Cosey Fanni Tutti

So a week ago we had the wonderful Cosey Fanni Tutti lecture at the UCA. Apart from being a massive porn display it was at times informative. But it seemed by the mid 80's that she had run out of steam.

Her work seemed to go into a couple of different catagories for her. Performances, magazine actions (the porn!), Music, and stripping. I'm still not sure how her stripping fit into all of this or if she just threw it in there for good messure. Her performance, magazine actions and her stripping where about the control she had over herself and the persona or acting that she was doing. So for the magazine actions she went into it as just herself but the magazine or photographer would give her a character to play and they would dictate what she could do, so they had complete control over her. In stripping, she had control over the movements and music she did but she was still there to act as a stripper. In her art performances it was all her and whatever she felt like doing.

Her recent work(what she has done since 2000) I didn't grade much. Her series of Selflessness acts was boring and pointless. So you burned one of your bloody tampons and spread it across the entrance of Disney World, woop de doo! Sure it's funny but thats about it.

She just seemed to have a huge amount of work with a very weak or flimsy idea attached to it which she herslef seemed unable to word persicely.

But we did all get to look at porn under the umbrella of education.

To Hell with the Audience I Say!

So I've been sitting around pondering the directions in which my little art project could go and have decided to make it purely for myself with no thought to my audience. At first I was thinking of making participation sculptures but then revisited my original desires for this project. I want to make a space for myself that will give me comfort and relief, like closing your eyes while wrapped up in an oversized duvet. Now, I wanted my audience to also experience this and then I got so engrossed in trying to bring these feeling forth in the audience but since everyone has lovely individual needs it wasn't so easy. Well screw the audience! I shall now Take this opportunity to be completely selfish and make a space entirely for myself. And then I'll invite people in. But it's all for me.

I'm a selfish bitch, Yay!

Into the Second Week

So we are already into the second week and I feel like I have done nothing, AT ALL. At the moment I'm focusing on the "Freedom of Expression In the Security of Anonymity."

I'm trying to bridge the gap between public persona, e.g. the stoic and unemotional commuters, and the personal emotions.

I'm gonna try and explore this through a series of boxes placed in public spaces and ask the public open up while in these boxes.

I am totally stumped on artist to research. I have a couple of books to read though. Relational Aesthetics is proving to be impenetrable to my little dyslexic mind. Do they have spark notes on art theory books. Off the GOOGLE!!!

Six Foxes and A Badger

There are two newly dead foxes on the A31. One right as you come off the Hog's Back and then one joining the other four on the way out of Farnham. And a Badger on the Hog's Back.

British wildlife is in a sore state by the looks of it.

And one fox on Cobham Road.

Not that I make notes or count. God no!

So it's super early in the morning. Well not super early but damn early for me. I woke up at 8:30. I usually emerge in the afternoon. Now i have a whole day and I have absolutely nothing planned...sigh. What will one do with oneself?

So this week Ben Lewis lectured at UCA Farnham. Ben Lewis is an art critic and reported. He's the guy behind Art Safari and The Great Contemporary Art Bubble. It ran for an hour and 40 minutes and during that whole time all I could think about was that I shouldn't have had that whole bottle of water during lunch and by GOD WHY IS HE STILL TALKING!!!! To say the least my paper was filled with desperate little self-portraits and not so much notes. Luckily I did record the whole thing.

Ben Lewis was charming and the room would continually break out into laughter. You can find him here:

http://benlewis.tv/

And now my dog is standing on my back. He might want something. For only being 5 pounds he certainly makes his presence known.

Some Things To Look At

Chiharu Shiota

Charles Avery Eternity Chamber

Yoshitomo Nara from Walking In My Mind

Just Found!

I found this chinese artist called Cai Guo-Qiang.

http://www.caiguoqiang.com/

I'm now a big fan of his piece Head On.

Wolves running head on into a wall, Rock ON!

Four Foxes

There are Four dead foxes on the A31 on the way out of Farnham. They've been there for two weeks now.

If they stay there any longer I am going to buy some large jars and preserve them.

The First Couple of Days

So semester 2 has finally started to my relief. We have all given our presentations on what we want to specialize in until the end of term.

I have chosen to investigate space which evokes emotion. Also the relation between public space and emotion. Of course I have set myself a substantial reading list.

Installation Art

by Nicolas de Oliveira and Nicola Oxley

One Place After Another: Site-specific Art and Locational Identity

by M Kwon

Public and Private Spaces of the City

by Ali Madanipour

The Production of Space

by Henry Lefebvre

Public Emotions

by Perri 6, Dr Susannah Radstone, Corinne Squire, and Amal Treacher

Species of Spaces and other pieces

by Georges Perec

Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity

by Marc Auge and John Howe

The Aesthetics of Disengagement: Contemporary Art and Depression

by Christine Ross

Relational Aesthetics

by Nicolas Bourriaud

So I will have my hands full! Yay for me!

Just Start Already

I'm getting restless now. I just want the term to start and get on with working and do this presentation!

I just want to start building houses.

Hmph.

The Girl with a Hole in Her Chest

Something I wrote while frying up the beacon.

Dear Singapore

Ocher Canvases

The Patchwork Elephant

My group and I have given it some thought and think that no reputable zoo would trust us with their elephants. Especially an endangered species!

So we decided to base it on the ol' saying "An elephant never forgets" and combine it with the tradition of family quilts. So we are gonna patchwork the crap out of that baby elephant!!!

Dictio Pii

Dictio pii by Markus Schinwald is one of my favorite art films so far. The movie follows several people who occupy an empty hotel. It's a lovely eerie little movie and i thoroughly recommend a watch. So for I haven't found a good clip of it on line but I have found the text.

We are the perfume of corridors
Unfamiliarised with isolated activity
Traitors of privacy.

We are Utopian craftsmen
Scope heeled diplomats, pretty beggars
Not the product of poverty
We don't take from anyone.

We are pillared by mild sadness and polymorphic history
Eternally skeptical,
But We Believe.

We are immortal volunteers
Living in the sensation of being everything
And the certitude of being nothing.

We are just an outline.

We disband prompted paths of movement
Extend our bodies,
Become abysmal dancers.

We are illiterate of perfection, following the curves of belief.

Interested only in the gestures of bending.
Scaffolded postures,obscene geometry.
Frozen irony.

We are deranged.

It makes me dream.

The Search for a Helpful Elaphant

This summer there will be an elephant parade in London!

There will be around 250 life-sized baby elephants made out of fiberglass scattered across London. The little elephants will be decorated by famous artist or celebrities all to aide elephant conservation.

more information can be found here:

http://www.elephantfamily.org/

and here:

http://www.elephantparade.com/london/

So by some amazing strike of luck my year has been appointed an elephant. And not just any elephant, no! This one will be situated outside The Saatchi Gallery. So here I am, wondering what I could do with this baby elephant. So far, my idea has been to form a collaboration with a zoo and have their elephants paint the fake baby elephant. Elephant Art has been around for awhile and have been sold to fund elephant conservation, so I think it would be perfect to have elephants paint their way to their own security.

Here is the site for the elephant art:

http://www.elephantart.com/catalog/splash.php

Of course to do this I will have to call up all the zoos across England that have elephants and ask them if they are interested in helping out. "Hi there! I'm an art student. Can I borrow your elephants?" I'm sure it will go great!

So now I'm on the hunt for new ideas in case the zoos shoot me down. Right now my brain is whirling around ideas of a performance piece. Picture 3 girls with elephant trunks taped onto their faces and you might get the idea.^^

About My Dead Mice

You might be wondering about the title for this blog, My Dead Mice and I.

Dead Mice have featured in my art works before and will most likely pop up again in the future.

But Don't Worry! I don't go out into the forest in the middle of the night and hunt the little critters down and kill them. No! I buy a bag of dead mice from the pet store. They're usually used to feed reptiles, of course until I came along that is. I'm never eager to work with the little critters but they get the point across.

After having worked with them, they now inhabit a special soft spot in my chest.

The Start of It All

So this is the beginning of a soon to be glorious blog. Hopefully.

I was told that creating a blog would be a good alternative to a sketchbook. With the wonderful ability to invite the world in to comment on all manner stuff.

An Introduction:

I am a Fine Art student at UCA Farnham. I'll be using this blog to help me through my degree course and to share with you my current work.

I am norwegian but have lived in England for the past 14 years. I've also lived in Brazil. Luckily i was not kidnapped and help for ransom and now live in the little town of Fetcham.

Now let's let this thing loose upon the world!