Community Event 4: California's Hearst Castle

On May 15th I took a trip down the California coast to Cambria. While there my girlfriend and I decided to visit the Hearst Castle, which is located nearby in the town of San Simeon. We paid some money, got loaded onto a tour bus and made the five mile trek into the hill side up to the estate.

The place is unreal. A giant four building estate cram packed with artwork and salvaged relics from top to bottom. The place is amazing, with all of its fine craftsmanship and art. Of the multi-cultural influences in its architecture, I personally liked the Spanish style designs best. The place seems like a giant museum, it's hard to believe this was once someones house! I have to hand it to architect Julia Morgan, who designed the estate under close scruteny of Hearst himself, to bring this thing together. A one of a kind experience.

A sculpture I saw under a window in the garden outside of the Casa del Sol.

The indoor pool under the tennis courts. All tiled mosaic-style!


A 35oo year old Egyptian sculpture, one of my favorite pieces at the estate...

From the hearst castle website:
These four pieces date from the New Kingdom. Sekhmet literally translates as "the powerful." Depicted with the body of a woman and the head of a lioness, she was the bloodthirsty protector of Ra, the sun god.

Egyptian. Head on the left, 18th Dynasty; three others, 19th Dynasty. Granite Full figure with vein of feldspar, 5'10-1/2 x 20-1/2" (179.1x52.1cm); 3/4 figure, 45-1/4 x 17-3/4"(114.9x45.1cm); chipped head, 19 x 19"(48.3 x 48.3cm); head with sundisk, 23 x 10" (58.4 x 25.4cm). Hearst Monument Collection, South Esplanade.

There are five tours to choose from, each at $24 a head, which includes an iMax movie on the making of a legacy at the end of a tour. Despite the cost, I think the place is worth checking out...although my only advice would be to skip the movie.

Community Event #3: All About Evil, SF Premier

On May 1st I attended the world premier of "All About Evil" at the Castro Theater in SF. The movie was directed by Joshua Grannell, aka Peaches Christ, and stars Natasha Lyonne, Thomas Dekker, Cassandrea Peterson (aka Elvira), and Mink Stole.

What made this horror/comedys premier different than others was the live stage show which segued into the showing of the moving. Most premiers have an introduction of the film followed by the screening and the director and actors there to answer questions, make comments, etc, at the end. All About Evils premier featured an introduction of to almost all the stars, including (but not starring) John Waters who was seated in the crowd, followed by several live performances. Featuring a great sound track of several Bay Area post-punk bands and artists, the movie blends Dead Alive type gore, John Waters humor and Argento/Savini type death scene concepts into a well executed midnight movie sure to be a cult classic!

I thought this segue was particularly great! ...also check out the trailer on youtube...

Improbable Monument: Sounds of the Past

The idea is to connect people with a locations aural history by changing the environments sounds. The monument will be a place to sit and hear a played back recording of what the area sounded like at a particular moment in time. The structure will act as a receptor of transmitted recordings that can be heard by anyone walking by and fully experienced by standing or sitting in front of the monument.

This idea for an improbable monument came about from my interest in sound and how it’s broadcast. Actually, more precisely, I was researching EVP, electronic voice phenomena and became interested in how people understand what they perceive they hear. EVP is the result of may different peoples experiences with hearing voices in recordings that weren’t present when the recordings were made. To me it seemed likely, and exciting, that it may be possible to capture broadcast signals in the magnetic fields that surround the Earth, or some explanation. Some people who capture these phenomena on tape believe it’s the voices of the dead. Others think they’re simply making sense from chaos.

Either way there’s something about our sense of hearing that evokes skepticism. There’s the saying “I‘ll believe it when I see it”. While this saying may be a declaration of ignorance to the micro world, it does address the idea that our sense of sound is related to our emotions, or at least something subjective to each of us.

This is not to say that sound, although it cannot be seen, cannot evoke certain feelings and reactions that we all may experience. From dancing to yawning to jumping through a glass pane window music and sounds are a personal and shared experience. But music isn’t the only form of sound that affects us. From the syllables that make up language to the everyday sounds that we tune out, sound is all around and it has an impact on us whether we realize it or not.

It's my belief that every place, block to block, coast to coast has a unique mingling of sounds that make up that environment. I remember being in New York City walking down 5th ave (?) and I came to the end of the block and proceed to walk into a forest! That forest was central park, and what an impression that left. Going from the sprawling towers of buildings into a canopy of trees, rocks and well, concrete paths too…it was a stark contrast to say the least. Having a park like that in the middle of a city really got me in touch with what the landscape might have been like at one time long before buildings and cars and even people. Although the environment within the city and park have changed over time, of course, it got me thinking that sounds can be tied to places in a similar way; places have sounded different at times, with whatever inhabited the area, and so they must have a kind-of aural history of sound. This is a similar inspiration for other artist such as Bill Fontana and R. Murray Schafer who work with sound, recording environments and making sound sculptures and sound-scapes, and what gave some shape to this idea for an improbable monument.

Project Description:
As stated in the reading “Monuments: Past and Present”, monuments can inhabit the past and the present, because they connect people in the present with the past by commemorating a particular person or event from the past. All monuments and structures can connect us with a period in time simply by stating the date in which they were constructed. This monument makes literal use of this statement, only it uses sound as a way of commemorating a location; by filtering out the sounds of the present and beaming in the sounds of the past.

This can be achieved by using Directional Sound. Directional Sound is an emerging technology that focuses sound similarly to how a laser focuses light. A beam of sound can be projected into a space with accuracy, to the point where the person next to you won’t hear it.
The structure itself will be designed to capture and amplify the sounds in a way that is most affective, keeping to a general concept of being able to fully experience a range of sounds while standing in front of the monument. My design mixes a well with a backing to capture and amplify the sounds in a natural way. Sound will be captured by reflecting off the back of monument and amplified by the hollow well-like structure at the base, similar to how speaking through a cone amplifies someone's voice. The monument will have a pole adjacent to it and out of view, with a directional sound speaker mounted on top. The looped sounds of the aural environments, or sound collages of a time in history at that location, will be transmitted from the outer pole to reflect off the monument, producing the sounds from the surface of the monument.

People walking by the monument will be able to hear something different than what is going on around them. Drawn in by this, they will have a fuller experience of the sounds by standing in front of the monument and still be able to look around with little visual obstruction.

The idea is improbable for many reasons. For one the costs of the technology I will propose to use. It may likely prove impossible to find someone willing to pay for expensive equipment that will then be left outside in the rain, wind and community. For this reason it would make more sense to locate the monument within a room or a building, but I believe it would be far more effective of an experience outdoors. Of course, location and resources permitting the equipment could be housed in a secured building. Another reason is that certain places may have been a lot noisier in the past, like the old Alameda Naval Base. Walking into a space filled with sirens and plane engines may not go so well with many people. For this reason, the location of the monument is really important. In my sketches I have it in Jack London Square in Oakland, California. I’ve spent some time in that area and believe it has some pretty unique overlapping sounds; running water from the Bay, wild life (birds), people and trains, to name some. Still, the idea remains to contrast an environment with the sounds of its past.

Benefits:
It’s difficult to say the benefits of a project like this. The idea is to connect people with their environment by changing the way their everyday environment sounds. Sound is a subjective medium and experience. Some people may enjoy hearing the past through sound and others may not. Many of us block out the sounds of our environment, because there is simply so much going on, (or maybe just consciously we do). If traveling can give you perspective in some way, then this monument would at best, aim to give perspective to people in regards to the environment they inhabit. Whether that is beneficial or not I don’t know. Personally i think it could be. As a side benefit, I think it would at least be a positive use of these technologies; in opposition to the sound canons and directional sound marketing that seem to be making this technology even a possibility right now.

Estimated Costs:
Research and Development: Three person team to research, find and record sounds of a specific environment….$67,500.
Materials and Production: Sculpture: $5,000; Pole: $30. Directional Sound Speaker and equipment: $5,000; Housing for equipment: $1,000; Solar power unit: $2,000.
Installation: $3,000
Maintenance: ???, Parks and Recreation services

Total Estimated costs: $80,530.

Timeline of Tasks:
3 months for research and recordings.
6 months for production.
3 days for installation.
Yearly maintenance.

Community Art Event 2: SFSU...again

Yes again...I can't help it there's just so much going on here. Actually I didn't mean to attend this event, but think it should count based on the content. Working late on a project in one of the labs, a class began to meet. The class turned out to be a DAI class, Digital Media 3, which focuses on web design and is very relevant to CIA. At any rate, I quietly stayed through the 45min. lecture and took some notes on some interesting technologies that the product/digital media industries are working towards, at least theoretically. They're called "Spimes"and they're already being used if you ask me. check this out for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spime
The idea comes from Bruce Sterling, a science fiction writer, and revolves around small devices that are trackable throughout their lifespan, easily recyclable, and used to encode an object with information about the object. Kind of like a barcode times a thousand. The idea seems to go beyond commerce though, being that an object can be tracked throughout its lifespan providing data about who used it, for how long, where...you know sci-fi stuff. But actually, Berkeley bus systems aren't far from being something of this nature. I recently heard of a phone application that tracks buses. Uses a GPS device, you can literally log on with your phone and see where the bus is...like being able to look through the buildings at the end of the long street at the corner where the bus should have turned 20 minutes ago. Not glasses, a phone application. At any rate, I thought the spimes concept was an interesting idea that ties in a bit with Google's Earth...one day we may be using it with spime technology to find our house keys!

Community Art Event 1: SFSU

A couple Thursdays ago I took the elevator down to the second floor of the Fine Arts building and walked around the gallery which was displaying the works of MFA students. The Masters of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition included the works of Bren Ahearn, Jeff Ray, Taryn McCabe, Luke Damiani, Matt Kennedy, Holly Williams and Aaron Granich.
I was immediately interested in Matt Kennedy's work, which at face value consists of multiple blown up prints of geographic locations. I was particularly drawn to them because of their depiction of rocks with "rings", layers of various rocks, sand and settiment which builds up over time. Like growth rings on a tree, these layers give me a sense of time, the past, history. Plus they were black and white and grainy looking, which appeals to my aesthetic sensibilities. I come to read they are depictions of "natural events associated with an impending earthquake". Sounds pretty interesting, snapshots of bizarre happenings during earthquakes? I would have liked to hear him speak about his ideas on this.
Speaking that day was Jeff Ray. His multimedia display incorporates sound, smell, photography, drawings and model sculptures of buildings. He called it an "exploration of the phenomenology of sound, of dwellings, and beyond". Walking into the curtained space I immediately heard the music-like, field recordings which were looped to give an ephemeral effect. To me it came off a bit reflective, or meditative and got me thinking of memory, which was a theme he had touch on in his talk about his work, which had a lot more to do with architecture than I was picking up on. I saw three walls with blown-up photographs on them and model buildings in front of them. Some of the photos were drawn on, like sketching out other buildings into the landscape or adding grid lines. They got me thinking about how photographs can capture something like a building and how I might remember the building if I didn't have the picture. I thought the models were scaled, 3-d versions of the buildings from memory, since they looked different than the pictures, but similar enough in shape to make the association. I continued to trip out on the idea of how memory rewrites itself every time we recall something; or according to some articles I've read, we remember the same things differently, say an event, every time we recall them. It's like six degrees of separation, only we do it with ourselves. Which is great if you actually want to change your memory of an event. Like keeping a picture of a past lover put away as a gauge for when you've changed your memory enough to move on.
I guess buildings can hold memories as well. I still have jubbled dreams of places I've lived. Recently, I had a dream of buying a house with my girlfriend down the street from where we rent, only it was in the neighborhood I grew up in, 400 + miles away. The house was very specific in my mind, and I know a house exists in that actual neighborhood, but probably not the way I dreamt it. I guess this might tie into the ideas of utopia that Jeff talks about in the reader from the show, creating our own utopias and dystopias from our memories. That house would have been across the street from a park I visited a lot as a kid and have good memories of, and they just got better? Weird to think my idea of a utopia is owning an imagined house and a childhood park, only up north to where I live now. Now I just need to create a source of income and save some money for the next 10 years, enter dystopia.
Over all I liked most of the works in the SFSU gallery. I'll have to remember to go in there more often.

Improbable Monument Ideas

As we were talking in the hall the other day, my ideas for an improbable monument revolve around materials and locations.
I like the idea of a satelite that explores the outer reaches of space and a place, maybe a tv channel or web site, to tune in and watch...or a submarine that explores the mid Atlantic ridge. Both these ideas, I think are residue from the pioneer monument project I did; somehow commemorating the extending of the frontier. My third idea though, the idea I'm currently researching, revolves around a monument which uses sound.
I got interested in looking into a Swedish man by the name of Friedrich Jurgenson. He wrote some books and has an extensive library of recordings which he claims contain the voices of the dead on them. As some may imagine he received a lot of scrutiny throughout his life for this claim, but also a lot of support. There's a lot of research into EVP (electronic voice phenomena), from Cambridge University to Ghost Hunters. Although for myself, ghosts are not the first thing that jump into my mind when I hear things that I can't explain. I'm of the mind that I except that there are many things we don't know about the world around us, and seek to understand them anyhow, choosing the consensus of science over myth. But this has nothing to do with my project...except to spark ideas around what could be happening with these recorded voices and how to incorporate the sonic phenomena into an improbable monument...I don't mean a sonic medium booth, although I would check that out! I guess where I'm heading with this is uncertain, but am looking into many things, from frequencies not heard by the human ear, to healing cat purrs, throwing your voice and combined white noise effects, in the hope of making a monument that is more of a sound-scape enclosure....I'll post some more links on it...but check out the link on Friedrich Jurgenson if you're into ghosts and bizarre happenings. Awesome stuff, I love it...

Monument Intervention; A Monumental Move

After some internet searches, pointers to links and debate, Dan I chose to visit, research and intervene on The Pioneer Monument at Civic Center in San Francisco. Neither of us knew much about the monument to begin with, but from initial readings we gathered some information about it and began kicking around some ideas. One of these ideas had to do with popular reference to the monument as being the James Lick monument. James Lick was the wealthiest man in California at the time of his death, in 1876, leaving a trust of $100,000 to San Francisco, to build a sculpture commemorating the people and events that contributed to the settlement of California. The other ideas revolved around the monument itself, its relocation in 1993 and the controversy around its depiction of Native Americans.

After some research into the monument, I found that it had a monumental history! Old things have history, but this monument has been through a lot. From it’s inception as a civic monument, to it’s perception as a wealthy man’s legacy, to a beacon of resilience during the 1906 earthquake, to a callus depiction of the early settlers treatment of California’s Natives, the Pioneer Monument seemed soaked with some heavy ideas. And I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into. Still, I found interest in the fact that it had been moved to make way for the current library. This seemed funny and practical in a way, that the “pioneer” monument, which is somewhat synonymous with explorer to me, would make way for a library, which is synonymous with history. The idea that explorers make history and that the moving of the monument can make history as well, got me thinking that the moving of the monument, whatever it turned out to represent, could be a symbolic thing and may be a place to start for our intervention, regardless of how absurd it sounded.

I focused on the most recent events, to try and get an idea of what the current perception might be. In the last 20 years it has been the topic of controversy because of its depiction of Native Americans. The statuette at the eastern end depicts a Native American passively lying/sitting before a cowboy and a monk. One seems to be preaching and the other…I’m not sure. Perhaps, needless to say, Native Americans take great offence to this statuette. During the monuments move in 1993, many people protested it, with some throwing red paint onto it. It’s not the least bit surprising that a monument with a statue such as this would be offensive, since it commemorates a time when many California Natives died, or were forced to assimilate into another culture. A compromise was made by the city, one that revolved around the placing of three plaques at the base of the monument to give some light on the treatment of Native Americans, but hasn’t been carried out to this day. Meanwhile Dan was researching James Lick the person and his legacy at Lick-Wilmerding High School. He had the idea that James Lick the person could be a role model for the kids at the school. While I designed a plaque that would cover the existing plaque at the monument, Dan put together a controversial t-shirt design. We decided to tie our ideas together with a joint plea to the city to move the monument to our proposed locations.

About the Pioneer monument: It was dedicated to San Francisco in 1894, several years after it’s benefactor, Lick, had passed away. It consists of five pieces, all bronze statues on marble bases. From observation, the monument seems to be laid out similar to a compass, or cardinal directions, with the center being the zenith and the four points representing north, south, east, and west. The centerpiece is a sculpture of a woman, Eureka, holding a spear and shield representing California. A band of four bronze reliefs depicting events in California history lie just below, with the busts and names of prominent people from California’s early history: Sutter, Lick, Fremont, Drake and Serra. As it’s currently situated, to the north is a statue of a woman with a horn filled with food, representing agriculture and plenty; to the south, a statue of a woman with a breast bared and a paddle, representing commerce; to the west, a statue of three minors and the title “in 49”, representing the discovery of gold; and to the east, a statue of a Native American, a missionary, and a cowboy with the title “Early Days”, representing the establishment of the missions.

My idea is to reconnect the monument to the spirit of the pioneer by making it a symbol for reconciliation. Not to say that this could be done by any one gesture, rather the idea behind the intervention is as a symbol to continually seek and to share common ground between people. By acknowledging the past and incorporating a gesture that attempts to include Native American values, this old monument can carry with it an idea of civic responsibility to be inclusive to multiple views of its history. Part of me feels this has been somewhat accomplished by it’s location between the UN plaza, an organization dedicated to the promotion of human rights, and the civic center. Still I liked the idea of playing with these symbols and the attention that moving a monument can create. My idea was to move the statuettes, to different cardinal positions according to Native American symbols, leaving the centerpiece in place. From the first time I saw the monument, I read into the statuette of commerce as being the archetype that represents “the pioneer”, or qualities I would associate with someone who braves the unknown, seeking new possibilities, and the struggle that comes with starting from scratch. This is partially because I can see a double meaning to the exposed breast and paddle of the woman in the commerce statue. The paddle as a literal device can symbolize a larger concept, the tool by which ships are moved (well boats maybe), and ships being the vessels for journeys and explorations, tying back to the pioneer. According to the Penguin Dictionary, a bared beast can signify protection as well as motherhood, security and plenty. I found a website which outlines the symbols of the cardinal points. It is known as The Medicine Wheel in Native American spirituality with North representing defeat/trouble; South, peace/happiness; East, success/triumph; and West, death. But I have no idea, as to what tribes believe this or if it’s even relevant to California. Nevertheless, the gesture is one that offers protection and innovation through the troubled waters of history mucked with genocide and forced assimilation to begin with. Further, commerce, in an old definition found in my Webster’s dictionary, means “social dealings between people”. My part of the intervention involved rewording the existing plaque to talk about the monuments history and future. It was written onto a piece of cardboard and placed over the existing plaque.

This is the inscription as it reads now.

PIONEER MONUMENT
Sculptor, Frank Happersberger (1859-1932)
Dedicated to the City of San Francisco on Nov 29, 1894, the Pioneer Monument was a gift of philanthropist James Lick. Lick, who died in 1876, left $100,000 to the City for the creation of "statuary emblematic of the significant epochs in California history" dating back to the missions' early settlements. The monument stood in Marshall Square facing Market Street in front of the Old City Hall that was completed in 1897 but destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. When the City was rebuilt after the earthquake, Grove and Hyde Streets were extended to meet Market Street, creating a new intersection. The Pioneer Monument stood at this intersection until it was moved to its present location in 1993.

As it will read…

PIONEER MONUMENT
Sculptor, Frank Happersberger (1859-1932)
Dedicated to the City of San Francisco on Nov 29, 1894, the Pioneer Monument was a gift of philanthropist James Lick. Lick, who died in 1876, left $100,000 to the City for the creation of "statuary emblematic of the significant epochs in California history" dating back to the missions' early settlements. Since it’s dedication the monument has come to represent; a commemoration of the people and events that contributed to the settling of California; the rebuilding of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake; and the perseverance towards a heritage that is meaningful for all Californians. Given the symbolic nature of these old sculptures it has been proposed that the pedestals, laid out as if representing the cardinal points, be repositioned according to Native American Spirituality, so that the archetype of commerce be facing north, symbolizing a tribute to the spirit of the Pioneer to take the road less traveled. This tribute could act as a reminder for all people to face the unknown, and blaze reconciliation in our present from the events of the past.

Dan’s part of the intervention involved designing a t-shirt that kids at Lick-Wilmerding could wear as well as a newspaper article talking about the proposed moves. His ideas are written out in his blog.