TIME-BASED ART
Human Endeavors No.1-5 [Excerpts], 2016, 8:20 video
Human Endeavors No.1-5
*Contains Audio* *NFSW*
Included here are excerpts taken from a longer completion of individual video pieces from the Human Endeavor series, began in 2016. The first 5 installments of this series, sampled here — (Hunt), (Skin), (Chop), (Harm) & (Cry) — are part of a larger body of work dealing with notions of traditional masculinity and my own tenuous relationship with these norms as experienced through my own relative failure and success at being a “man”. Each act was chosen for its relationship to either a masculine trope — such as The Hunt as being a traditional rite of passage into manhood — or a deliberate demonstration in opposition to such traditions.
Strangely it is both the genuine failure from attempting “manly” activities, such as (Skin) and the interior, almost uncomfortable vulnerably in pieces such as (Cry), that begin to pull back at the larger, more perversive truth; That there is a great and profound strength in vulnerability. Perhaps not the ridged, malignantly stoic strength that traditional masculinity has come to embody and bestow on adolescent men, but it is a mighty thing nonetheless. Thus it is through these first five endeavors that I have learned that in order to undermine some of the more pervasive and toxic traits of masculinity, all I have to do is lay my self bare and reveal my own naiveté or show that I have the courage to be seen preforming an act that stands in contrast to them. Either way, the process of navigation seems to be all that is required to dissolve some fo the boundaries that separate what is means to be a man versus simply a human.
Break
*Contains Audio*
Break is a recording of an actual panic attack I experienced in early September 2015. The audio from that panic attack is set over video footage of a sun beam as it appeared on my apartment floor. The idea behind this work is to provide my viewer with a moment of pure, unadulterated vulnerability in the hopes that the affect may draw them into my feeling-state while allowing them to bring in their own memories of panic and brokenness to the experience.
Break, 2015, 3:53 video
Equal Access
* Contains Audio*
Equal Access explores the notion that a feeling of nationalism is not unique to the United States nor is the feeling of pride one might feel for emerging victorious on the battlefield. Thus in one of the most important monuments in the United states, The depiction of the flag raising on Iwo Jima, which elicits a profound feeling of valor under unimaginably difficult conditions, is made to support the flags of all 195 counties existing in the world today. This visual 'march' of flags is set to the tune of every recorded national anthem being played simultaneously. To realize that there is no monopoly on the feeling of a nation's pride for their military heroes. But also, that for the victorious nation to stand triumphant another must stand in mourning. For me it is a reminder that, when lines of conflict are drawn between nations, it is the people who will act in their defense. People, who, at the end of the day, all have hearts of the same shape.
Equal Access, 2015, 3:15 video
Endeavor No.1 (Hunt), 2016, 8:35 video
Endeavor No.1 (Hunt)
*Contains Audio*
Endeavor No.1 (Hunt) is the first installment of the Human Endeavors series of video work begun in 2016. This video is the documentation of my first official attempt at hunting a living thing, as seen from the barrel of my weapon. My friend and guide (seen in the video) leads me around his property as we hunt for squirrel in the trees, which ultimately ends is failure, from a hunting perspective. That is, I failed to successfully conclude the hunt with a kill.
However, this failure places the video within its intended role as part of a series meant to find the line used trace out the boundaries of what it means to be a “man”. One that I have always found myself puzzled by. Part of this body of video work explores the notion of masculinity; both what I would call the "classic" and “contemporary" varieties, through a series of attempts to preform traditional rites of the former in order to better show how soft the defining lines of the latter have truly become.