exhaust.ed

felicia is. lacking clarity

and much much too much sleep deprived and worn out. sleeping on pink insulation foam and in warehouses with people literally hammering holes in walls is quite.. laborious. and then i ask, why. oh why do i do this to myelf? to be angry all the time, to labor so much for something that can't be touched, that is going to simply be deinstalled and disappear forever, that can only be completed by the viewer's presence, and dissipated the moment he/she blinks. whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy do i do this..!!!!!

i'll stop my bitching later.

bondir sur les pieds !

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs14/f/2007/115/3/5/Herbal_parkour_by_Tofan.jpg

ps. sculpture show.

"constructing belief"

February 19, 2010
7-11 pm
6646 Vernon Ave
University City, MO, 63130

light is white

when both the sky and the earth are so so so white like that, i feel like everything i know of this world, everything that constructs me, is like this small grain of sand, rolled in between god's, or whoever's, thumb and index finger. and then the sunlight pours in through this giant pitcher, and everything becomes so bright I have to squint.

we spent the whole day painting everything white. spackled the holes and the crevices in the walls, sanded them down, and put on coats of paint (called the official "WashU White"). the whole process was meditative but also bizarrely frustrating; you become immersed in this world of white and off-white and paint fumes, and the subtle differences in the original white of the wall in contrast to the white of the paint, becomes magnified and so sorely unmatched, it makes me cringe a little bit. and then there are the parts with shadow, and i become confused as to what parts are painted and unpainted. a little bit like, trying to wash the feeling of skin off your hands.

the installation piece is weighing heavily down on me. i can physically feel my brain sitting inside my skull. see, in my mind, everything always looks perfect and beautiful and eloquent and relevant.. and just wonderful... and then as i bring it out into the world of substance, it loses a certain.. gasp of air? you know what i mean?


FIONA TAN
she's one of those artists whose work makes me feel like, damnit! if you gave me a couple of years i was gonna do that too. :P



BBBBBBBBAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

away away away!

the deep, dark caves in my shoulders hum with static. creeping up my neck to behind my ears. and my head just wants to disembark and float away like some balloon into the galaxies. but it doesn't, and instead falls forward into its hinges, the weight of my lashes pulling me down. wearing me down. shutting down.

i think i'd rather be away these days. i miss the train.

SIGHS

so i still keep in touch with my old babysitter from when i was still puny. she's pretty cool; lives in new york, has a cool job, has a baby who she calls "bean"..

Agatha
fe?!
Felicia
HEY AGATHA!
Agatha
hi sweetie!
what are you up to?!
i love keeping up with you on facebook!
Felicia
hahaha yeah?
um not much,
i just finished the lunar new year festival performance last weekend
Agatha
im def procrastinating right now
sounds like a good time
are you still finishing your undergrad?
Felicia
yeah im a junior
Agatha
im working on a project with a band called honor society
do you know them?
never leave college!
Felicia
I KNOW I DONT WANT TO
Agatha
omg! work is so not worth it! lol!
Felicia
real world seems to suck
Agatha
thats an understatment
Felicia
damnit
Agatha
sorry
Felicia
.. sigh
Agatha
zero glamour
underpaid
overworked
no appreciation
oh! the best part...all the stupid people
lol



SIGH.

empathy in design

it's always great to discover art (the kind with a capital A) directly functioning in the world. although i'm not exactly sure how developers could actually go about designing products that require empathy and patience from the consumer while still maintaining a profit, but i suppose it starts with perspective and the right intention. in many senses, i often keep my audience in mind when i am creating work, whether or not they have an appreciation or association with the arts, which leads me to question a lot of things.. i suppose i forget that there's only so much i can do. to provide perspective or to change their minds is something I look to do, rather than to expect. there's only so much i can control.

anyways!

"Developed world consumer desires relentlesslygrow and flex, while material possessions remain hopelessly froen in time. This incapacity for mutual evolution renders most products incapable of sustaining a durable relationship with users... For centuries, the art world has been implicitely aware of the need for mutual evolution between the consumer and the consumed. Artistic expressions from traditional oil paintings to avant-garde installations are conceived as contemplative works, rarely surrendering all their meaning at a single glance. This is enabled by the presence not simply of meaning, but of layers of meaning that continually tantalize the onlooker to provide a lifetime of incremental revelations. In 1912, German psychologist Theodor Lipps propounded the theory that the appreciation of a work of art depended upon the capacity of the spectator to project his personality into the object of contemplation. Lipps claimed that 'one had to feel oneself into it'. He named this cybernetic process Einfuhlung, which tranlsates as 'empathy'. In their current guise, consumer products lack the sophistication and layered complexity for this degree of long-term empathy to incubate. Most consumer products relinquish their tenuous meaning to a single fleeting glance, while rarely delivering any of the life-altering rewards they so confidently promise. In this respect, waste is nothing more than symptomatic of a failed user/object relationship, where insufficient empathy led to the perfunctory dumping of one by the other."

from "Emotionally Durable Design: Objects, Experiences, and Empathy" Jonathon Chapman

oooohhohoho

hahaha, oh felicia.
you are a rare breed indeed.



*pretends to be a dinosaur and runs away*