My parents went to Venice and all I got was this lousy...

 

My parents went to Venice and all I got was this lousy youth-sized Brazilian t-shirt of a dead man in a beach chair from a 1971 movie based on a German novella featuring an aristocratic Polish adolescent conceptualized by a third-generation Italian from New York who had to sleep with the obsessed South Korean immigrant to get it made on May 5, 2009, 2009, silkscreen and heat transfer on youth t-shirt. Project for Culture Kiosk/Souvenir Art/Markers 7, International Artists’ Museum Artura/Projective for Détournement, 2009 Venise, a collateral event of the 53rd Venice Biennale presented at ScalaMata Exhibition Space, Venice, Italy. This project is a collaboration with Jennie Jeun Lee.

If a souvenir is a catalyst for a memory of a past experience, then what better way to remember Venice than by considering a corpse? This collaboration utilizes a classic “joke” t-shirt design from the seventies in which a number of different locations are inserted into the sentence formula “My parents went to (someplace) and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.” Regardless of the place referenced in the shirts, they all emphasize the simple disappointment with the shirt received over the experience enjoyed by the parents. In this instance, the specific information and history printed on the shirt is stretched to an unusual level. Luchino Visconti's 1971 film Death in Venice, a story of a famous author’s increasing fixation with a young boy, forms the starting point for a self-reflexive, run-on sentence that incorporates a number of additional details not normally found on souvenir t-shirts. This shirt integrates some of the complexities of its own history, from the origins of its manufacture to the “labor negotiations” required for its production.

The shirt is printed on the front in English and in multiple languages on the inside of the shirt according to the nationalities referenced in the text. This provides a level of specificity; nevertheless, due to the utilization of online translation programs, numerous mistakes occur. The inaccuracies in translation mirror the loss of clarity often found in the bootlegging process as copies move further away from the original source material towards an international audience.

Moreover, the dead man referenced in the shirt’s text – actor Dirk Bogarde from the final scene of Visconti’s film – is not the image on the shirt, rather an image of a different dead man on a beach chair is utilized from the 1989 comedy film Weekend at Bernie's. The substitution of imagery from an entirely different film genre, made in a different country, from a different era, further emphasizes the inauthentic nature of this souvenir.

Nonsynchronous Five Times

Nonsynchronous Five Times, 2007 – 2008, three RGB filtered black and white Super-8 reels transferred to DVD, color, sound, total running time 6 minutes and 16 seconds

Nonsynchronous Five Times investigates the difficulties of making something straightforward. Three black and white Super-8 film cassettes were shot in single takes from a fixed position looking onto the top of filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu's grave marker In Kita-Kamakura, Japan. Each of the three takes was shot at high speed and with a filter for one of the three additive primary colors (red, green, and blue). Superimposed atop one another and colorized accordingly, the three elements should combine to create a singular color take; however, any deviations between the three pieces of footage caused improper registration and undulating color shifts. The objective of creating one color take was complicated by numerous factors: wind moving the tripod and camera, wind causing ripples on the water atop the grave marker, wind causing movement of the trees and their reflections in the water, as well as changes in light conditions from shifting cloud cover.

The soundtrack is the narrative backbone of the work, providing a real-time documentation of the process of shooting three film cassettes. We hear one cycle of Ozu’s gravestone being washed, the camera running at high speed, the camera being reloaded, and the camera filters being changed. This cycle occurs in the fall (note crows) and in succession three times, once for each of the film cassettes and its associated additive primary filter (RGB). The second sound element was recorded at Ozu's grave marker, yet half a year later in the summer season (note cicadas). Attempts to get clean recordings were often thwarted in both situations by sounds drifting into Engakuji Temple – ambulance sirens, trains, or people walking and talking.

At times, the three pieces of film footage come together briefly in proper registration and work in creating a singular image. As well, at times the sound of cicadas is indistinguishable from the sound of the camera filming. However, most of the time, the five elements that make up this film are in various states, ultimately calling attention to the film's constructed nature. The RGB composite image track is present only for the first three minutes of the film, after which the film proceeds as a soundtrack only - filming three cassettes took six minutes; however, the cassettes are superimposed, not shown consecutively and accordingly take up less than the actual filming time.

12.9 miles, 24 minutes; 25.2 miles, 42 minutes; 18.8 miles, 54 minutes; 11.4 miles, 40 minutes

12.9 miles, 24 minutes; 25.2 miles, 42 minutes; 18.8 miles, 54 minutes; 11.4 miles, 40 minutes, 2009, video, color, silent, total running time 3 minutes and 5 seconds. Book: 2009, bound 162 page hardcover book, h 8" x w 10"

12.9 miles, 24 minutes; 25.2 miles, 42 minutes; 18.8 miles, 54 minutes; 11.4 miles, 40 minutes is a 3 minute and 5 second video comprised of one hundred sixty photographs taken consecutively on Friday, February 20, 2009. The images were shot from a fixed position in the back of a car with a digital camera on full automatic mode. All images were made at one-second intervals by means of a timer and the images are displayed in the order in which they were shot with no editing, or retouching. The information at the beginning of the video denotes the distances and times between three different IKEA locations and the information at the conclusion of the video refers to the exact times at which the three IKEA images were made. The book version of this project was conceptualized, executed, and bound within the same day. This project is a collaboration with Anibal J. Pella-Woo.