Everything Everywhere All of the Time

Got back from a trip to the NTC yesterday, and the more I go the more conflicted I get about my job as “media” there.  Everyone’s really friendly (though these guys were less welcoming than the Ft. Hood guys) but increasingly dismissive of us (I was with my friend Jane this time) as fake media and therefore not really worth bothering with.  Most of our time was spent on two ten-hour route clearances, which in civilian terms means driving 5 mph in large trucks for 10 straight hours.

I’m not complaining, though, ’cause even when an experience is dull or frustrating, it’s still instructive because the soldiers themselves are, as people, fascinating to talk to (or try to talk to), and it’s still a culture where I can relate to a lot of these guys’ backgrounds but I’m still (obviously) an outside observer.

And a guy offered to sell me extra ballistic goggles and a kevlar helmet he has, so that’s a real windfall in terms of saving money on my Afghanistan trip.  That, plus the money I may make from selling some work over the next few weeks plus the money people have donated/raised for me is making all of this possible.

One of the pitfalls was I didn’t get many good pictures, but here are a few:

We had our own overflow tent to ourselves, since when the other soldiers heard that the Rangers were moving in they got out of there fast.  This, plus their stories, just makes me want to meet some Rangers even more, though.

An inadvertent Lee Friedlander homage because I had to stay behind the rear driver’s side door when I got out to take pictures.

A checkpoint between villages.  The graffiti on the concrete was interesting because 1) half of it was written in English and 2) it mostly seemed to deal with the Kurds.  (The mottled sky is from dust on the humvee window.)

This was the 1151 I rode in for the second route clearance; it was pretty interesting to hear that gun being fired about 2 feet directly over your head.  It wasn’t as loud as you would think, though.  Some of the shells fell in my lap, which was also kind of a unique (and sort of cool) experience for someone who doesn’t even know how to aim and fire a gun.

So I went to Art Chicago, and it was actually not the craven deal-brokering I imagined but something more like a laidback but really, really upscale swap meet.  More on that later.

Below is some new stuff; these were made in a very Rube Goldberg way by printing color blocks over actual book pages and then scanning the somewhat random results.  Most of the pages I grabbed from the falling-apart, 20-year-old book were from the Flowers or the Medical and Anatomy sections. 

The whole deal comes out of thinking about Wade Guyton, who has a sort of inkjet-printer-as-paintbrush way of working that’s more interesting and complex than it sounds and is (I think) a great idea, but what’s a little problematic for me is that Guyton’s actual work is a little disappointing in light of the greatness of the idea: run canvas through an inkjet printer so what you’ve got is half-digital, half-”handmade.”  But I might just not be familiar enough with his work.

So the stuff below is part one of a three-pronged attempt to answer the question of whether I can borrow that idea and make something decent that’s not just a ripoff.  (Jury’s still out.)  Prongs two and three will appear in future posts; I’ve been making a ton of work since my thesis show closed, as if the clock is ticking, hence the post title; I’m Making Art as Fast as I Can.  Quality control is for talented people.

So if you read what I posted a few days ago about my mentor thinking I’m a piece of shit and being bold (well, drunk) enough to say it, allow me to fill you in on the non-events that rapidly ensued.

None of the photo faculty or students are talking to me now.  This wouldn’t really bother me at all except for the fact that I live in my studio so I see people constantly and all the bumping-into plus the cold-shoulder is, let’s say, awkward.

Whatever, because I’m “getting out of the business” anyway, right?  Right.  But before that there are two decisions to make.  This weekend’s hangdog “open studios” day: should I participate or not?  On one hand, there’s no reason not to, but on the other, why put myself through five solid hours of Awkwardness?

More importantly, I haven’t heard back from the 6-4 Cav about orders or anything, and my funding fell through, so I have to figure all of that out, and it’s going to take a lot of figuring out.  A vet I talked to recently suggested I skip the body armor and just get an old Vietnam-era flak vest, that I could get away with that, so maybe if I do that plus the “stranded” thing another soldier told me about I might be able to do this on a budget.  And, what with a teaching career going down in flames because there’s now only exactly one (1) person who’d write me a letter of recommendation, this project is even more important.

Anyone know where to get genuine-imitation flak vests that look real but don’t cost real money?

So it looks like things here are working again.  Some recent images from a very constrained, activity-based project: slowly dismantle to old broken stereo units I found in the street and photograph the process.

Just so you don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that I have some problems with CalArts, here’s an email from yesterday from art photo/faculty David Bunn, who’s a great artist but can be tempermental:

“so… always excuses and [photo email list] guilt trips on your peers to fund 
you. get a life, man. figure it out for yourself or get out of the 
business. just stop moaning about it to everyone else. everyone has 
the much the same issues. deal with your own load. “

He’s probably right, though.  I’m not independently wealthy, which you sort of have to be if you want to be an artist these days.

Also, head here to read about how, last week, one of my fellow student’s work got defaced.

The spirit of Disney, still alive!

Major technical difficulties on this end.  Maybe this post will work?

So they let me in to the year-end show.  And I figure, ethical considerations aside, why not?  If you can’t join ‘em, annoy ‘em.  So I found four images of soldiers (well, one’s technically a mountee), “enlarged” them by printing them out on the school’s color laserjet printer in sections and scotch-taping them together, then photographing them to write text over them in a specific sequence.  Below are the mockups, but I’m half-convinced to just put the torn, crappy mockups in instead of better prints. 

Anyway, I tried to pack as much race/class/gender/humor/abjection/low-brow issues in this as I could, those things being, of course, stuff that “marketable” art is no longer allowed to bring up at CalArts.  (And the “you” in the final panel is “you, art world resident” not “you, soldier.”)  I also thought of making a homage to Ed Ruscha’s “nice, hot vegetables” painting by making a painting of similar size with the text “nice, hot painting.”

 Not that I’m feeling confrontational or anything.

More shots from this weekend.  (The negatives are old but the next is new.)  And of course, the title “I wanna live in Los Angeles” hails from Frank Black’s 1993 album lead single “Los Angeles.”  Black grew up here, I think, but has the same sort of obsession with the place as I do, I think.I’m also starting to think that these may make a good book project–in general, and I’ve mentioned it before, I’m looking for alternative methods of getting art out there, and books seem like a smart idea–but even in the age of Lulu and desktop publishing they’re still expensive to produce.  So cross your fingers that I find a pile of money in the street and I’ll make a copy for all of the 14 people who read this blog.  Comment on which ones you like and which you don’t and why, though.  If you have the time.  Also, the new REM album comes out next Tuesday.  Go get it.  No, really.  I think it’s in my top four along with New Adventures, Document, and Automatic.  (#5 would be Monster.)  If I had aforementioned pile of street money, I would upgrade my blog and stream “Horse to Water,” but just go buy it.  It’ll be on sale. 

These pics may or may not, depending on editorial discretion, end up in a new art/literary magazine in Sweden.  The general idea of the first issue is “tourism” and, after being at the NTC and seeing how soldiers carried stuff with them, I thought it would be interesting to photograph just these cheap, mass-produced military bags that are all used and have all probably traveled widely before ending up at a surlpus store in Glendale.  “See the world” is not really a reason I get from soldiers I talk to for enlisting anymore, but I remember when that used to be a major selling point of recruitment: military as tourism.