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TENTH THURSDAY
End of Quarter Art Show
Tenth Thursday is an end of quarter art show that showcases work for studio art classes. I showcased a video projection work from the Projects in New Technology course that taught skills in working with time-based media and projection mapping. Titled UCI’s Art Department: Painting and Photography, the piece is a collaborative multichannel video projection.
The meaning of the piece is an institutional critique of the lack of funding and up-to-date equipment in UCI’s Art Department. Inspired by the sentiment felt from personal experiences in UCI art classes, this project takes a subtle, indirect approach to representing the disparities in expectations. Due to being more specialized in photography, I documented the photography space and equipment. My partner who is specialized in painting expressed this piece's sentiment through that medium.
The project takes on a research and documentary approach. One side of the multichannel is dedicated to photography. For the video and photographs for this side, I walked around, researched, and observed spaces on the Art Department campus. I documented the spaces as is. Influenced by documentary photography, the style is intended to be natural, candid, and edit-free. The other side of the multichannel is about painting. The content of this side is more abstract. Emotion is captured through gestures, colors, and sound. Research-wise, my partner also had a conversation with the chair of the Art Department Kevin Appel about money and job situations as an art student. The phrases, “real life” and “real world issue” came up frequently. Without the context in the meaning of the project, it is hoped that viewers may think the projections are just superficial imagery of the spaces and art practices. It is meant to allow the viewers’ to observe and create their own sentiments about these spaces, just as my partner and I did in our experience as UCI art students.
In addition to the conceptual topic of institutional critique, the outdated equipment that the project is about was also used to create the project. For the painting side, self-made or scrap canvases and old paintbrushes were used. For the photography side, the video clips and photographs were taken with an old Canon Rebel camera. Because of this, the video footage is shaky and captures the sounds of camera fiddling. When projecting the work, an old painting shelf was used where students usually put their paints and water cups. This was used to hold the projector and laptop that ran MadMapper. Overall, in the research, art-making, and projection process, the theme of critiquing the Art Department was kept in mind and incorporated.