation:

LIMITLESS PROPOSAL

My ultimate work of installation art will include the following:

I will organize a team of international artists and documentarians to create an intercultural collaboration. The majority will be Argentines, considering the project revolves around the Argentine culture and it will be shown at the MALBA. However, including artists of various nationalities will be important to offer different perspectives.

There will be three huge projections on the building of the MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires). I am choosing the MALBA because this project fits their mission. “Our main objectives are: to educate the public, and to stimulate public interest in Latin American artists; to contribute to awareness of Latin America’s cultural achievements, encourage appreciation of regional cultural and artistic diversity; collaborating to these ends with the national and international community, promote artistic exchange between national, regional, and international institutions, and support innovative programs that focus on the visual arts and Latin American culture.” http://www.malba.org.ar

Live narratives of the Argentinean culture, history, identity and memory will be told through stories of the Tango. The voices will be amplified. We will have an open call for participants, where they will submit their stories to the selection committee. In addition we will recruit certain people we discover through research or friendship.

We will be utilizing the unique construction of the MALBA. It has three large, angled surfaces that are made up of many large tiles. The images will be projected onto these tiles, eventually covering every tile. The video will be interactive, using patches created in Jitter or Pure Data. There will be certain conceptual words such as “memory” and “identity” which will trigger the images.

After all the tiles are filled, there will be a moment of silence where the projections  change to a black slate. An interactive performance will finish the piece. A Tango orchestra (Orchéstra Típica) will play and dancers will perform in front of the building. The dancers will be simultaneously projected upon the building and the images will be manipulated through another Jitter or Pure Data patch. This patch will manipulate the images depending on the dynamics of the music.

Influences:

My main influences are Krystof Wodiczko and Janet Cardiff. Wodiczko usually works with large scale, socially conscience projection projects. He often projects large images onto historically or culturally loaded public structures while also adding narratives that reflect or inspire the imagery. Janet Cardiff changes spaces through audio narratives, playing with ideas of memory, history, truth and fiction. Both artists push the boundaries of installation art by transforming spaces outside. They are working to transform exteriors rather than interiors.

You can view an animated sequence at the link below:

Untitled from brigid mcauliffe on Vimeo.

Volver Documentation

Some photos from one of the two shows in el Levante…

Open Studio (Statement and Flyers)

Brigid McAuliffe
Colorado (EEUU), 1979

Brigid McAuliffe nació en Wisconsin. En el año 2001 recibió su licenciatura en bellas artes (BFA) por Colorado State University donde se especializó en fotografía y ceramica. En la actualidad esta estudiando media electronica por University of Denver, con un especialidad en video. También ella toca musica (voz, accordión) y aprecia que video puede combinar imágenes y sonido. Sus intereses artísticos están en ambos. Además se interese en el trabajo documental y a menudo integra entrevistas o narrativas personales en su trabajo. Ella se esfuerza por utilizar medios como formas de la expresión y vehículos para historias que exploran la identidad cultural, la memoria y otros asuntos sociales. Ella será un instructor en la Universidad de Denver el año proximo y se graduará con un Maestros de bellas artes (MFA) en mayo. Después, ella espera continuar la enseñanza, la arte, y la musica.

Durante su residencia, Brigid McAuliffe absorbió los varios sonidos y las vistas de Rosario. Por lo tanto, ella trabaja actualmente en múltiples proyectos. Esta exposición consiste en fotografías y video del Tango en el Levante. Esto es un proyecto sitio-específico que utiliza el espacio extraordinario del Levante para captar a las bailarinas en una nueva manera, y para exhibir el trabajo en el mismo espacio. Las imágenes servirán como un simulacro de los caracteres verdaderos y espaciarán, así como el Tango sirve como simulacros para memorias y emociones. Ella llegó a ser interesada en el Tango en su primer fin de semana en Rosario. Mirando por una ventana húmeda en el techo del Levante, la niebla condensada del aire frío fuera de y el sudor que viene de las bailarinas adentro, ella estuvo embelesado. Su proyecto procura captar la belleza estética del Tango mientras también hablando con sus dimensiones históricas y culturales. Cuando un extranjero, sus imágenes transmiten la mirada y la admiración de un observador lejano. Ellos reflejan el movimiento, la memoria, el anhelo, y la simbiosis aumentada de cuerpos en el movimiento—todo visto de un lente nebuloso.

Brigid McAuliffe was born in Wisconsin and grew up in Colorado. In 2001 she earned her BFA from Colorado State University, where she specialized in Photography and Cermamics. Currently she is working towards her MFA in Electronic Media Art at the University of Denver, specializing in video. Brigid also plays accordion and sings. She appreciates how video allows her to combine images and sound, as her artistic interests are in both audio and visual realms. She is also interested in documentary work and often incorporates interviews or personal narratives into her work. She strives to use media as forms of expression and vehicles for stories that explore cultural identity, memory and other social issues. She will be an instructor at the University of Denver in the fall and will graduate with a Masters of Fine Arts in May. Afterwards, she hopes to continue teaching, making art, and playing music.

During her residency, Brigid McAuliffe absorbed the sounds and sights of Rosario. It was difficult to decide on a single project because she found many parts of her new community to be fascinating. This show consists of photographs and video of the Tango in el Levante. This is a site-specific project that uses the unique space of el Levante to capture the dancers in a new way, and to exhibit the work in the same space. The images will serve as a simulacrum of the real characters and space, just as the Tango serves as simulacra for memories and emotions. She became interested in the Tango on her first weekend in Rosario. Staring through a steamy glass window in the roof of el Levante, the fog condensed from the cold air outside and the sweat coming from the dancers inside, Brigid was entranced. Her project seeks to capture the aesthetic beauty of the Tango while also speaking to its historical and cultural dimensions. As a foreigner, her images convey the gaze and wonderment of a distant observer. They reflect movement, memory, longing, and the increased symbiosis of bodies in motion—all viewed from a lens none too clear.

These are Alain and I’s flyers. I helped Alain created a CD with his poems read in three languages. He paid special attention to voices, and chose them carefully. He chose Diana, our Spanish teacher to read in Spanish. He read in French and he chose Bryce to read in English, basing his decision off of Bryce’s singing voice. We then added some of my field recordings from sounds around el Levante that had become familiar and nostalgic to us. For example we included the horn from our favorite street vendor that would pass by everyday and we included audio from the Tango downstairs, which we could hear and record from our rooms upstairs. Alain has secured some funding to make a beautiful CD case. He has requested to use some of my photographs. I knew which images he would choose (I guess we know eachother pretty well after living in the same space for two months!). He chose some of the darkest imagery I have ever created, which fits very well with the mood of his poetry. Alain is an incredible poet and I’m very excited to collaborate with him!

Volver Critique

I recently returned from a two month artist residency in Rosario, Argentina where I portrayed a Tango community through a photography and video installation. While still in Rosario, I showed this work in el Levante, the same building where I documented the dancers. A few days ago I showed this work for the first time in the United States, to my colleagues at the University of Denver. The version I showed was the first version of this project. After a few weeks of distance from the initial show and after my critique the other day, I am anxious to further this research. I would like to take advantage of the opportunity digital media presents to create multiple versions of this project.

I will try a version without any interviews, just focusing on the imagary. As Tango often deals with memory, I will strive for an aesthetic in this work that feels ephemeral like distant memories. I will also create two versions with the interviews included. One version will be in the original form, without subtitles. The other will include subtitles, but not word for word. Instead I will use a poetic translation of the basic topics being discussed. I will keep it simple, to avoid cluttering the imagery with an abundance of subtitles. I’m considering adding a little narration as well.

Eventually I would also like to try some interactive tools with some of my footage of the Tango. I can picture a performance installation, where the movement of the dancers or music would effect the images being projected. I will expand on these ideas in my next entry.

Reacting to Remediation

REMEDIATED IMAGE #1 - ROSARIO, ARGENTINA This image was originally a black and white photograph, a medium we are accustomed to viewing in a gallery or a high art magazine. This artist has remediated that medium and old ideas about what a black and white photograph can be and where it can be displayed, by scanning the photo and printing it on everyday typing paper. I saw beautiful images pasted and displayed like this all around Rosario. I didn't need to go into a gallery or museum to be immersed in art.

Paul Levenson defines the concept “remediation” as “the anthropotropic process by which new media technologies improve upon or remedy prior technologies.” David Bolter and Richard Grusin extend this definition. They state remediation is the “formal logic by which new media refashion prior media forms. Along with immediacy and hypermediacy, remediation is one of the three traits of our genealogy of new media.”  (Bolter/Grusin 273:1998) In other words, the “new” in new media refers to modifications of older practices either through processes of “immediation” or “hypermediation.”

Immediation refers to visual representations that strive to deny media that was used during the creative process. The viewer often forgets the presence of the media and focuses primarily on the end product. The process vanishes. Photography and film are good examples of this. Sometimes while watching a film or seeing a photograph, we become so immersed in the perceived reality of that space that we forget there is an artist (or artists) behind it all. Bolter and Grusin reference Virtual Reality machines as an example. These machines are meant to have the same result, striving to make the viewer forget the media that affects them. However, the current machines are crude, with bulky hardware and cartoonish graphics. The futuristic film Strange Days introduces a “remediated” device called “the wire.” This is a slender skullcap that instantly records and transmits the sense perceptions from your cerebral cortex. “If the ultimate purpose of media is indeed to transfer sense experiences from one person to another, the wire threatens to make all media obsolete” (3:1998).

Just as William Gibson’s cyborgian ideas have become increasingly less shocking, it is apparent that Bolten and Grusin wrote this book nearly a decade ago. The wire may seem far-fetched to some, but developers and scientists are already creating interfaces that reflect similar ideas. During the late 1990s, when the internet was just emerging in the public sphere, plans were being made for computer interfaces to create three dimensional space and what Bolten and Grusin call an “interfaceless interface” (23). The user can move through the space and interact naturally, rendering the enabling technology transparent. Today, technological advances have made it possible to run this kind of system. However, just because we have the technological sophistication to mediate every aspect of our lives with an “interfaceless interface,” a pressing question might be, “Should we?”

The second dimension of remediation is hypermediation. Bolter and Grusin define hypermedation as visual representation that functions to remind the viewer of the medium, even accentuate the medium (272:1998). Popular culture is full of hypermediation. The West is media driven, where large quantities (of food, emotion, volume, and so on) and size, bright colors and speed are the most valuable factors in visual representation. Bolter and Grusin state, “The logic of hypermediacy multiplies the signs of mediation and in this way tries to reproduce the rich sensorium of human experience” (34:1998).

Live audio mixing is an example of the process-emphasis of hypermediation. Not only does the listener become entranced in the spontaneous sounds, losing desire for a formal, finished body of work, the DJ shows off his or her “media/medium” by displaying a laptop as part of the creative process. According to Bolter and Grusin, Hollywood cinema is an interesting mix of hypermediation and immediation. “While transparent immediacy remains important in contemporary Hollywood film, a recurring fascination with the medium distances and frames the viewing experience; the viewer oscillates between a desire for immediacy and a fascination with the medium” (82:1998).

I feel it’s important as media makers to consider how and when to remediate. We need to consider whether hypermediation, transparent immediation or a mix of both will benefit our concepts. I am interested in how these concepts relate to documentary issues and ethics of representation. In the past, with a background in analogue photography, I usually strived to make images with a transparent immediacy approach. I wanted my audience to think only about the image, not about the process or medium. Now, utilizing new technologies in my music, documentary projects and visual art, I feel it’s important to address why I am using new technologies to strengthen my concept. As Hollywood cinema has a duality of remediation approaches, I also strive for a balance in my work. I want to acknowledge the media I use and why this acknowledgement strengthens the concept, but not to the point of distracting from the story or the aesthetics.

The question that I have as a critical artist and user/student of technology is this: How can we, as media makers achieve this balance in our work?