Audio Track for Final Project
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"

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Audio Track for Final Project

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part two
part one
Final Reflection
It's hard to say how my final project went, since I never got to see it. I don't think I have any great insight after "performing" my project than I did before I presented. But I do have things to say.
While preparing, I was worried that I wasn't engaging my body in this project as much as I had in previous projects. I thought that I needed to add something: to leave the room, or to rock back and forth on the floor or somehow have my body be as much in focus as my project. I'm glad I didn't do that. It defeats the purpose of my project. My body is present within the piece. To refer to Cyborg Manifesto, the computer screen, projector, word documents, screen shots, Excel spreadsheets, internet browser, are all just as much of an extension of my body as my toes are. In some ways, I am more in touch with the part of myself that exists within my computer than I am with the part of myself that exists within my toes. At the very least, I spend much more time with my "computer self" than my "toe self." And adding a separate physical component would have disengaged the body from the piece. I found that the most helpful thing was to let my body be completely engaged in the action through the two screens.
In a way, I see this piece in contrast to Kevin's second project. His project displayed his text through the words of a female computer voice, and created a projection compiled of screenshots in an attempt to separate himself from the the computer. I, alternately, attempted to demonstrate how everything within the computer is a part of myself.
Rather than robot-ifying or alienating, I attempted to humanized the action on screen. I think the best example of this would be when my reaction to the music I was listening to affected my work on the screen. While editing my freewrite, I came upon the "I might fall and I might be okay" part during Azelia Bank's "212." She started singing, "I guess that cunt getting eaten" and i started writing "I guess that cunt getting eaten" into my freewrite. When I lined this up with the audio track I compiled for the piece, I tried to make sure that the timing of the song the same during my performance as it was during my editing, to demonstrate that even though this screenshot was taken in the past, it is a live human reaction. This helped to humanize the actions happening on screen.
It is so easy to dehumanize; I see it every day. Dismissing, equating, alienating are very common verbs used to dehumanize. When I was watching Brendan's first piece, for example, it was easy for me to dismiss (and therefore dehumanize) the man leaning over the memorial, because I knew that the narrative being shoved down my throat was a contrived story put together by someone who has no idea what war is like. In my free-write I was tossing around the idea of constructing myself within other things: ex-boyfriends, school projects, my ability to type without using the backspace bar.
I've found that identifying myself as someone who exists beyond my construction in reference to other people is very difficult. This article addresses the "wives, sisters, daughters" rhetoric in relation to the Steubenville rape. It's the argument that asks the listener to empathize with a female victim because it "could be your wife, sister, or daughter." Well, Anne Theriault states in this article, this rhetoric has a dehumanizing effect:
"It defines women by their relationships to other people, rather than as people themselves. It says that women are only important when they are married to, have given birth to, or have been fathered by other people. It says that women are only important because of who they belong to."
In this project, I wanted to explore how to identify myself in relation to this sense of "belonging" -- whether that's to a person, an action, a project, or a computer. So I suppose my project turned out to be an exploration of humanizing my own identity through the lens of my laptop, the projector, final cut pro, Microsoft Expressions Encoder, VLC Media Player, Google Chrome, Gmail, Azealia Banks, Childish Gambino, K. Flay, Ludovico Eunadi, and Tumblr. I suppose I've realized that I would like to make art that will work to humanize, rather than highlighting dehumanization.
Rather than making art about pain, injustice, and harsh realities, I want to make art about pleasure, justice, and that reaches toward some sort of ideal reality. I'm a firm believer that any medium used should be used because you cannot make the piece with any other medium. Moving forward, I'd like to start playing with how different forms of media would be able to humanize people in very different ways. Of course, to do this, I have to constantly analyze the art, writing, and discourse around me that works to humanize or dehumanize (or, attempts to humanize but might dehumanize as a result) people's identities. I also need to look into breaking down this term itself some more. Often, the term "humanize" can be used or interpreted as a universalizing term, the kind that says, "that doesn't matter, because we're all human!" This erases histories and ignores identities. It's the same voice that says, "But really, everybody is a little bisexual!" Which ignores the realities, stories, and identities of those who are bisexual. When I make art that attempts to humanize, I need to be wary that I don't attempt to universalize, erasing histories and ignoring identities.
I need to begin by interrogating what it means to be human in these terms. I don't want to interrogate human in contrast to animals, plants, or machines, but rather the kind of human that other people treat as human. This human cannot be denied justice, rights, retribution, identity.
I would like to retract what I said in my second sentence. I gained a descent amount of insight after "performing" my piece. I just had to write through it to recognize it.
Can you think in image?

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affect
stairs
stairs
sounds
eyes closed
disorientation
faling falling fear of falling
stairs
cliff
wall
balance
falling
jolting
jolting
shoes feet angled feet
untrustworthy feet
limiting shoes
restricting fabrics
balance
falling
i cant stop thinking about falling
i felt like i was offbalance the entire time. every noise i tried to use to help me navigate the space and my body within it, but for all i know i could have been on a boat or on a bus. i still could be. the ground isn't solid. the concrete doesn't sit still and neither do my bones. my bones don't stand up straight. the bones and muscles in my legs in my legs in my ankles in my fingers have decieved me. i hope it's just right now. i hope it's just a today thing. I hope they havent been deceiving me this whole time i've been depending on them like an unfaithful ex.
keep writing
kee
keep
noises
elevator
jolting
hallway hallway hallway narrow
legs dont stop mind stop thinking words words words
not in english
in english
i wish i could write with my fingertips if my fingertips didnt deceive me so
why do i feel like i have to spell things right when im on a computer? if i were writing in pen or pencil i would just write whatever the fuck i want and scribble and mispell and for some reason every time i write on a screen, there pops up these little red lines that tells me when im wrong and i hate to be wrong i hate to be wrong
so i have decided, or rather, its been programmed into me that i cannot write anything wrong in a computer because it yells at me in little red dots and lines and dashes. shouting red lines.
oh look.
i've spelt everything right in the last few paragraphs. when talking about misspelling, i haven't misspelled a thing. i even used an apostrophe. what is wrong with me? why cant i let myself misspell and be wrong? why cant i let myself fall and crawl and trust my untrustworthy bones and ears and fingertips and curved in feet and wavering limbs? why cant i just trust that i might fall and it might be okay nad i might have fun and i might keep doing the exercise and i wont die? why do i feel like i cannot cannot cannot cannot cannot trust when i fear? can i just not fear the fall? can i not fear the misspelling? keyboard keyboard final project it will come nonsense i cannot think or write anything when john is talking when john is talking all i can write is words that he said it probably wont be the thing that does it its just gunna come i want to make a sexual joke about cum... gnoreing ignore i misspelled! go me! its okay i can misspell let me try to be more mroe more more fluid less caring less meticulous and i can nust type the letters that my fingers type and i wot care it its the word that i wanted to write because remember my fingers devieve me and i cant trust them to write the owrd im thinkging because they move differently and i cannot be inside them as much as they are a part of me shir shit shit what is john saying i ahve no idea something about remembering im trying to pay attention now bt liuok at me im writing something else coded message translate john can you repeat because i cant listen while i type vague vague
what i am writing am i writing vague engage dont worry im so confused i am right now i dont know im lost i lost my thoughts my fingers my fingers my fingers are free but not connected to my body what if i could see my body through my fingerups as i saw the fwalls of the hallways with my fingertips and i heard the conrete screch with my feet what if my fingers had eyesblals and you could look at myself through them or whatever i dont care about other people or other thing sbut i am selfish i am myself alone richard the third you cant do thins wrong so you might as well try i it i dont know what im trying i m just going to continure o to freewrite even if my words arentent words and my sentences never end
oh god
my sentences never end
wow
i hut realized that turn it into words but wrods are so restricting and my fingers dont write the words that im thinking
im still using th ebackspace bar
im still i just did it
i just used the backspace bar
i did it again
i canget it owut of my body its habit
what if i tried to twrite without th ebackspace bar
what would hanppen? i writie without backspace on paper and nobody gives a fuck and by nobody
FUCK I IDI T AGIN AND NOW IM USING THE CAPS LOCK AND PRETENDING THAT ITS SOMETHING THAT IM DOING
fuck fuck fuck
why do i use caps lock and think that its comehting thind different i dont know i dont know ajkdhfka
what does caps lock to? my fingers till move the same way and hit the same buttons hitting caps lock
fuck i hit backspace again
complete what ehs asked us to do i have no diea what that was i idnt listne it'l jsut happen
it will complete itself for you
okay
i hope so because i sure as hell cant complete it on my own but thguht
back to the brin bdump udmp dump dump
so mcuh talk about exes
wow this is sad
jessu micaels get out of your own way
try to think about your things int erms of yourself not in terms of exes and backspaces and computers an d backspaces again and think about yourself not your e y our ex doestn do anything mean anything you are yourself alone rihard iii dont think of yourself in terms of your projects and plays and characters
is it possible to htink of myself in terms of myself?
i hit backspace again.
but how can you construct a human without somtstructing everything around it
i dont know if its comleted itself i dont remembe what i wars writing about
fingers mistrust yourself myself selfish
io am myself alone
backspace
period.
caps lockkkk.
I think I would originally be sitting at the computer, as if I were operating the video, and then as the piece goes on, the video would operate without me, and I might do something else. That something else probably won't be decided until later in the process, once I see where the video is going. If it turns into an uncontrollably stressful mess, I might sit on the floor and rock back and forth. I might ask the audience to do the same. I might stick a cigarette in my mouth. I might be really tempted to light it. I might stick a cigarette is other people's mouths. I might ask someone for a cigarette. I might stare at a lighter. I might stare at a flame. I might paint my nails. I might stare at the ceiling and take deep breaths. I might let the video project onto me.
ideas! set up:
ask everyone to open up at least 5 tabs on their computers/
(facebook, tumblr, reddit, gmail, smartsite, pandora, etc, etc,)
and tell everyone to bring headphones, plug headphones into computer or ipod or phone, wear one headphone
I'll wait until everyone is sufficiently plugged into their computers/ phones/ etc, and then begin my piece without audio. I might want to start it with a black or dark blue screen, then add a bunch of white dots on a grid. One white dot would open up into a document or website, then go back to the grid, then open up to another document/ website, etc. etc... I would move back and forth between white dots/ tabs as I would normally, and then some of them might be images or video of a memory. One of the white dots would open up on tumblr, and I would flip to different peoples' blogs, and I would open a friends' blog, then while waiting for it to load, switch to another page, then in the middle of writing a sentence on another page, the music from that person's blog would start playing too loudly. I'd go back, pause their music, then open up pandora and start playing music intentionally.
this happens often.
Tim Mantoani - Behind Photographs (2012)
Famous photographers posing with their most iconic photographs
If I were to expand off of my first project, I would incorporate these photos. I have a great respect for these powerful photos and the artists who captured them. But I cannot get my head away from seeing how the intimacy or visceral quality of the photo gives the impression that the people being photographed are representing themselves; however, the photograph alone ignores the filter of the photographer, camera, etc., etc. The photograph is a representation of what the photographer found effective enough to photograph--and what the "viewers" found gripping (what makes these photographs famous? they resonate in some way with a large group of people... why these photos?).
I’m almost never serious, and I’m always too serious. Too deep, too shallow. Too sensitive, too cold hearted. I’m like a collection of paradoxes.
Ferdinand von Schrubentaufft (via loveyourchaos)

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More reflection:
The quote!
"Do what you will, this world's a fiction and is made up of contradiction" -William Blake
This quote seemed to have an affect on people. When I said it out loud, many people took it as permission to stop judging. That was not my intention, but I suppose it can be used as permission to attempt to ignore the pressure to decide between binaries. But to me, it was a last-minute add on. I had extra time the morning of the performance, and I was reading through my blog posts of my process working through this process, when I came upon this quote again. I thought it fit well within the context of a world full of contradiction. I'm pleased with how well it fit into my piece in practice.
My idea for my final project probably will change this weekend when I have more time and attention to focus on it and think it through. But for right now, my early stage idea is to interrogate attention span and inner mental rhythms of different people. The idea of using our brains as computers and our computers as our brains has been haunting me since we studied the Cyborg Manifesto. I was doing work last night, and at one moment I found myself with way too many tabs open. I was simultaneously working on:
Richard III Rehearsal Report
Drafting the first Master Rehearsal Report for Edge Festival
Emailing one of the EDGE Directors
Posting on my 170 blog
Responding to a gender discussion on Facebook
Clarifying locations on the EDGE Google calendar
Listening to music
For a moment, I realized that I had stopped in the middle of every single one of these tasks to move onto another one of them--and I stopped at least three of these tasks in the middle of a sentence. Though my brain was sprawled out in six different directions at once, my computer screen seemed to accurately represent the organization of thoughts in my head, and it felt organized. Why didn't I wait to finish one task before moving onto the next? What stopped me? Why did I act on impulse and switch to another tab mid-sentence? I wonder how other people's minds are reflected on their computer screens or iphones. How do they use their technology different from how I do and what does that say about them?
Next Project Ideas:
connection between two human beings: one on screen, one live
finding humor in darkness (telling the audience to laugh while watching something disturbing... what does that do to the body?)
interrogating attention span: play with jumping from one topic to the next to the next and back and forth quickly, and then making the audience focus on one thing for an extended amount of time--which is more comfortable for whom and when?
task as the filmmaker/performer: try to get every person to leave the room by any means possible: try different tactics
cause conflict in the audience: when everything tells you to leave, what makes you stay?
Reflection, Part Two:
I want to directly address some reactions that my classmates expressed to me. Those were absolutely fascinating.
Alexx commented on the pressure he felt to make a snap judgement. He said that it made him feel "like a machine." When I hear him say this, I immediately think about what that says about the machine-like automation that we take on when we learn to make snap judgements. This binary was difficult to wrap your mind around... and that was for a very specific reason. Other identity binaries (white vs non-white, male vs female, etc.) make it easy for us to make those snap judgement without thinking twice. Alexx's comment about feeling like a machine resonates for me because it recognizes the machine-like nature in which we make these judgments. It also draws a parallel to industrial-age emergence of the docile body, when people became commodities, able to be quantitatively valued based on the labor they can provide (bear with me, I'm a little rusty on my references... I'm referencing at least three different things here... think Karl Marx... I can't fully explain my references because I have so much more to say about my piece).
Azu expressed a feeling of anxiety from sensory overload. The pressure to decide made her feel like she was stuck in a box. Her hands got sweaty, and she quickly got tired from standing. I don't quite know how to respond to her reaction, because it was such a powerful reaction that I didn't fully expect. I expected that people would feel pressured by the ticking clock, unsettling sound effects, and the pressure to decide. But the way she described her experience took it to a level I wasn't looking for. That said, I am really glad that she expressed that reaction. I think it is a testament to how the pressure of identity binaries and how physically afflicting they can be.
Kevin was the first to say that he stopped the judging exercise that I has asked them to do. Many other people said they checked out at times too. Again, this is fascinating. Some checked out completely, letting themselves just watch the video, and others checked out of part of the exercise. Many people said their binary morphed, and became whether or not they would hire this person for a customer service job (or some version thereof). It's fascinating that people had the need to simplify their binary-- then further fascinating to examine what a simpler binary looks like: would you, or would you not hire this person? Nobody chose to morph their binary into whether or not this person remembered their dream. It seemed to be easier for most people to make a quick judgement when you could then judge whether or not this person is a people-person, whether or not they're hire-able. My hypothesis is that we are used to making these decisions. We see the people who get jobs, the people who work in customer service, every day! In our brains, that registers as a type of person, a kind of identity that either applies or doesn't apply. You can't walk down the street in an everyday situation and see people who did remember their dream and people who didn't. In our brains, someone remembering a dream is an action, not an identity or personality trait.
Reflection, Part One:
The video in itself doesn't really do or mean anything. But for the performance of it, I asked the class to always be making a decision about the people they are seeing (based on the images, not based on the actual person, if you recognize that person). I had the class stand and face the screen to start, and then once the faces began showing, choose one of two things:
1. If you think this person remembers their dream from last night, turn to your right and put your right hand on top of your head. 2. If you would hire this person for a customer service job, turn to your left and put your left hand on your chest. The project itself was an attempt to interrogate binaries: How do we react to the task of choosing between binaries? What binaries do we find easier to comprehend or choose between? I was also attempting to interrogate the construction of identity within that: How does a series of images allow us to build an identity of a person that can be placed within that binary? What is it about the corner of this person's mouth that makes me believe I could hire this person to work customer service?
That concludes Part One of my reflection. I have a lot to say, so I wanted to put out the basics to begin with, to be sure that my thoughts don't get muddied up with everything else. Part Two will be posted shortly.

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Revision:
Choice A: If you think this person remembers the dream they had last night, face the right side of the room and put your right hand on top of your head.
Choice B: If you would hire this person for a customer service position, face the left side of the room and put your left hand on your chest.
I think I should go back to my interrogation.
How is identity constructed within a person's mind?
More specifically, how can we see pieces of a person, construct their identity, and place them on a binary in a split second?
What does this do to our bodies?