Author: Emma Hardy

https://media.lafayette.edu/media/Final+Project+-+Snake+Oil/1_ne1gq9v2

List of items: Honey, Baking Soda, Olive Oil, Milk, Mayo, Orange juice, Mustard, Apple Cider Vinegar, Lemon, Banana, Yogurt, Coffee Grounds, Avocado, Almonds, Green tea leaves, Oatmeal, Tumeric, Eggs, and Cucumber.

For my final piece I decided to include a personal struggle I have always gone through my whole life. I have been in a constant battle with my skin for as long as I can remember. My skin has never behaved, and it is something I have always tried to improve. I have spent too much time and money on different recommended products/treatments. Although it is obviously a minor issue in the grand scheme of things, it is always on my mind and is something that lowers my confidence. I know other people go through this problem as well, and they carry worse problems than myself.

I am very inspired by Kate Gilmore, Ana Mendieta, Bruce Nauman, and Tania Bruguera. I looked up many different remedies for clear/perfect skin and compiled them all together. The video resembles the time, the struggle, and the ridiculous skin remedies that I’ve gone through. I name this piece “Snake Oil” because at the end of the day, everything sold is ultimately snake oil. Everyone’s skin is different, and reacts differently. Although this piece was very fun (and smelly) to do, it does hit a sensitive nerve because I am very conscious about it.

The more I watch this piece, the more I see new metaphorical meanings coming out. For example, there is a time when I cannot open my eyes because they are in pain from the products. This represents the amount of pain that I have gone through with different products. I hope you enjoy!

https://media.lafayette.edu/media/Emma%27s+Performance+Piece/1_vmosr9gc

This Performance Piece is all about conforming/belonging to groups within society. Having that sense of belonging is something we all want to achieve. However, one may not even realize they are placing themselves in a group. When we wear shirt with printed advertisements or communities we are supporting and associating ourselves with that brand.

This may eventually lead to suffocation when trying to fit in or belong to too many groups in this society. Doing this video, you can see the suffocation and discomfort that arises as the video progresses. At first I knew that I would look “overwhelmed” with the brands on my body, but after watching it I found the suffocation factor as well.

For this video performance I chose to gather from many people different graphic t-shirts providing a logo/brand/community of some sort. I then sat in front of the camera, and with a straight face I layered on every t-shirt one by one. Although it is a humorous video to watch, it is extremely serious.

We, as the consumers, buy into and belong to many different brands and organizations, almost to the point of overwhelmed suffocation. As you can see, towards the end of this piece I look a bit hot, overwhelmed, and flustered. I did not mean to look like this, however that is how I felt in the moment with that many layers on my body. Every time I watch this video I pick up many different subtle elements that can relate to the society we live in today. I tried to fix my hair initially after every shirt I put on, because wanted to look presentable, however, towards the end, after being overwhelmed and feeling completely suffocated, I did not care how I looked. All I wanted was to just get the t-shirts off of my body. Perhaps this is how some people feel, at first they want to buy many different “trending” brands, however they may suddenly feel lost within their own self and perhaps not know who they are as an individual without these logos/brands defining us.

For my sound art project I focused on the Farmers Market. I wanted to do a sound art of the timeline throughout the farmers market. Along the way, through research, I found out some very interesting facts. Such as, this farmers market is America’s oldest open aired farmers market. I was able to download sounds from different websites of old wagons and old market like noises. I incorporated the crime period in Easton that brought the market into a depressing time period. At one point there was only one vendor, and they had to hire more people in order to keep it alive. Around the early 2000s the farmers market began to pick up again, however even today it is hard for farmers market and farmers, to sufficiently make a steady income. I interviewed Megan McBride, who is the executive director of the market, and manipulated her words in order to provide more intact and dramatic effects. The end is very chaotic because even though it is a popular thing nowadays, the farmers are still struggling and it is still hard to keep the business alive.

I put the sounds on my snapchat and a lot of people thought it was a mistake, and were confused  by the sounds. However, some actually reached out in person asking what it was about.

Instructions:

1. Get to the center square(circle) in Downtown Easton.
2. Put headphones in.
3. Walk around and listen. Side note: imagining you are walking through the different time periods the market has lived through.
4. Enjoy!

For this project, the quietest place I know is my backyard on Parsons Street. I like to go to my backyard to do my work, or to just relax by myself. There are three standing trees, and many bushes around my yard. There is a big wooden fence framing the backyard. I heard and experienced many different sounds I never would have payed attention to. I stood/sat outside for thirty minutes and captured many different sounds/natural elements. Some I made more exaggerated than others, however they were all sounds from my backyard.  Doing this activity after reading the Russolo article I had a lot of fun capturing the “noise-sounds” of nature/outside. It was fun to break the restrictive circle of pure sounds in order to conquer the infinite variety of noise-sounds.

Air: I held my phone in the air to capture all the noise/sounds around me.

Cars: Cars were passing by in the distance and I tried to capture their fading sounds.

Birds: There were a few birds in the distance that were chirping.

Breathing: I was focusing on my breathing and trying to relax. However, when I tried to capture my breathing I might have put the microphone a little too close because the sound is very loud.

Chewing gum: WARNING – very unpleasant sounding, but after only 5 minutes of standing outside I realized that I was chewing very loudly.

Leaves crinkling: After walking around a bit I picked up some leaves and recorded myself crunching them in my hands. The more I listen to it, the more I hate the sound of forced leaves crinkling. I prefer the natural sound of leaves crinkling under your feet.

Breaking twigs: I noticed breaking twigs while walking is a sort of peaceful sound so I wanted to hear what the individual sound was like, and it’s not very pleasant either.

Machine: This  is the sound of the air conditioning unit that is in the back corner of my yard. It is very distilling and looks extremely unattractive. Russolo talks about the revolution of music being paralleled by the increasing proliferation of machinery, which I found very interesting and important to be aware of in this day and age.

Chair moving: I went to go sit down and pulled the chair over the brick patio, and this was the sound it made.

Wind: It is very faint, but if you listen closely you can hear the wind passing by the microphone.

Scratching head: My hair was a little itchy so I scratched my head and this was an interesting, noisy sound.

Fire truck: I waited until the fire truck got as close as possible before it rounded the street, and then started recording. It was interesting to hear the siren fade away.

Squirrels attacking: I went to go sit back down by the fence, and two squirrels ran right by my head on top of the fence. The first seconds you can hear me scream and regroup myself. As one ran right by me, the other one stopped and we had an ultimate stare down. Then it hissed at me (00:09) and then you hear me hissing two times back. It was so crazy I got this on tape, it was a total accident, I clicked the button when I screamed initially.

Wind/Leaves moving: towards the end of this recording you can really hear the leaves in the trees moving with the wind.

Twig against fence: I made the sound of the twig brushing up against the fence to see what the recording would be like.

The idea here is to walk out of a spotlight someone else made and make your own happiness even if it’s in the dark. And overall, this is a form of art so I took paint brushes and wiped it up my face to reflect myself creating happiness.

See below for feedback:

 

I am extremely passionate about food, and the art of food presentation. These are just a few dishes I captured over the summer, some homemade some bought. Food makes me happy. And that will always stay with me, that’s why I included the swirl illustration that resembles never ending.

For this glitch assignment I pulled three different pictures three different friends of mine posted on three different social media platforms, but they all were pictures of nature. All of these pictures were edited and framed however the picture taker wanted it to be. I want the glitches to represent the appropriation and the manipulation that goes down behind the scenes of every photograph, especially nature/landscape photos. The viewer of the photo will never embrace the true experience that that photographer went through in that exact place and time. Now society is very into taking photographs of everything, but sometimes the copious amount of photographs capturing beautiful views, memorials, historical places, are all getting too manipulated and appropriated that the actual experience isn’t appreciated as much as it was once before. Photographs are amazing, don’t get me wrong I am always taking photos, however I think people should become aware that the photos don’t do justice. My father has always said that photography of landscapes and nature are all just borrowed views from mother nature, and we need to remember/appreciate that.

 

For this assignment I wanted to involve photoshop and an iconic photograph so naturally I chose our lovely quad, and placed it in a different context by editing in a UFO. Unfortunately, this week I was not able to be active on my social media so I asked my friend Alyssa who goes to James Madison University and my friend from Lafayette, Will, to post it on social media. I told Alyssa to post it on Instagram, and Will to post it on Facebook. Although this photoshop is obviously unrealistic, I really wanted to see who’s attention it would grab and analyze the peoples’ reactions while also comparing the two  social media platforms.

When analyzing the reaction of this photo, I was able to express an argument about social media that has been an ongoing issue. In class we have already talked about how easy it is to edit your photos so much so that the final product is extremely unrealistic. Going off of this argument, I have also realized how easy it is to comment whatever is on your mind almost instantaneously. This is a very dangerous thing, and has gotten many people in trouble.  On Instagram, the comments were unnecessary such as “Hm?” or “hahahah wtf.” These comments were written only just moments after the photo was released, and then after about an hour the photo was forgotten and replaced by new posts.

Although the photo was a bit too unrealistic, the comments replicated the sad fact that the majority of the generation on social media will abuse what is being posted, and not think more into the images than needed to be. I did find a slight difference between Facebook and Instagram comments. On Instagram it was a bunch of static comments that felt like primary thoughts in ones’ mind when looking at the photo. On Facebook, the comments were a little more thought out and crafted.

I believe this seems to reflect the case between the two social platforms overall. On Instagram, comments are just another number. On Facebook, I believe that the comments and posts are becoming more thoughtful and meaningful. People are able to express their beliefs and decisions through Facebook, accepting criticism or growing supporters for whatever you post. I got out of this assignment that although there may be the same photo posted on Instagram and Facebook, the reactions and comments between the two social media platforms differ, the usage of the two social media platforms differ, and the seriousness one may view the photo on Instagram versus Facebook may differ as well

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