March 18: To give the Xerox a sense of scale…

 

March 17: XEROX

LINK TO MUCH LARGER.

Xeroxing the body over and over and over, until it turns into compression artifact dust.

 

Thoughts On Xeroxing Naked Bodies

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about sexual revolution and women’s lib and reading about feminism to try to figure out how it grew and what it is and who it is and if it’s me.

And, as an art major in a department that’s mostly composed of men, as a member of a group of female artists who are exploring nudity and feminimity in the context of technology, the digital, I’ve been thinking a lot about the line between freedom and exploitation, “liberation” and “prudence.”

This is of particular concern as I cast female peers as nude models for a project that will imminently be exhibited before male peers (in addition to the other females who are not modelling), who are all familiar with eachother, and see eachother frequently in a scholarly context, and may recognize the models.

Is it ok to do this in the name of art? It IS art, but at what point can I hope that my peers will act like artful people above sexual college students who are ultimately interested in “getting with” the content of my art? (Can we ever expect the audience to be artful above sexual, at any age? Is sexuality and the sexual interpretation of images not a human instinct? Does this _matter at all?_) Will the men treat us like artists? Will the men interperet this as us showing off? Will the men go home and masturbate? Am I being sexist against men? Will the women go home and masturbate?

Is all this sexual turmoil inherent to the project, whether on not I worry about it, or is it only connected to the project because I’m being hyper-aware?

Am I a total dork for worrying about this?
Sorry If that was way way too much information. Have you ever just really wanted to have a conversation but no one’s around or willing to talk? Such is the case at the moment, as I’m sitting here making 500 xerox copies in my living room, and find myself with about 30 seconds of free time between each copy. With all of these things on the mind, I figured I’d try to write.

Hope that’s ok.
Sigh.

 

March 12: Nude for future Xerox

I’m making copies, turning this body into compression dust… and 1/4 way through the project I ran out of xerox ink!! )*#$%# So, instead of the final thing, tonight this is whatcha get. You’ll see what it turns into soon enough  (when office max opens).

I love her art nouveau hair. Since this is the first nude photography I’ve ever done, I spent a long time toiling over the fine line between art and porno hah. And photoshopping my mistakes. Since this will turn into something way processed and visually different, I think I’m pretty safely away from the porno camp. But still exploitative. I guess that’s ok.

Many thanks to my lovely model! (Models, thank you both– there will be 2 in the final)

 

March 5: Xerox experiment

Copies of copies of copies, until the original subject disintegrates into compression artifact dust.

This is a test run for a larger project.

The first test- reproductions

first row: left->right

2nd row: right->left

3rd row: left-> right

4th row: right ->left

at 1, 10, 40 copies 

Pixels elongate over 40 repetitions

After about 40 copies, the elongated pixels are starting to look like a tiny map of islands! How awesome is that? I wonder where it is…