Think Pieces from a Time of Having Become Becoming Soft (Sept 2016-Mar 2017)
This "Think Pieces" series was made for a show celebrating the vernal equinox.
"Think Pieces" are drawings—part daydreaming, part self-analysis—that capture an informal personal zeitgeist. These drawings—made on-the-go, in bed, or in a solitary room—offer glimpses into inner dialogue, obsessions, and anxieties—imagined, real, or otherwise—to suggest moments of transformation and the never-ending desire for a better self in a better tomorrow.
Installation View from E*QUI*POISE show at the Purple Palace in Cambridge, MA, 18 March 2017; curated by Anna Cataldo and Candace Khaokham.
The set is themed around three different phases of the moon:
🌑 new moon
🌓 half moon
🌕 full moon
Each section riffs on a mood specific to the lunar phase. The piece explores themes of transitions, cycles, emojis, failing at memes, finding love, spring, wanting success, being/ becoming soft, and ambivalence toward thriving in a consumer capitalist society.
The drawings can be shuffled in advance as a nod to synchronicity, divination, and rooting around (or just wandering) inside a book.
With space for only one reader at a time, the piece ekes out an intimate viewing experience in a busy gallery exhibition.
🌑 New Moon
🌓 Half Moon
🌕 Full Moon
Winter 2016
[Insert Pasture Here]
Photo Credit: Chloe Wong and Nabeela Vega
What does it mean to be intimate? It means to make the deepest, the innermost parts of oneself known. With this in mind, which spaces allow for real intimacy? I struggle to be intimate both online and IRL.
In [Insert Pasture Here], I imagine a third space, a projection of a pasture (in part inspired by Microsoft XP's universal desktop background Bliss) where I might go to graze on my emotions, feed my thoughts, and nourish my inner self while basking in a certain cozy, familiar bliss.
For this piece, I wrote down a series of actions/scripts (e.g. playing an electronic siren; singing a song; reading a poem, diary entry, or literary quotation; reciting a piece of life advice or inner anxiety; sharing the etymology behind key words, etc.) on index cards to be shuffled at the beginning of the performance by an audience member and then executed by the performer in a randomized order.
Through the performance, I orchestrate a living yet scripted negotiation with intimacy within a predetermined pasture. Through the live interactive performance mediated by chance, I seek to find small moments of intimacy and connection with the audience while exploring ideas of home, safety, and identity.
Note: This performance debuted as part of Noise/Touch in November 2016 at the Boston Center for the Arts. Noise/Touch was curated by artists Nabeela Vega and Chloe Wong as part of the Virtual International Exchange project.
[Insert Pasture Here]
Stine An
live performance with animation, digital projection, audio, and mixed media: cardboard box from Amazon, European siren from Elenco AmeriKit Learn to Solder Kit, dub siren from Technology Will Save Us All synth kit, 9V battery, artificial grass mat, pencil, index cards, water, index card holder, ukulele, box cutter, offline tweets novelty bird whistle, Kidrobot strawberry hat.
Summer 2016
AK-100: Learn to Solder, European Siren
AK-100 is an exploration into the pedagogy of violence and fear by way of learning to build a technological device or apparatus. In this case, I used a step-by-step, "Learn by Doing" educational kit to construct a device that expresses a desire for security, signals fear, threatens violence, incites distress, triggers unease, and alarms on multiple levels. What makes for an effective siren? What counts as an emergency? What will make us feel safer?
AK-100: Learn to Solder, European Siren
Stine An
mixed media: cardboard boxes from Amazon, hot glue gun, ink pen, copper-plated nails, zinc-plated nails, wires, Elenco AmeriKit Learn to Solder Kit, 9V battery, pencil
Think Pieces (July 2016)
This series of drawings—part daydreaming, part self-analysis—captures an informal personal zeitgeist. They offer glimpses of inner dialogue, obsessions, and anxieties—imagined, real, or otherwise—to suggest moments of transformation and the never-ending desire for a better self in a better tomorrow.
Think Pieces (July 2016)
Stine An
ink pen drawings on index card files; displayed on cardboard boxes from Amazon
2016
Current Events
My own millennial twist on Joseph Beuys's Capri-Batterie.
current events
Stine An
mixed media: cardboard boxes from Amazon, hot glue gun, copper-plated nails, zinc-plated nails, wires, digital clock from 4M Lemon Clock Kit, yellow LEDs, lemons, 9V battery, pencil
Bard MFA—Summer 2016 Gallery VIEW
CHANGES // △ // METAMORPHOSIS
Skylarking
skylarking
gregor spamsa, et al.
a group commencement speech performance
source: "Address to the Graduating Class at Bennington College," Kurt Vonnegut Jr., 1970
2015
In skylarking, I orchestrated a group commencement speech address with the people in attendance for the opening of an art exhibition I curated in November 2015. Using the text from Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s 1970 address from Bennington College, I passed out in random order 32 numbered strips of paper containing different sections of the speech. This exercise required the audience to share in listening for both content and for continuity.
In his speech, Vonnegut argues for the importance of the arts in the face of an increasingly neoliberal and technocratic America. He encourages young people to skylark, to cultivate "an intolerable lack of seriousness," before they take the world on their shoulders. While this performance is an exercise in skylarking, it also incorporates a polyphony of voices to consider the seriousness of making art in the world as an everyday practice.
how to be here now, divination-as-a-service
how to be here now, divination-as-a-service
gregor spamsa & participant
interactive performance piece and sensemaking consulting service
three american quarters, notepad, and pencil, the I-Ching
2015
"Millennial shaman gregor spamsa leads a public in flux through in-person i-ching readings and interpretation—all for the small price of a mindful moment. The goal is to make wiser decisions by recognizing the presence of change by tossing change."