This is the final video I will be presenting to class on Monday for my last project here in the Cohen Studio. I had so much fun exploring different possibilities on how to go about making this video as well as actually attending Engineering classes.
Overall, I found it to be a positive experience for me because this project got me to step outside my comfort zone and really just go for it. I learned a few things about myself in the process and found a new studio for when Cohen is sick and tired of me.
For the final project, I am going to exchange majors with Daniel Carter, a Bio Engineer student. Since last Tuesday, I have shadowed Daniel in most of his classes and met his version of the Cohen studio.
Being a Bio Engineer major is nothing like I imagined at all. There is so much math and chemistry involved to the point where my head hurt after attempting to solve first problem. With art, I normally just use sight measuring in order to calculate the scale of something or find the right angle of this and that, but I quickly discovered that my new major is all about FACTs, no guessing.
In the Engineering Program, they have this joke about how slowpokes are not allowed. I found this to be extremely funny because I’m so lazy and slow when it comes to doing things sometimes.
Here is a collection of the kind of art I would be making as a Bio Engineer major.
Here are the final three proposals I came up with for the final project.
I am going to be exchanging careers/ majors with a non-Art and Design student and explore what life is like in a different studio. If chosen, this project is going to be the most time consuming because getting my schedule to coordinate with the contestant is going to be a challenge. In order to complete this task, I will need a lot of patience, a camera, audio recorder, a non-Art student, a computer, the line, and their student/life. Wish me luck.
I had the idea of creating poems. First, I would ask strangers on the line to define the word, tell me a time when they encountered with my word, or what the word means to them. I was also thinking of having people tell me words that rhyme with exchange or have similar meanings to the word. After collecting all of that information, I would then create a collection of poems.
For the last idea, I wanted to take further the gas exchange installation from the last assignment. In my house hold, my mother has always been against burping because it’s not lady like or something like that. With that said, I was going to walk the line burping the alphabets. I would need a lot of soda and ginger ale to pull this off, but I think I can do it. When it comes to documenting, I planned to audio record myself burping in letter, then physically writing it on the ground using objects I find on the line so that when I made a video, you will see me standing next to the letter and hearing me burp it out.
One way I choose to interpret my word is by capturing a collection of moments where affection is exchanged between strangers, friends, as well as lovers.
Methodology #2
As I continued to consider different interpretation of my word, I thought it would be a great idea to hear what others have to say about the word-Exchange. During my walk on the line, I would walk up to strangers and ask them how they interpret the word. It was interesting hearing what the community had to say about Exchange. The way in which we exchange information every day is just fascinating and breath taking. We exchange every second of the day without even thinking about it. It has become second nature to us, especially when it comes to breathing (exchanging oxygen with carbon dioxide).
#3- Installation of Granted Gas Exchange
For my last exploration, which I took further and went more in-depth with, I explored the cycle of oxygen and carbon dioxide through trees as well as us human beings. Throughout the whole walk on the line, I picked up a huge collection of leaves, branches, as well as bark in order to create a tree inside the Cohen studio. Sometimes I feel like we take trees and leaves for granted. Without their ability to exchange oxygen with carbon dioxide, we honestly wouldn’t be alive today for we need the oxygen to breath. Just like the trees, we too exchange the oxygen from trees and leaves with carbon dioxide.
> >___< < Without the power of exchange, non of this would be possible >>___<<
DEFINING THE WORD- To me, exchange is an interaction between two people where something of equal value is traded. There are many different kinds of exchanges that take place everyday. It could be as simple as checking out at the grocery store where a customer exchanges money with the cashier for products they are buying. Then we have money exchange as in after crossing the border to Canada, I had to exchange my American money for Canadian dollars. This can also happen by simply going to the bank and asking the teller to exchange foreign bills to match your currency. I remember when I used to babysit my next door neighbor’s boys, we would play Pokemon and exchange the cards even though I had no idea what I was doing. We exchange information everyday, matter fact, I am exchanging this blog for your time as we speak. We exchange friendships everyday, during the holidays, we exchange gifts as well as hugs and kisses, not to mention love. One can also make the argument that we exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen with the air.
Stock Exchange
————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Examples of EXCHANGE
an even exchange of property
an angry exchange of insults
a useful exchange of information
threats of a nuclear exchange
————————————————————————————————————————————————–
DEFINITION- According to Google.com, the word exchange is…
(quote)
ex·change
iksˈCHānj/
noun: exchange; plural noun: exchanges
1.
an act of giving one thing and receiving another (especially of the same type or value) in return.
“negotiations should eventually lead to an exchange of land for peace”
the giving of money for its equivalent in the money of another country.
the fee or percentage charged for converting the currency of one country into that of another.
a system or market in which commercial transactions involving currency, shares, commodities, etc., can be carried out within or between countries. See also foreign exchange.
a central office or station of operations providing telephone service.
“private branch exchanges to automate internal telephone networks”
CHESS
a move or short sequence of moves in which both players capture material of comparable value, or particularly the exchange in which one captures a rook in return for a knight or bishop (and is said to win the exchange ).
*Interdependence *Buying & Selling * Hold *Endure *Stay
*Quid pro quo *Swap *Remain * Persist
————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Origin of EXCHANGE
The word exchanged originated from late Middle English: from Old French eschange (noun), eschangier (verb), based on changer. The spelling was influenced by Latin ex-out, utterly.
o Derange o Arrange oFree-range oHome range oSea change
o Downrange o Estrange o gear change oOutrange o Short-range
————————————————————————————————————————————————–
>___< Honestly, there is no beginning or end to Exchange. It is a cycle that gets reused, reduced, and recycled every day. The first thing that I think of when I hear the word-exchange is foreign exchange students. I don’t know why, but that’s what comes to mind. The second thing has to be money exchange, dealing with currency and the value of a dollar. Finally, the last thing I can think of is the exchange of information has is happening right now: the exchange of education from teachers to students (and vise-versa), information we gain from television shows and social media, the exchange of friendship and love from one another. I don’t know if it is in my place to set boundaries when it comes to exchange because everyone’s interpretation of the word can vary depending on their perspectives. With that said, it would be very hard to create boundaries because most likely no one with follow the rules.
————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Visual examples of different types of exchanges that happen in our daily lives.
Gift exchanging is one of my favorite thing to do during the Holidays or whenever I get a gift I really have no use for. I swap it for something I actually need or want.
Through the use of the internet, we exchange valuable as well as entertaining information. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YikYak, Tumblr, Youtube, blogs, etc. allow us to pass on content for others to view at the touch of s button. It’s so amazing how much one can learn from Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia and similar websites. All this is a part of the exchange cycle.
Exs lead to Change when it comes to relationships. During the relationship, often one partner does not always try to impress their partner. After the break up, the girl/guy would dramatically change and look 10x hotter or uglier. I call this, the Ex-Change after effect of a relationship.
Respiratory Gas Exchange- another type of exchange
————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Limitations and Boundaries
*Con artists and pawn shops over step the boundaries of exchange when they scam you by secretly stealing from you.
*Human Trafficking is defiantly crossing the boundaries of exchange because a human life is not worth any amounts of money. Once it’s gone, you can never get it back.
*Some cultures allow the parents to basically exchange their daughters for a dowry and live stock as a way of giving her away for marriage.
For my final piece, I took the idea of the cleaning up the community further and cleaned up the line. As I walked, I picked up trash along the line and used them to in a way to get the audience to become aware of the major issue of cleaning up the earth.
#1-Meditating on the line: During the long expedition, I thought it would be a great idea to stop and smell the roses…well, it’s more like be one with nature. From time to time, I meditate as a way to relief stress, or to just think. In this recording, you are going to hear about the things I noticed and how I felt throughout the whole process. Enjoy!
#2-Exploring with impaired vision.
My eye doctors always told me to practice going a day or two without my glasses, so I thought this would be the perfect tim to do it. In this exploration, I went on the line without my glasses and boy did everything look blurry. I had to get super close to everything in order for me to be able to distinguish whether this is an acorn or just a piece of rock. As I went on the line with impaired vision, I used my sense of touch to collect textures I found interesting. Since I couldn’t clearly see the objects until I brought them up closer to my eyes, I would close my sight and just allow myself to feel. I felt: wet leaves, touched damp grass that had been showered with snow, prickly branches, fuzzy trees, smooth parts of a tree, as well as rough and woody trees and branches. Some barks were scratchy, others felt dead, as if they were decomposing in the palm of my hand. I also noticed squishy things just resting on the saturated earth. The soil itself was moist…well damp and cold. Being able to rely on certain senses to guide me through the line has taught me the importance of patience.
#3-Walking backwards.
I have always wanted to know how things would look like if people executed their daily lives backwards. With that in mind, I walked the line that passes through Alfred State backwards along with friends so that I wouldn’t fall on my butt the whole time. For the first couple of minutes, I only fell into a pile of leaves and bumped into a few people. It was extremely awkward when I clashed into this one girl who was rushing to reach her next destination. At first she gave me the death glare, then after I explained what I was doing, she apologized because I technically couldn’t watch where I was going. My friends were “my eyes” and they failed me. That was not the only time they were unsuccessful when it came to escorting me on the line. I busted my ass a few times going back up the stairs, I would trip on sticks and branches, and as almost got hit by a car. Fun times. Doing things backwards was not as fun as I had envisioned; maybe it would be if I were to go back on the line with better friends who won’t torture me just to get some laughs. On the bright side, I gained a new attitude about the line. The line is my friend; it has allowed me look at the world with a new perspective. We take our eyes (eye sight) for granted everyday. You don’t really come to appreciate your eyes until you longer have them. Not being able to see where I was going was a struggle, but in a way, it kind of enhanced my other senses. My hearing was stronger and my feet moved a lot slower because I had to take the time to feel where I what I was walking on and sense what’s coming soon. I think everyone should have a backwards day just for the experience.
#4-Community Service:
For the last exploration I went on, I made the decision to do a highway clean up type of thing as I hiked the line. I observed the parts of Alfred State campus and Alfred University campus that were part of the line and came to the realization that we don’t care for the earth as much as we should. I found a lot of garbage just chilling on the ground, waste resting upon the grass, and so on. It was very disheartening to acknowledge the fact that there are people in this world that refuse to care about a big issue what will affect a vast majoring of people. There are trash cans all over campuses for a reason and still some allow themselves to be selfish and dirty up the streets. The thing that stood out to me the most was the orange vampire teeth. That person must have been really drunk to lose their teeth like that. Along with that, I number 10 card with the naked girl also caught my eye. This exploration gave me a new perspective about the college life. It has become primarily more about the experience than the education. With that said, we also get educated from those experiences as well. What I gained most from collecting what seems like garbage now is the ability to create imagery stories to go along with each item.
The reason why I decided to capture this moment is because to some individuals out there, this is how they interpret art. Art is all around us, all we had to do is stop trying to find it and let it come to us.
Anna Mpinga 