Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
new work in progress
Hazy-work in progress from Hassan Pitts on Vimeo.
Wash-work in progress from Hassan Pitts on Vimeo.
twist from Hassan Pitts on Vimeo.
zoom from Hassan Pitts on Vimeo.
combing from Hassan Pitts on Vimeo.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
New Photos group 1
Here is a slide show of some of the photographs I have been working on. I am working with a similar format to the way the video interstitial was shot and looking at the ways that still photographs may function using the graphical core elements of pose, gesture, and gaze. Right now these seem very intense as the mood and tone have been punched up in order to make the images slightly more disturbing without going too far over board.- Well, I can't seem to get the slideshow to show up here, so instead its all the way at the bottom.
I have also been musing on the imagery that comes to mind of the promotional photographs of old boxers. There is something that I find interesting about the nature of such images as they are posed so as to infer the action that has the potential to take place with in the ring. My photographs seem to be more aggressive but also have this staged- posed- performed action quality. Some of the photographs seem to be almost like posed portraits, others like gestural body studies, while the series bears out the progression of shaving. Here are some examples of such old photos- they also seem to focus on the head and shoulders as well as hands. My interest in such may be simply about the portrayal of aggression(particularly in the face/eyes) but also the sports photograph in general in regards to the highlighting of a moment through a still image.
I have also been musing on the imagery that comes to mind of the promotional photographs of old boxers. There is something that I find interesting about the nature of such images as they are posed so as to infer the action that has the potential to take place with in the ring. My photographs seem to be more aggressive but also have this staged- posed- performed action quality. Some of the photographs seem to be almost like posed portraits, others like gestural body studies, while the series bears out the progression of shaving. Here are some examples of such old photos- they also seem to focus on the head and shoulders as well as hands. My interest in such may be simply about the portrayal of aggression(particularly in the face/eyes) but also the sports photograph in general in regards to the highlighting of a moment through a still image.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Thesis Calisthenics
Comfort Zone is a video piece that runs approximately eight minutes on a loop that attempts to explore the body’s relationship to its environment and the creation of emotional space. Conceptually Comfort Zone is a continuation of previous photographic still works that combined specific performative actions within a space and the emotional implications as a result of the interactions. As the photographic works had become more performative in nature, so had the environments become sparser, with color, space and juxtaposition used to reference claustrophobic-like dream, mental and emotional landscapes.
The visual set up is simply one body (the artist) and a field of wooden beams or planks and nails. The body enters the framework of wood and begins to interact with the environment. Comfort Zone is at its simplest visual interpretation a body attempting to navigate a barren uninviting and possibly dangerous environment. The why’s of the piece are never answered in this piece as the body continuously tasks and never seems to accomplish anything. “What is this place?” or “why does this sort of non-space exist?” “Who is this person” or “why does he exist before us in this place?” “What is happening?” and “why is he doing what he is doing?” These are all basic questions that should be asked but are never answered. The reason for this is that to understand what someone feels is not the same as understanding what is happening to them. To understand that someone has a horrible job is not the same as understanding the alienation and discomfort they feel everyday. Comfort Zone is an attempt at distilling the feeling of ambiguity and searching while using the human body and the visual space in which it inhabits as metaphor.
Blues Chair Chorus is the second video project that carries on this theme of body as metaphor and the creation of emotional space. Originally conceived along the lines of “the alienation that transpires in institutional spaces,” the piece still aims to explore the interaction of body and environment while constructing a mood or feeling to be conveyed to the viewer. The body (the artist) sits amid a circle of blue chairs in a non-descript vaguely office like space. The body consists of four layers combined into one visual tableau, each performing similar actions of touching the seats with his hands. Combined with the sound component of the piece, the touching becomes read as drumming. The sound is an additive component composed of ambient and constructed sounds designed to inform and invite the viewer into the piece. In this work as with the previous works the body is unclothed which conveys a sense of vulnerability. The use of layering of forms alludes to repetition and tasking but also referencing the Hindu goddess Kali that has connotations of time and change. Blues Chair Chorus is an investigation of what happens when a body is presented with the sterile environment of an office like atmosphere. It is the body’s nature to try and cope with its surroundings and find direction when none is present. One way to interpret this sense of “direction” is to transform one’s environs into a musical instrument as music is thought to sooth and percussion is linked to the beating heart.
Interstitial in its final finishing stages is a piece that attempts to solve the technical problems of the previous pieces Comfort Zone and Blues Chair Chorus.
Interstitial executes the use of the multiple layering of images in a less distracting way than Blues Chair Chorus and begins to move the piece in a more purposeful way. The sound design also works to imply associations as well as feeling and acts as a guide for the viewer ushering them through the totality of the duration of eleven minutes and four seconds. Where Comfort Zone at its eight minutes may seem possibly too long with it’s slowed motion aesthetic, Blues Chair Chorus is by far shorter at approximately three minutes and twelve seconds. Interstitial returns to the idea of durational experience. The power of looking, the intricacies of seeing and the idea of giving ones self over to experience what unfolds is very much in the forefront of the medium. Durational experience, or so-called “endurance pieces” assert that only through the letting go of the ego to the totality of experience can one attain something far more elusive and transformative. The editing of motion, gesture and sound all aim to make the experience of viewing the piece an all encompassing one. Time is both subverted and perverted in attempt to convey ideas, feeling and present vague impressions of what might be.
Interstitial is at one basic narrative level about a cleansing ritual. Rituals are not meant to be read as literal actions rather symbolic ones. Rituals are also not meant to be intellectual, but rather understood on an emotional level. Each video piece Interstitial, Blues Chair Chorus, and Comfort Zone can be read as ritualistic as they do not describe distinct social actions but allude to them in a real sense through the physicality of the body’s interactions and also emotionally through the treatment of the sound and video editing.
Interstitial consists simply of physical shaving implements, a body (the artist) and a sparse space in which to carry out action. Out of all three pieces mentioned thus far Interstitial is the most performative in the sense of its relationship between performer and viewer. Unlike the other pieces Interstitial presents the viewer with near constant eye contact. Video and cinema has been accused of being passive viewing mechanisms and therefore voyeuristic. This work attempts to make this far less possible. While inviting the viewer in to the piece it constantly reminds the viewer of his or her own physicality with in the viewing space.
The cleansing ritual narrative consists of the removal of any and all jewelry. In addition there is the removal of all hair on the top of the head, beard and mustache with the use of electric clippers, razor, shaving cream and water. Later there is a covering of the face with shaving cream tinted grey. The actions are a serious, methodical approach to working or massaging the head. Many people employ some sort of ritual cleansing as daily preparation or end of the day routine; these techniques specifically operate as an emotional massaging of the spirit in an attempt to put them in an appropriate frame of mind, or to set them at ease.
Within the viewing structure of the piece there is a duality of the frame/posture and eye contact positioning that alludes to both looking at and into a mirror. When looking into a mirror one sees not only themselves as outward manifestation but also an inward contemplation of self. For the viewer of Interstitial it is the confrontation of voyeuristic safety and visual recognition.
Issues within the actions performed suggest an effort to change, to transform and to transcend ones emotions, place and physicality. Issues within the choices of adornment, color and choice of active bodily agent address the need of the artist to be active and seen (and possibly recognized) within his own work. The nature of performative action and performance is the need to use the body in the work but also the experience of one’s own body enacting or being enacted upon. The decision to place one’s self in their work is a choice in this case to become the agent or conduit to physically transmit whatever is to be conveyed from a personal or individual position to a greater and wider audience.
The idea of the performative action as opposed to a performed or scripted action also calls in to question of identity and intent. The specter of what race and identity means is an ugly thing to invoke but is real and necessary to address as the questions that arise are not always in control of the artist even as the artist wrestles to control such outcomes. In some cases it is possible for an artist of color or another traditionally perceived minority group (read- gender, sex, religion, etc.) to be misread or misinterpreted in all manner of ways. The complexity of the identity question and the representation of self and culture are very severe in the realm of both video and performance, as it has been used and relied upon as a forum for visual empowerment of various groups. The grouping of sound, language and visuals to promote an idea of the individual becomes tricky when it ceases to speak clearly to a dominant mainstream. These works, Interstitial, Comfort Zone, and Blues Chair Chorus, are as specific and as elusive with the personal intent of the artist to at once convey personal vision and singular experience but also at the same time be as inclusive as possible as the ideas and concepts to be gleaned are not exclusive by any means to one group. The work speaks to some ideas and concepts that may not be shared by all and that is to be expected. The viewer therefore thrusts content that is not always inherent in the original idea upon the work. Interstitial as a piece is very aware of this. As an evolving body of work, themes of masculinity, transformation, maturation and sublimation are invoked throughout as over arching. The artist however must make choices sometimes that will in fact be misconstrued, but must do so with a hope that such choices pan out for the best, especially when choosing the lesser of two evils.
The as of yet titled video piece in production must make such a choice as the culmination of the piece ends with the symbolic bestowing of masculinity on the body (the artist). In keeping with the sparseness of previous videos the inclusion of one other body is necessary but the presence of many would confuse things. So then the complexity of the matter is does a black body have a mantle of masculinity bestowed upon him by “white” hands, or “black” hands? The seemingly preferable and conscious choice would be “black” hands. The main idea is to intone a reference to a greater community beyond the self, and to some degree a unification of past, present and future. Unfortunately, race is so engrained in our psyche that even when we consciously try to resist we unconsciously sometimes sabotage our best intentions and over compensate. This however, is still in process.
Significant quotes
“White lies: White is the colour of mourning except in the Christian West where it is black - but the object of mourning is white. Whoever heard of a corpse in a black shroud?”
-Derek Jarman (Chroma)
“No beginning/No end/No direction/No duration Video as mind”
–Bill Viola
"For the black man there is only one destiny. And it is white"
-Frantz Fanon (The Wretched of the Earth)
“It goes a long way back, some twenty years...”
-The Invisible Man
“Isn’t that just a ridiculous, and predictable question?”
-Steve McQueen
“Normal? What do you mean by that?”
-William Pope L.
“They wouldn't let you throw the camera up in the air” (the dissatisfaction with Tisch)
-Steve McQueen
“All of the performances (even the very quiet pieces) involve physicality. In place of dialogue, I elicit emotion from strong and subtle physical cues and inspired music soundtracks.”
-Jefferson Pinder
“Is it possible for someone to be static and dynamic at the same time?”
-Jefferson Pinder
“This piece is a dark and humorous look at assimilation and migration.”
-Jefferson Pinder
“The abstract is key to the connected experience. Memory represents the interpreted event. There is no universal, only attempted understanding.”
-John Hendershot
“Burn Hollywood Burn!”
-Chuck D
“The value of the ritual as meaning seems to reside in instruments and gestures: it is a paralanguage.”
-Levi-Strauss
“Excluded from this definition then, are personal rituals which may anticipate the myth-dreams of collective cults but which, as private secrets, do not yet evoke public judgment.”
-David Parkin
“I am a fisherman of social absurdity, if you will… My focus is to politicize disenfranchisement, to make it neut, to reinvent what’s beneath us, to remind us where we all come from.”
-William Pope L.
“Like the African shaman who chews his pepper seeds and spits seven times into the air, I believe art re-ritualizes the everyday to reveal something fresh about our lives. This revelation is a vitality and it is a power to change the world.”
-William Pope L.
“I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.”
- The Invisible Man
The visual set up is simply one body (the artist) and a field of wooden beams or planks and nails. The body enters the framework of wood and begins to interact with the environment. Comfort Zone is at its simplest visual interpretation a body attempting to navigate a barren uninviting and possibly dangerous environment. The why’s of the piece are never answered in this piece as the body continuously tasks and never seems to accomplish anything. “What is this place?” or “why does this sort of non-space exist?” “Who is this person” or “why does he exist before us in this place?” “What is happening?” and “why is he doing what he is doing?” These are all basic questions that should be asked but are never answered. The reason for this is that to understand what someone feels is not the same as understanding what is happening to them. To understand that someone has a horrible job is not the same as understanding the alienation and discomfort they feel everyday. Comfort Zone is an attempt at distilling the feeling of ambiguity and searching while using the human body and the visual space in which it inhabits as metaphor.
Blues Chair Chorus is the second video project that carries on this theme of body as metaphor and the creation of emotional space. Originally conceived along the lines of “the alienation that transpires in institutional spaces,” the piece still aims to explore the interaction of body and environment while constructing a mood or feeling to be conveyed to the viewer. The body (the artist) sits amid a circle of blue chairs in a non-descript vaguely office like space. The body consists of four layers combined into one visual tableau, each performing similar actions of touching the seats with his hands. Combined with the sound component of the piece, the touching becomes read as drumming. The sound is an additive component composed of ambient and constructed sounds designed to inform and invite the viewer into the piece. In this work as with the previous works the body is unclothed which conveys a sense of vulnerability. The use of layering of forms alludes to repetition and tasking but also referencing the Hindu goddess Kali that has connotations of time and change. Blues Chair Chorus is an investigation of what happens when a body is presented with the sterile environment of an office like atmosphere. It is the body’s nature to try and cope with its surroundings and find direction when none is present. One way to interpret this sense of “direction” is to transform one’s environs into a musical instrument as music is thought to sooth and percussion is linked to the beating heart.
Interstitial in its final finishing stages is a piece that attempts to solve the technical problems of the previous pieces Comfort Zone and Blues Chair Chorus.
Interstitial executes the use of the multiple layering of images in a less distracting way than Blues Chair Chorus and begins to move the piece in a more purposeful way. The sound design also works to imply associations as well as feeling and acts as a guide for the viewer ushering them through the totality of the duration of eleven minutes and four seconds. Where Comfort Zone at its eight minutes may seem possibly too long with it’s slowed motion aesthetic, Blues Chair Chorus is by far shorter at approximately three minutes and twelve seconds. Interstitial returns to the idea of durational experience. The power of looking, the intricacies of seeing and the idea of giving ones self over to experience what unfolds is very much in the forefront of the medium. Durational experience, or so-called “endurance pieces” assert that only through the letting go of the ego to the totality of experience can one attain something far more elusive and transformative. The editing of motion, gesture and sound all aim to make the experience of viewing the piece an all encompassing one. Time is both subverted and perverted in attempt to convey ideas, feeling and present vague impressions of what might be.
Interstitial is at one basic narrative level about a cleansing ritual. Rituals are not meant to be read as literal actions rather symbolic ones. Rituals are also not meant to be intellectual, but rather understood on an emotional level. Each video piece Interstitial, Blues Chair Chorus, and Comfort Zone can be read as ritualistic as they do not describe distinct social actions but allude to them in a real sense through the physicality of the body’s interactions and also emotionally through the treatment of the sound and video editing.
Interstitial consists simply of physical shaving implements, a body (the artist) and a sparse space in which to carry out action. Out of all three pieces mentioned thus far Interstitial is the most performative in the sense of its relationship between performer and viewer. Unlike the other pieces Interstitial presents the viewer with near constant eye contact. Video and cinema has been accused of being passive viewing mechanisms and therefore voyeuristic. This work attempts to make this far less possible. While inviting the viewer in to the piece it constantly reminds the viewer of his or her own physicality with in the viewing space.
The cleansing ritual narrative consists of the removal of any and all jewelry. In addition there is the removal of all hair on the top of the head, beard and mustache with the use of electric clippers, razor, shaving cream and water. Later there is a covering of the face with shaving cream tinted grey. The actions are a serious, methodical approach to working or massaging the head. Many people employ some sort of ritual cleansing as daily preparation or end of the day routine; these techniques specifically operate as an emotional massaging of the spirit in an attempt to put them in an appropriate frame of mind, or to set them at ease.
Within the viewing structure of the piece there is a duality of the frame/posture and eye contact positioning that alludes to both looking at and into a mirror. When looking into a mirror one sees not only themselves as outward manifestation but also an inward contemplation of self. For the viewer of Interstitial it is the confrontation of voyeuristic safety and visual recognition.
Issues within the actions performed suggest an effort to change, to transform and to transcend ones emotions, place and physicality. Issues within the choices of adornment, color and choice of active bodily agent address the need of the artist to be active and seen (and possibly recognized) within his own work. The nature of performative action and performance is the need to use the body in the work but also the experience of one’s own body enacting or being enacted upon. The decision to place one’s self in their work is a choice in this case to become the agent or conduit to physically transmit whatever is to be conveyed from a personal or individual position to a greater and wider audience.
The idea of the performative action as opposed to a performed or scripted action also calls in to question of identity and intent. The specter of what race and identity means is an ugly thing to invoke but is real and necessary to address as the questions that arise are not always in control of the artist even as the artist wrestles to control such outcomes. In some cases it is possible for an artist of color or another traditionally perceived minority group (read- gender, sex, religion, etc.) to be misread or misinterpreted in all manner of ways. The complexity of the identity question and the representation of self and culture are very severe in the realm of both video and performance, as it has been used and relied upon as a forum for visual empowerment of various groups. The grouping of sound, language and visuals to promote an idea of the individual becomes tricky when it ceases to speak clearly to a dominant mainstream. These works, Interstitial, Comfort Zone, and Blues Chair Chorus, are as specific and as elusive with the personal intent of the artist to at once convey personal vision and singular experience but also at the same time be as inclusive as possible as the ideas and concepts to be gleaned are not exclusive by any means to one group. The work speaks to some ideas and concepts that may not be shared by all and that is to be expected. The viewer therefore thrusts content that is not always inherent in the original idea upon the work. Interstitial as a piece is very aware of this. As an evolving body of work, themes of masculinity, transformation, maturation and sublimation are invoked throughout as over arching. The artist however must make choices sometimes that will in fact be misconstrued, but must do so with a hope that such choices pan out for the best, especially when choosing the lesser of two evils.
The as of yet titled video piece in production must make such a choice as the culmination of the piece ends with the symbolic bestowing of masculinity on the body (the artist). In keeping with the sparseness of previous videos the inclusion of one other body is necessary but the presence of many would confuse things. So then the complexity of the matter is does a black body have a mantle of masculinity bestowed upon him by “white” hands, or “black” hands? The seemingly preferable and conscious choice would be “black” hands. The main idea is to intone a reference to a greater community beyond the self, and to some degree a unification of past, present and future. Unfortunately, race is so engrained in our psyche that even when we consciously try to resist we unconsciously sometimes sabotage our best intentions and over compensate. This however, is still in process.
Significant quotes
“White lies: White is the colour of mourning except in the Christian West where it is black - but the object of mourning is white. Whoever heard of a corpse in a black shroud?”
-Derek Jarman (Chroma)
“No beginning/No end/No direction/No duration Video as mind”
–Bill Viola
"For the black man there is only one destiny. And it is white"
-Frantz Fanon (The Wretched of the Earth)
“It goes a long way back, some twenty years...”
-The Invisible Man
“Isn’t that just a ridiculous, and predictable question?”
-Steve McQueen
“Normal? What do you mean by that?”
-William Pope L.
“They wouldn't let you throw the camera up in the air” (the dissatisfaction with Tisch)
-Steve McQueen
“All of the performances (even the very quiet pieces) involve physicality. In place of dialogue, I elicit emotion from strong and subtle physical cues and inspired music soundtracks.”
-Jefferson Pinder
“Is it possible for someone to be static and dynamic at the same time?”
-Jefferson Pinder
“This piece is a dark and humorous look at assimilation and migration.”
-Jefferson Pinder
“The abstract is key to the connected experience. Memory represents the interpreted event. There is no universal, only attempted understanding.”
-John Hendershot
“Burn Hollywood Burn!”
-Chuck D
“The value of the ritual as meaning seems to reside in instruments and gestures: it is a paralanguage.”
-Levi-Strauss
“Excluded from this definition then, are personal rituals which may anticipate the myth-dreams of collective cults but which, as private secrets, do not yet evoke public judgment.”
-David Parkin
“I am a fisherman of social absurdity, if you will… My focus is to politicize disenfranchisement, to make it neut, to reinvent what’s beneath us, to remind us where we all come from.”
-William Pope L.
“Like the African shaman who chews his pepper seeds and spits seven times into the air, I believe art re-ritualizes the everyday to reveal something fresh about our lives. This revelation is a vitality and it is a power to change the world.”
-William Pope L.
“I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.”
- The Invisible Man
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
work stills
Low rez screen captures more footage on vimeo.
http://vimeo.com/hassanpitts/videos but you'll need to be a contact!
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Recap of Thesis Meeting 02/18/2009
The following is a brief summary of the first committee meeting for Hassan Pitts dated 02/18/2009:
Both Jack Wax and Paul Thulin were present for the meeting. Tom Condon was excused due to illness.
Topics discussed at meeting were as follows.
1) A discussion of where Hassan is in relationship to work for Thesis since last semester and the intent of the video piece entitled "interstitail" to be the primary work in the thesis show. Also was discussed the idea of perhaps not having "interstitial" as the only works shown, possibility of older works and new works in process being encorperated into the viewing.
2) Ideas were put forth as to how long "interstitial" really should be(ie. if there is more that can be trimmed with out damaging the integrity of the piece. Also a concern to the idea of Hassan crafting his own mask for an additional elelment to be used in the piece. This element would be a cerimonial like constructed mask in the veinn of a ram. The ram represents power, masculinity, creative fertility and promise.
3) Also in the course of the meeting a meeting plan was proposed for the next successive meetings which would include an update on work in progress and written elelments as set forth by Paul.
4) Hassan Pitts will post this note document and other info and documentation to his blog:
http://pitts-vcugradphtoresearch.blogspot.com/
5)Next meeting will be 3/18/09
Hassan
CC: Tom Condon, Jack Wax
Both Jack Wax and Paul Thulin were present for the meeting. Tom Condon was excused due to illness.
Topics discussed at meeting were as follows.
1) A discussion of where Hassan is in relationship to work for Thesis since last semester and the intent of the video piece entitled "interstitail" to be the primary work in the thesis show. Also was discussed the idea of perhaps not having "interstitial" as the only works shown, possibility of older works and new works in process being encorperated into the viewing.
2) Ideas were put forth as to how long "interstitial" really should be(ie. if there is more that can be trimmed with out damaging the integrity of the piece. Also a concern to the idea of Hassan crafting his own mask for an additional elelment to be used in the piece. This element would be a cerimonial like constructed mask in the veinn of a ram. The ram represents power, masculinity, creative fertility and promise.
3) Also in the course of the meeting a meeting plan was proposed for the next successive meetings which would include an update on work in progress and written elelments as set forth by Paul.
4) Hassan Pitts will post this note document and other info and documentation to his blog:
http://pitts-vcugradphtoresearch.blogspot.com/
5)Next meeting will be 3/18/09
Hassan
CC: Tom Condon, Jack Wax
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