Hit me, knock me out and let me go back to sleep...

Week 5


"Untitled"
Caitlin Bohac
India Ink, fake blood, and conte crayon on Stonehenge

  Well here it is, the final product. I have decided to name it "Untitled", not only because I have a really hard time chosing names for pieces, but I have bounced around several different names in my head and I really think that giving it a specific title could really impact a viewers perspective. My whole goal of this piece was to make a map that had a special meanint to me, but using a medium that makes it intensely personal. So personal that it almost verges on the point of uncomfortable. It lets a viewer inject (sorry for the pun) their own meaning into the piece.

During the critique on Tuesday, I was told that it does give off a very bloody vibe, but almost too much of one. The dripping effects of the india ink and "fake blood" (which if you didn't read my last post was what I ended up using) reall.y express the intentions of blood as the medium. The other critques that I cued most in on was the fact that it doesn't really express ther personal qualities of leaving your trail, or mark, on the map. It makes it more the point of being creepy, small town, homocide, creepy. That was never my intention. I really have no intention of going postal any time soon, especially on anybody that is represented in this map. I really think I got caught up in my own ideas and needed a different approach that I just couldn't find. In retrospect, this project was more thought intensive than I'd imagined. I don't think I fully explored all of the capabilites that cartography as a medium could offer. But it was an excellent learning experience in that it made me think about different mediums and styles and it gave me a chance to try out some more abstract concepts in my work. I notice in a lit of my pieces I like being litteral and drawing piece with a set subject and a very face-value meaning. I think in some ways that's really kind of a weakness, it kind of feels like being a one-hit-wonder.

Otherwise this week was a relaxing end to a project. Spending the week critiquing and looking and discussing everybody elses work was nice. I really loved the diversity in not only styles but subjects. What I think was really kind of interesting about this week was that several people used the map idea to create works with a darker meaning or having a darker feel to a relatively postive subject. I think that a lot of people took this opportunity of mapping to reach down and pull something out of them that wouldn't really come out in their regular work. But now that I know that this is over, I'm ready to see what the next project entails. I really can't believe that the semester is half way over already. It's kind of sad. Somebody told me yesterday that I looked worn out. Funny thing is I completely agree.

It is not slime.... it's mucus!

Week 4

Well this week has beein insane! Not only are almost all of my teachers sick with some kind of dilapadating disease, but the campus has been thrown into an upset state over a supposed goverment takeover through a bill proposed by Governor Walker. Now I really don't like politics. I think it's a bunch of people with big heads not fighting for what may be the good of the state or nation or whatever... but they do what they do just to stop the other side from "winning". It's like a really bad game of capture the flag. But I digress, that's not really what I should be talking about here. This week is going peachy for me as well... I use that term VERY loosely.

In terms of project progress, I've hit ther perverbial brick wall. I have been gathering more maps to add some more layers to my project, but in terms of finding a source for blood I think I have run out of options. I've tried the meat shop in town, and 4 recommended meat lockers in the surrounding area. The best answer I got was somebody told me that they didn't save any blood from the last slaughter and I would have to wait another two weeks. I think I'm creeping people out when I call looking for blood. Oh well. I have spent a good part of my class period looking for acceptable substitutes for a fake blood recipie. Even though I wouldn't get the color completely accurate, I think my best bet would be to use a formulation of corn syrup and india ink.

I was also looking up some blood artists to see how this medium was used by other people. I got a few disgusting yet interesting results. One that was really intriguing was the artist named Vanessa Tiegs. She has a whole series of blood paintings that she has labeled as "Menstrala". From there I suppose you can pretty much infer where her source of blood comes from. But honestly if you look past that the compositions are very interesting and the textures are very diverse. For obvious reasons, she photographs these pieces and sells them as prints.

Watch it spin around into a beautiful oblivion

Week 3

This week was a work week to keep refining out ideas for our mapping project. Sadly my work week hasn't been anywhere near normal. On Tuesday I has to forgo a class period in order to work on a video production assignment that is due next tuesday. We are supposed to create a "music driven short" and I wanted to get down and do some filming in Devil's Punchbowl before the weather warmed up and all of the ice melted. Granted, I wasn't expecting filmfing to take 4 hours, expecially when the movie is only going to be one minute long. Either way, I'm glad to have it done, now I can get back to focusing on real things.

I started thinking about the initial critique of mapping ideas. When we looked at it in groups, I was told that my idea of "burning" my paths into the map needed something more. I started doing some thinking about how I could transform the idea of "burning paths" and my ideas of emotion and expression. I came to the conclusion that since this project is mappiong out the paths of my life, I would do a little experimentation and use blood as a medium in my work. When I looked up blood as an artistic medium, and started thinking about it's properties I realized that I would run into a few problems that I would have to solve in order to make this successful.

1) Where and how am I going to get blood to paint with?
2) How do I combat the coagulating properties of blood? (I'd rather not try to paint with jello)
3) How would blood react with other mediums and surfaces that I'd want to do my work on.

We'll see how this turns out.

You'll never get past Muggshot... my villainous cohort in Utah!

Week 2
This week we started looking over some maps and how cartography is working it's way into art, discussing how cartography is making an impact and how artists are using maps to address social and personal issues. These class discussions really made me think about how much maps are being used and how I never really noticed how much they are being used as an artistic medium. Now I can't NOT see them! I think what really hit this idea home for me was the fact that I was able to relate some of these cartographic ideas to the things I encounter in my everyday life. For example when we were discussing the difference between graphs and maps, and the context between the two. It made more sense to me to relate them to two of my favorite video games.

Harvest Moon: Back to Nature
(grid based game play)

Viva Piñata
(map based game play)

 One game, a farming based RPG ("role playing game" for those dont know gaming acronyms) is very linear. Although you can choose the way to farm your land and make your living, everything is very... geometric. You farm your land in square plots, you encounter certain life events in a particular order and no matter how you live your "life" the end result can happen one of two ways. Predictable, cut-and-dry, a grid based game that is overlayed on top of the environment which gives you a limited amount of interaction with your world and the people around you. The other game however I think is completely "map" based. Alas another "farming" based RPG (I seem to be attracted to games that make light of monotonous daily chores?) you develop your garden to make it more attractive to various species of "wildlife"... okay I use that term loosely... it's a bunch of happy little pinatas... but you get my drift. I see this as more of a map based game because aside from the fact that there is a boundary on your property, you can develop it any way you want. And the construction of trees, houses, ponds, grass etc., or conversely the destruction, is changing but it always has a base effect on the world. Basically you make an impact there whether you intend to or not. Of course some of this always has to do with game plot and other external elements, but I hope you understand my analogy.

Black City - Julie Mehretu

We also discussed in depth and artist named Julie Mehretu. I think that seeing how another artist dealt with the use of cartography in art in "real time" was a great experience. It really stressed all the points of the article we've been reading and discussions we've been having. I think the culmination of thi was a discussion we had about how "all maps are cognitive". We recognized that cognition was defined as thought process and that through maps, these processes are all documented. But it almost seems like a catch 22 in Mehretu's work. You can really see the thought process through her mark-making but her work seems so abstract and ambiguous that you really can't tell what she is thinking at all. Which from the looks of it seems to be her MO. Everything has a different meaning to somebody else and her lack of explanation is her way of portraying her art.

For the homework this week, we are supposed to be whittling our ideas down and trying to potentially come up with a final piece. Our homework was and exercise to take a map and modify it in some way to make it mean something else, as fas as that was another meaning to a person or place was undefined so it really made you think about what maps of different places or things mean to you or to different people. I'm going to do some research on different types of maps and how to incorporate them into my self-defined theme of emotion and expression. I am still unsure if I am going to make these more abstract or literal works and to what degree I am going to individualize them.