3/27/2014
Over spring break I was lucky enough to travel to the east coast for the first time since my birth in Rochester, NY. Yes, I possess a social security number that starts with the #1. The overall experience was excellent and there is nothing like traveling along and meeting friends in various locations. I decided the dedicate the duration of my trip to an attempt to understand, through practice, the purpose of my selfie, travel, portrait, videos.
Throughout the course of my 7 day trip I produced 299 selfie videos and I became 299 instances closer to understanding the true nature of this project. The entire trip is documented. Things got very obsessive and compulsive, I think that I freaked some people out while I was on the train to NY from D.C. Regardless of what those around me were thinking I was constantly considering concepts of looking and how we as humans filter that experience through the lens of a camera.
Some choice quotes:
(Walker Percy, The Loss of the Creature)
"The camera isolated momentary appearances and in so doing destroyed the idea that images were timeless."
(John Berger, Ways of Seeing)
My videos have become a convoluted combination of actions and notions that arise when experiencing sights unseen and locations unknown. These convolutions have produced something that I would describe as reverse tourist photography manifesting as a selfie with the facade of a candid genuine portrait.
Look at My Video!
3/4/2014
Self Portrait: Off Season
While on the Off Season trip I was thinking about self portraiture and the definition of 'selfie'. A selfie is defined as "A photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website" (Oxford Dictionary Online). Selfies are absolutely a product of current times and are not often used in moderation. It is as if people have the need to constantly document their experiences through self portraits to make them valid in some way. The persistence of my documentation throughout the day speaks to this but I am unsure as to how direct or subverted the connection is. I feel like this action is habitual, documentation of self is embedded in youth society. Regardless, I think that the selfie is a genuine way of documenting not only self, but how the individual experiences life in general. A selfie has the power to capture location, time, and emotion.
It would be beneficial to investigate the history of the self portrait and the history of the camera as a tool for portraiture in understanding this project more. There is an interesting timeline in the development of portraiture and the artist, once painting was the only way a person could have a portrait of themselves created. With the development of the camera, taking a portrait slowly became more available to the common man, now anybody can pull out their phone and snap a picture of their face. I guess I am wondering what happens when the selfie comes back to the artist, how does an artist utilize the selfie to describe individualism and place? That may be the question that this project is asking but I have yet to put my finger on it. It may have to do with the magnitude of how much footage of my face I took during our trip, to view an expansive experience with multiple people and places so thoroughly through the face of one person.
Aside from the project, the trip was very interesting as I hope you can see in my video. I was intrigued by Aztalan, delighted by Little America, and in awe at the Wisconsin Dells. Everything that people usually indulge in seems to freeze up with winter. I felt like a special guest in the Dells, no one was really around and it became our own frozen playground. Little America was probably my favorite part, that place was full of artistic potential and the potential to have a really great time too! These locations relate very well to the abandoned sites that MFR's have been investigating throughout our travels. I love being able to see the history of a place, the traces that are left behind from people and the stories that these traces can tell.
2/26/2014
Our next trip will be to Aztalan State park and the Wisconsin Dells. Not all of of us have a solid destination in mind but we are planning to move more fluidly through these locations allowing for us to experience the unexpected.
Over the summer I was working on a video self portrait project. This consisted of me filming my face for brief periods of time, 3-10 seconds. I then clipped all of the shorts together into a much longer video. I am unsure what I will be doing with this but think that it was good exercise; in performance and video.
Link to Video: Self Portrait: Summer 2013 (very raw edit)
During this trip that will occur this upcoming Sunday, March 2nd, I will be doing something similar. I want to document the trip through video and what I would call miniature performances.
In the short videos that I made over the summer I was experimenting/goofing around/trying to stay entertained while on the road or out having a good time. I will use similar methods for this Midwest Field Reporters excursion but I plan on using language much more. I want to craft impulsive phrases, highlight spaces that I encounter, and try to add some sort of context to things that I am doing. Hopefully this will result in an interesting portrait of myself as someone experiencing these places but also as a portrait of the spaces themselves.
2/7/2014
I have been thinking about what this project, or should I say these projects will amount to. For each location that we visit I am planning on writing some sort of memorial speech, a nod to the location and to the events that have occurred at said location.
This will all be within the same format as the Dahmer speech. Overall, the locations that I am interested in are imbedded with happenings, folklore, and bizarre circumstances.
One location that I am looking at for an upcoming trip, not our next trip, is Old Fitz Simmons Road in Oak Creek, WI. This is an abandoned stretch or road that goes directly into the bluffs. It has been closed and barricaded for decades and for good reason. Teenagers are said to have driven off of it on prom night, killing 2 out of 4, satan worshipers are said to have performed rituals and animal sacrifices there since its closure, and overall shady business is said to happen frequently; there is also a rumor that the location is haunted.
Links to Check out:
The youtube video is pretty informative.
As for our next trip I am not entirely sure what location I will discover but I am in the process of trying to find something good!
1/30/14
I chose to go to the Oxford Apartments due to
an interest in the horrific events that occurred there and the ripple effect
that Milwaukee experienced due the murders committed by Jeffrey Dahmer. The
Dahmer murders also intrigue me in relation to queer culture and gay hate or
self hate. I prepared and read a speech at this location that would probably
qualify as a memorial speech with a poetic twist. I have included the text from
the speech as well as some roughly edited video documentation of the performance.
My Candle Light Vigil
To the wrestling star
To the 14 year old boys
To the male prostitutes
To the parents of a child that people call the devil
To the woman across the hall
To the one that almost got away
To the spray painted skulls
To the drugged up faggots of Milwaukee
To the detective who got a huge break and a divorce
To the oxford apartments
And to the cannibal of Milwaukee
People say that the devil lived here.
D
A
H
M
E
R
Dahmer
You claimed 17 lives but so much more died than just those 17
dissected, mutilated, raped, stolen, lives.
You managed to bring down an entire building, a thing that is much
less fragile than a young man with tranquilizers pumping through his veins, for
it cannot be brought down with the smooth motion of a drill.
An entire community astonished, surprised and perhaps, quite
blind. None of you deserved to be dragged into this debauchery, to be unknowing
witnesses, to be guilty by default.
Fuck it all to hell. 20 years has most likely not been enough to
separate you from him, and what he did to them.
To the fallen, this story is not about you but what happened to
you. No one’s head should ever be inside of the refrigerator unless you are
over zealously looking for the pickles. It is a shame that your cocks ended up
inside of a cooking pot, what a waste.
Steven, Steven, James, Richard, Anthony, Raymond, Eddie, Ernest,
David, Curtis, Errol, Tony, Konerak, Matt, Jeremiah, Oliver, Joseph
J
E
F
F
R
E
Y
Jeffrey
You did horrible things but you were a person too and possibly the
subject of bad circumstances that evolved disastrously: evil spreads like
herpes in a whorehouse. Part of me feels sadness for you while part of me feels
like you are going to remove that part with a butcher knife.
To the nothingness that exists in the wake of your anger and
fascination: there are still memories laden with grief.
To the still empty plot of land, once the Oxford Apartments, that
represents the damage that the Milwaukee community retains in the aftermath of
you. This place is a scar that has not been healed or covered up but resonates
with the heinous story of manipulation, innocent blood, displacement and loss.
This is my candle light vigil.
The old plot where Dahmer’s apartment once
stood is quietly sandwiched in between a construction zone and other housing
structures. The fences that surround the area are speckled with ‘Keep Out’ and
‘No Trespassing’ signs. It was a cold day, nearing sunset (that sounds so
cliché but it is true), and not many people were around. As you can see in the
video, the empty plot of land is to my left. Doing the actual speech was kind
of nerve racking but things like that always are, especially when you are not
in the best part of town. Regardless, I got through the whole thing while only
seeing one woman get our of her car in the parallel parking lot and walk the
opposite direction of our group, not giving us much mind.
The question I keep asking myself but have
yet to discover an answer to be ‘how did the place feel?’ and honestly, I still
have no clue. You would probably think that this place is creepy, eerie, full
of bad joo-joo, negative energies and what not, but it was really just a normal
place. I do not think that one can imagine the atrocities that went on there,
and this idea stands whether the building does or not. We are now even more
separated from the horrors of that apartment because is no longer present; it
is no longer tangible. Despite being right there, pressing your nose against
the fence, all you can think about is slasher films, decapitated heads, and
dismembered bodies. This however is still a separation, a very one-sided
minimized way of viewing the Dahmer Murders and the Oxford Apartments.
I guess that my performance, speech, whatever
you want to call it; was about approaching this horrific incident from all
sides. This was about inspiring some sort of empathy for the fallen and the
fucked over, an attempt at understanding.
1/22/14
Dahmer
Jeffrey Dahmer is considered one of the most prolific and
horrific serial killers to exist in America and his main playground was right
here in Milwaukee. Dahmer spent the last leg of his killing spree at the now
demolished Oxford apartments located at 924 N 25th Street near the
Marquette Campus. Out of the 17 young men that he murdered, 12 of these murders
occurred at this location.
Dahmer lured in his victims by enticing them with money in
exchange for posing in photos. He would then drug them and kill them in various
ways; usually strangulation but he often employed far more eccentric and
tactile ways of killing. His victims were always dismembered and he would keep
part of their bodies such as heads, penises, and hands as trophies. He often
kept several skulls from his victims that he thoroughly cleaned and
spray-painted.
The sheer fact that he committed all of these murders over
such a long period of time and allured capture is astounding. One of his
victims even escaped while heavily tranquilized with a hole drilled into his
brain. Dahmer convinced the police that he was his boyfriend and that he had
drank too much. When back at the Oxford apartments Dahmer took the man’s life
shortly after the police left.
The acts that Dahmer committed caused a huge ripple effect
in the Milwaukee community that led to the eventual shut down of the Oxford
Apartments and soon after its destruction: thus forcing out all of the tenants,
some of whom had resided there for over 20 years. The tenants, having unknowingly
lived with these gruesome killings, have suffered long-term trauma and
prejudice often being blamed for not stopping Dahmer sooner despite their
understandable unawareness to what he was doing.
The still empty plot of land, once the
Oxford Apartments, is a location that in many ways represents the damage that
the Milwaukee community retains in the aftermath of Jeffrey Dahmer. It is a
scar that has not been healed or covered up but resonates with a story of
heinous crimes, displacement, innocent blood, manipulation, and loss.
Links To Check Out:
Films To Check Out:
·
Dahmer
(2002) Written and Directed by David Jacobson http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285728/?ref_=nv_sr_1
·
The
Jeffrey Dahmer Files (2012) Directed by Chris James Thompson http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1779076/?ref_=nv_sr_1
I'm thinking about how sometimes a place cannot be healed once something horrible has taken place there...think the site of the World Trade Center, or the Nazi concentration camps. How could an artist work in these places? What would be the goal? To heal? To memorialize? To remember?
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