So, what the heck is going on here?

 

“#Art #Life #Hashtag” is digital art gallery that historicizes the “post-postmodern” period. This seems relatively fine and normal since the function of museums is to curate and historicize for the public. Moreover, it shouldn’t feel particularly weird that I am curating myself – all of the work featured in “#Art #Life #Hashtag” was drawn or captured by me. In the age of social media, we practically curate ourselves for display everyday. We can create wholes pages containing carefully selected photos, videos, and sound bites to represent the “self.”

 

Yet, what separates “#Art #Life #Hashtag” from, say, my Facebook page or a Pinterest site is the thematic tie between the featured pieces as well as the act of historicizing a moment that is currently being lived. Unlike my Facebook page which attempts to tell people what I am doing, where I have been, and/or who I am, “#Art #Life #Hashtag” looks at the body of work from a distance and attempts to impose a thematic meaning on it. In the words of Emile Zola in The Experimental Novel, I, the writer/curator, became the magistrate of myself and my passions. In this case, I viewed my work as “Coming of Age” in a time of tech-driven anxiety rather a generic than “things I did from the ages of 22 to 27."

 

Furthermore, I was inspired by the epilogue of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale to view my work from the future. Atwood’s epilogue takes place among academics at the “International Historical Association Convention” in June of 2195. In the chapter, Atwood describes the unearthing of “approximately thirty tape cassettes, of type that became obsolete sometime in the eighties of nineties with the advent of the compact disc” at an excavation of site near what “would have been the state of Maine.” Accordingly, I was intrigued by the idea of how academics, archeologists, and historians would write about and interpret the age we live in – how would we label this period and how would we describe it?

 

I was also inspired by Erin R. Anderson’s The Olive Project, which was showcased in our class as an experimental digital text. Thus, I also put together this project in the form of an art gallery wall with framed pictures and audio. Running with this theme, there are three main components of this site:

 

• The Artwork: As previously mentioned, I selected the artwork around an artist “coming of age” theme. This is a direct response to the Lannan Symposium discussion between Barbara Ehrenreich and Justin Torres about how the “coming of age” story is a false, moralistic narrative. One piece of artwork featured is actually a “coming of age” chart I drew in response to the discussion.  Another piece, entitled “God’s Simple Guide to Human Destiny,” was informed by Kathy Acker’s “A Map of My Dreams” in Blood and Guts in High School. The other flowcharts are drawings I have done in the past in a similar artistic style.

 

• The Arrangement: In the article “Assemblage Required,” the work of Eileen Myles is described as a “haphazard association” between lists, narrative prose and poetry. I was struck by the insistence that Myles’ style “has the effect of positioning the reader as a visitor on a brisk tour through the cabinet of curiosities” and that the “curiosities in question aren’t nineteenth century relics, but the things and passages of contemporary life.” Thus, to complement the flowcharts, I added further “curiosities” of my “contemporary life” that would fit in thematically with “coming of age.” I took all the gnome photos during a supposed “coming of age” trip and I captured screen shots of text conversations with my mother – someone who is insistent that I “come of age” already and be an adult.

 

• The Audio Tour: In order to historicize the work, I decided to use the audio tour format. I am always intrigued and humored by museum audio tours because of the odd use of piano music, ambient sounds, etc. I also love how overly analytic the audio pieces are. The script of the audio tour was purposely written to be hammy, but I hope that they tie the theme, the art, and the arrangement of the gallery together.

 

From a technical standpoint, I designed this site using Wix.  To create the framed art effect, I scanned my drawings and downloaded all my pictures and screenshot and then placed them in stock frames using Adobe Photoshop. The audio pieces were arranged in GarageBand using their pre-installed loops/music.

 

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