[Music]
as a young girl
growing up I thought a real artist was a
white man who was sad
brilliant lonely toiling in obscurity
before his posthumous fame prolific
beyond measure a real artist wasn’t
interested in other people that was okay
because he was a genius the genius
created his work in isolation until I
was exposed to other types of artists as
a young woman I clung to this mythology
of the real artists like a talisman
accepting in his truths fearing I would
never live up to this genius I struggled
to create and even gave it up altogether
for a while
but unable to stifle my voice for too
long I opted in private to return to my
native language drawing I drew my guts
out for a while I came to realize that
all of my work interprets the body as a
site of struggle and resistance over the
years I’ve expressed this in a variety
of ways but in one particular series I
shot my paintings with bullets and then
painted blossoms around the holes and
they sold well but that was not enough
to sustain my interest because I began
to make them just to sell I wanted to
challenge that myth that mythology of
the artists creating in isolation I
thought who could I share this with
where it would have added meaning and
resonance I’d long been interested in an
organization called homeboy industries
which serves gang involved and formerly
incarcerated youth I brought the idea
for a collaborative project to its
founder and head father Greg or G and
his door was literally wide open he
embraced me and the project I asked the
participants I worked with at homeboy to
tell their stories through the
democratic medium of collage and was
almost immediately rendered speechless
by their bravery and by the
of risks they were willing to take
people Dovan they were willing to
incorporate their most precious most
personal objects into their artwork one
woman used letter she’d written to her
family from prison another an article
about when she boosted her first card at
13 still another his Ponyo sex quiz ‘t
ballpoint pen drawings on handkerchiefs
and yet another the only x-ray he had of
the bullet lodged at the base of his
spine which caused him chronic pain they
were not worried at all about being
judged they just rolled up their sleeves
and did it they told me where to aim for
the bullet holes and what color to paint
the blossoms around them and I shot the
works here are two examples the end
results of our collaboration were so
much more compelling than my work alone
one of the men observed that if he’d
wanted to he could hang his artwork from
the car in his driveway and he’d have an
art gallery I loved this idea he was
right an art gallery doesn’t have to be
a forbidding or exclusive venue an art
gallery doesn’t even need walls the rich
tradition of murals in Los Angeles is a
testament to this I realized what we
really had was this extraordinary
conversation that was unbalanced ax
tution of permission nobody told us what
we could or couldn’t do it remains the
most important project of my creative
life as it taught me that including
other voices in storytelling should be
an ongoing life goal it ignited in me a
passion I could not have foreseen I
wanted to do it again on an even bigger
plane seeking that same feeling of art
as a medium for connection I started
drawing in virtual reality or VR
because I wanted to generate an even
more empathic connection in the literal
physical body of the person who would
stand in or move through my drawings the
poet Ocean Vaughan writes maybe the body
is the only question an answer can’t
extinguish drawing in 360 was an almost
ecstatic experience but because it was
such new and unchartered territory
it was also Infinite and offered no
clear answers the medium is so powerful
that everyone experiences it in their
body and the results can sometimes make
people literally sick early on in my
experimenting with VR I had one woman
take the headset off in tears and say I
hate the future another said I can’t
tell if I’m in heaven or hell but as
effective as VR is in creating empathy
there were still limitations to creating
connection true connection that more
people could share VR remained a
singular and by extension exclusive
experience to be in the in the VR
drawings you either needed the hardware
the VR hardware or you had to physically
come to my studio so when I had the
opportunity to create a free app using
augmented reality or AR that would allow
people to put to experience my VR
drawings and studio in the comfort of
real life I grabbed it it seemed like
the greatest opportunity to break down
walls and challenge paradigms that I
could possibly imagine AR is accessible
to almost anyone with a smartphone or
tablet using the camera as a kind of
directors lens in the app I encouraged
people to place
move through or record my drawings and
studio anywhere they wanted anywhere on
the planet their choice think the
gallery in the driveway only now the
gallery is the world it was absolutely
terrifying to go public with work
created in such privacy but when I
remembered how open the homeboy
participants were when I shared my
bullet paintings with them it
the results were mind-blowing
people often complete strangers were
able to express their interpretations in
ways I could never have conceived of on
my own
someone put a drawing on the 5:00 train
to the Bronx another above seats in a
classroom in Qatar drawings showed up on
the carousel on the baggage claim
carousel at LAX Airport and in a
falling down around Angkor Wat in
through the us-mexico border wall if
anything underscored the borderless
nature of art this was it in aggregate
what people came up with was so much
more than the sum of any parts it was
like this ongoing ever-expanding
public art exhibition that was
determined by individuals versus by
institutions it was defined by people
who had something to say or just had an
idea they wanted to try out instead of
someone limiting their choices telling
them what they should do or what they
should want or what was important or
what was worthy of their time it could
be serious or not what people did with
it span the entire spectrum of the human
experience it turns out you don’t have
there are so many untold in untapped
stories which when we experience them
make us more interesting and interested
people further adaptations of this
medium including include GPS technology
which allow us to locate artworks in
site-specific locations all over the
globe fellow artists working topically
choose a site for its cultural
historical or political significance to
them and together we place or lock these
artworks
in AR in those locations you can’t see
it with the naked eye but using the lens
of your kit of your smartphone or your
tablet
the artwork will appear in AR at those
locations this collaborative project
invites people using the app to
physically visit the sites themselves a
kind of Pokemon go but rich with content
and intention together we are using this
technology subversively and
unapologetically to prompt thoughtful
discourse insights as wide-ranging as
the border wall that cuts through the
beach in Tijuana Mexico to Liberty
Island in New York Harbor to the site of
the recent massacre in las vegas nevada
the opportunity for community engagement
and activism using this technology is
staggering what if we reached out to
individual communities and asked them
what they want to see or whose artwork
they want to see represented in their
neighborhoods and where they are allows
for a public art experience that
includes dialogues and responses in
communities that have long been ignored
or dismissed it can prompt people from
all over to explore the wide range of
settings art and voices that flourish
here in abundance as the Brazilian
novelist
Clarissa Specter says I’m after what is
lurking behind thought what might be
revealed
what deeper truths can we learn from
other people by offering access to this
technology which would allow them to
as a girl I thought a real artist didn’t
need anyone they were simply inspired
now I believe a real artist is someone
open to fearless collaboration who risks
judgment to speak straight from their soul
as a young girl
growing up I thought a real artist was a
white man who was sad
brilliant lonely toiling in obscurity
before his posthumous fame prolific
beyond measure a real artist wasn’t
interested in other people that was okay
because he was a genius the genius
created his work in isolation until I
was exposed to other types of artists as
a young woman I clung to this mythology
of the real artists like a talisman
accepting in his truths fearing I would
never live up to this genius I struggled
to create and even gave it up altogether
for a while
but unable to stifle my voice for too
long I opted in private to return to my
native language drawing I drew my guts
out for a while I came to realize that
all of my work interprets the body as a
site of struggle and resistance over the
years I’ve expressed this in a variety
of ways but in one particular series I
shot my paintings with bullets and then
painted blossoms around the holes and
they sold well but that was not enough
to sustain my interest because I began
to make them just to sell I wanted to
challenge that myth that mythology of
the artists creating in isolation I
thought who could I share this with
where it would have added meaning and
resonance I’d long been interested in an
organization called homeboy industries
which serves gang involved and formerly
incarcerated youth I brought the idea
for a collaborative project to its
founder and head father Greg or G and
his door was literally wide open he
embraced me and the project I asked the
participants I worked with at homeboy to
tell their stories through the
democratic medium of collage and was
almost immediately rendered speechless
by their bravery and by the
of risks they were willing to take
people Dovan they were willing to
incorporate their most precious most
personal objects into their artwork one
woman used letter she’d written to her
family from prison another an article
about when she boosted her first card at
13 still another his Ponyo sex quiz ‘t
ballpoint pen drawings on handkerchiefs
and yet another the only x-ray he had of
the bullet lodged at the base of his
spine which caused him chronic pain they
were not worried at all about being
judged they just rolled up their sleeves
and did it they told me where to aim for
the bullet holes and what color to paint
the blossoms around them and I shot the
works here are two examples the end
results of our collaboration were so
much more compelling than my work alone
one of the men observed that if he’d
wanted to he could hang his artwork from
the car in his driveway and he’d have an
art gallery I loved this idea he was
right an art gallery doesn’t have to be
a forbidding or exclusive venue an art
gallery doesn’t even need walls the rich
tradition of murals in Los Angeles is a
testament to this I realized what we
really had was this extraordinary
conversation that was unbalanced ax
tution of permission nobody told us what
we could or couldn’t do it remains the
most important project of my creative
life as it taught me that including
other voices in storytelling should be
an ongoing life goal it ignited in me a
passion I could not have foreseen I
wanted to do it again on an even bigger
plane seeking that same feeling of art
as a medium for connection I started
drawing in virtual reality or VR
because I wanted to generate an even
more empathic connection in the literal
physical body of the person who would
stand in or move through my drawings the
poet Ocean Vaughan writes maybe the body
is the only question an answer can’t
extinguish drawing in 360 was an almost
ecstatic experience but because it was
such new and unchartered territory
it was also Infinite and offered no
clear answers the medium is so powerful
that everyone experiences it in their
body and the results can sometimes make
people literally sick early on in my
experimenting with VR I had one woman
take the headset off in tears and say I
hate the future another said I can’t
tell if I’m in heaven or hell but as
effective as VR is in creating empathy
there were still limitations to creating
connection true connection that more
people could share VR remained a
singular and by extension exclusive
experience to be in the in the VR
drawings you either needed the hardware
the VR hardware or you had to physically
come to my studio so when I had the
opportunity to create a free app using
augmented reality or AR that would allow
people to put to experience my VR
drawings and studio in the comfort of
real life I grabbed it it seemed like
the greatest opportunity to break down
walls and challenge paradigms that I
could possibly imagine AR is accessible
to almost anyone with a smartphone or
tablet using the camera as a kind of
directors lens in the app I encouraged
people to place
move through or record my drawings and
studio anywhere they wanted anywhere on
the planet their choice think the
gallery in the driveway only now the
gallery is the world it was absolutely
terrifying to go public with work
created in such privacy but when I
remembered how open the homeboy
participants were when I shared my
bullet paintings with them it
the results were mind-blowing
people often complete strangers were
able to express their interpretations in
ways I could never have conceived of on
my own
someone put a drawing on the 5:00 train
to the Bronx another above seats in a
classroom in Qatar drawings showed up on
the carousel on the baggage claim
carousel at LAX Airport and in a
falling down around Angkor Wat in
through the us-mexico border wall if
anything underscored the borderless
nature of art this was it in aggregate
what people came up with was so much
more than the sum of any parts it was
like this ongoing ever-expanding
public art exhibition that was
determined by individuals versus by
institutions it was defined by people
who had something to say or just had an
idea they wanted to try out instead of
someone limiting their choices telling
them what they should do or what they
should want or what was important or
what was worthy of their time it could
be serious or not what people did with
it span the entire spectrum of the human
experience it turns out you don’t have
there are so many untold in untapped
stories which when we experience them
make us more interesting and interested
people further adaptations of this
medium including include GPS technology
which allow us to locate artworks in
site-specific locations all over the
globe fellow artists working topically
choose a site for its cultural
historical or political significance to
them and together we place or lock these
artworks
in AR in those locations you can’t see
it with the naked eye but using the lens
of your kit of your smartphone or your
tablet
the artwork will appear in AR at those
locations this collaborative project
invites people using the app to
physically visit the sites themselves a
kind of Pokemon go but rich with content
and intention together we are using this
technology subversively and
unapologetically to prompt thoughtful
discourse insights as wide-ranging as
the border wall that cuts through the
beach in Tijuana Mexico to Liberty
Island in New York Harbor to the site of
the recent massacre in las vegas nevada
the opportunity for community engagement
and activism using this technology is
staggering what if we reached out to
individual communities and asked them
what they want to see or whose artwork
they want to see represented in their
neighborhoods and where they are allows
for a public art experience that
includes dialogues and responses in
communities that have long been ignored
or dismissed it can prompt people from
all over to explore the wide range of
settings art and voices that flourish
here in abundance as the Brazilian
novelist
Clarissa Specter says I’m after what is
lurking behind thought what might be
revealed
what deeper truths can we learn from
other people by offering access to this
technology which would allow them to
as a girl I thought a real artist didn’t
need anyone they were simply inspired
now I believe a real artist is someone
open to fearless collaboration who risks
judgment to speak straight from their soul
Please follow and like us: