project four - video emulation proposal

      When first considering the assignment, I attempted to approach the given selections as unbiased as possible. Although I would have jumped at the opportunity to emulate works by Beuys or Klein, I perceived settling for familiar works as being the "easy way out." With that being said, I went through each column, only viewing works by artists' that I was not familiar with, meanwhile ignoring the descriptions of each video and beginning each at their midpoints. When viewing column two, I came across Cao Fei's Whose Utopia and as I progressed through the proceeding artists and videos, I found myself constantly thinking back to the possibilities for emulation with Fei's work. This tendency was the indicator that I need not continue searching.

Cao Fei, Whose Utopia

     Although Fei's work is twenty minutes in duration, I'm choosing to emulate Part II: Factory Fairytale (as seen above).  Having been exposed to this segment of the work first, I interpreted the machinery in the audio and the gestures of the seated workers as sewing, which to my dismay was incorrect. Realizing that the setting was a light bulb manufacturing factory, I was brought back to the intent of another contemporary artists' work, Untitled (America #1) by Felix Gonzalez-Torres.  
     Gonzalez-Torres suggests that the burning bulbs of his work signify transience and the fragility of life, though the work can be infinitely interpreted. Relating these suggestions of Untitled (America #1) to Whose Utopia, I came to realize that the work could very well be derived on the same principles; when one burns out, whether a light bulb or a human being (in the context of death, quitting, or sickness), their value is insignificant for one can be replaced by another instantaneously. Fei's work also made me consider how one may be faced with the decision to persevere through regulation and routine in order to survive, which was reinforced after researching the intent of Part II and recognizing that dreams and identities were sacrificed in order to work in their reality - a collectivism-based factory.
     In order to emulate the work, I considered aspects of my life that could be related to the context of the video. Although lights will be incorporated in the emulation, they're going to be knit as opposed to assembled. Learning to knit was the stepping stone that helped mold my view of art being more than a hobby, with the excessive amount of labor and constant attention to mathematics that the medium calls for. Working on my knitted pieces is almost therapeutic and happens so scarcely that completing a project can be viewed as a dream that's often postponed. As you follow the knitted lights, the work will diverge into individual strands and will collide with a series of clocks, all set for ten o'clock. Raised with the saying, "nothing good ever comes after ten," I've come to understand 10 p.m. as the hour that you're calm and almost content, yet nothing seems to make sense and it leaves you with an unsettling, weary feeling; it's bittersweet and an inevitable reality. The clocks will also serve as a reminder of time and how the hours of a single day are often times not sufficient for the completion of objectives set forth. Reality will also be considered by the location of the video, being placed at an area(s) of the university that I spend an immense amount of time at, whether that be for courses or work - consider the selected location as my 'factory.'