Hannah Laakso, Student Work

Self Perspective

4" x 7"

Graphite and ink on paper

"The breathing, sensing body draws its sustenance and its very substance from the soils, plants, and the elements that surround it; it continually contributes itself, in turn, to the air, to the composting earth, to the nourishment of insects and oak trees and squirrels, ceaselessly spreading out of itself as well as breathing the world into itself, so that it is very difficult to discern, at any moment, precisely where this living body begins and where it ends. Considering phenomenologically- that is, as we actually experience and live it- the body is a creative, shapeshifting entity."

I responded to this quote with an illustration of a faceless person, commenting on the way we see ourselves. We never truly see our own faces aside from our nose in our peripherals, only our bodies from an unflattering angle; What we see in a mirror is a backwards image and what we see in photos is distorted and flattened. We will never accurately know what we look like.

Joe Joe Provenza, Student Work

Spell of the Sensuous chapter 7 response

A drawing of the air around me 30 min: graphite on paper

"Air is the most pervasive presence I can name, enveloping, embracing, and caressing me both inside and out, moving in ripples along my skin, flowing between my fingers, swirling around my arms and thighs, rolling in eddies along the roof of my mouth, slipping ceaselessly through throat and trachea to fill the lungs, to feed my blood, my heart, my self." Page 225.

This is a self-portrait on a base level, but the idea of spatial existence is deconstructed. Although it is a drawing of myself from life, it is more focused on the visual perception of self and how visual information is essentially just a sensory reading of proportional, physical, and biological indicators.

Chance Powers, Student Work

This response to David Abram's The Spell of the Sensuous (page 137-153) is relating to the section on page 137, "Or, more specifically, how did civilized humankind lose all sense of reciprocity and relationship with the animate natural world, that rapport that so influences (and limits) the activities of most indigenous, tribal peoples?"

When I read this section, immediately I thought of the DAPL issue. From day one, it seems white people have been screwing over natives. As said in Disney's Pocahontas, "These white people are dangerous."

For this response, I took one of my photos from when I was in Portugal of Padrao dos Descobrimentos as it was a monument in celebration and commemoration of discovering and claiming that land. 

The monument is a huge symbol for claiming land, which means whoever is there is forced to accept the rule or be pushed out, punished, jailed, killed, all that fun stuff.

The DAPL is punishing natives for no reason by threatening their water supply, essentially pushing them out of the very little land we "allowed" them to have, desecrating their graves and land in the process.

I layered photos to create this piece. There is a filter layer on top of that cracked, dry land, free of water and life. The picture over that is of the protests going on because of DAPL (credits to Kevin Scott Cuevas of the Odyssey and Jeremiah Jones of Countercurrent News).

I wanted to overshadow the vision of victory with the real costs of these conquers.

Lauren Gonzalez, Student Work

Title: Hebrew

Materials: Wood 

Dimensions: 13" x 5"

Spell Reading #4 The Flesh of Language, pp. 73 - 91

On page 77, the last sentence of the first paragraph

"Language, in this view, is rather like a code; it is a way of representing actual things and events in the perceived world"

Artist Statement: This entire chapter really focused on language and it's origins. This specific sentence made me think of language as a literal code. It also makes me think of language as a bunch of signs arranged in random sequence. I decided to literally translate the original sentence into hebrew, and burn the words into a piece of wood. I chose hebrew because the language is foreign to me and I see it a a type of "code.

Lauren Gonzalez, Student Work

Title: Experimentation

Materials: Compact makecup container, and rabbit fur

Spell #3 Philosophy on the way to Ecology, Part II, pp. 44 - 72

Found on page 48, the bottom of the first paragraph

"Since humans alone are a mixture of extended matter and thinking mind, we alone are able to feel and to experience our body's mechanical sensations. Meanwhile, all other organisms, consisting solely of extended matter, are in truth nothing more than automatons, incapable of actual experience unable to feel pleasure or suffer pain. Hence, we humans need have no scruples about manipulating, exploiting or experimenting upon other animals in any manner we see fit" 

Artist Statement: The text above shows humans as having no empathy or compassion towards animals, especially the last sentence. It literally states that we as humans do not need scruples when exploiting or experimenting on animals in any manner we see fit. I wanted to create something that dealt with animal testing, because it is a practice that directly deals with experimentation and exploitation. Rabbits are one of the most commonly tested on animals, especially when it comes to cosmetics. I decided to place real rabbit fur in a blush compact case. I bought the rabbit fur from hobby lobby and cut a piece out to replace the blush. This is a literal consequence of using makeup that has been tested on animals, thousands of animals die and people still buy the products.

Kevin Mahoney, Student Work

“And to see the world is also, at the same time, to experience oneself as visible, to feel oneself seen”

David Abram, Spell of the Sensuous

Separation
Chapter 2, Section II

With this work I’m attempting to separate myself from the image of myself with tracing paper.

Wood, photograph, tracing paper, 18" x 24"

Michelle Behling, Student Work, Response to Reading, Spell of the Sensuous

"The word wen signifies a conglomeration of marks... It applies to the veins in stones and wood, to constellations... and even... to the designs that decorate the turtle's shell ("The turtle is wise," an ancient text says... "for it carries designs on its back')" (96).

David Abram. Spell of the Sensuous (1996).

I am interested in the part about the turtle and it's design. I chose to look at my roommate's dog. He has an interesting pattern of stripes in his fur, his design or wen. Under the cover of darkness, I took the dog for a walk. In the places he marked his territory, I visually marked the spot by replicating the pattern in his fur. I wanted the spot to be visually marked by his designs, as well as his scent, to record the moment of his presence at the site.

Maja Hydbom, Student Work

Untitled (Reawakened)

Canvas, Plastic gloves, Dirt

In Philosophy on the Way to Ecology, Part I by David Abram, the idea of solipsism is questioned as a part of how we perceive things. The chapter suggests that information is completely self-made from a personal point of view. Abram writes “…theoretical and scientific practice grows out of and remains supported by the forgotten ground of our directly felt and lived experience, and has value and meaning only in reference to this primordial and open realm”.  When we look upon the world, we see it as we know it. As we look upon the mess humans created, shouldn’t it be in our nature to try and transform it to what we ultimately want to see?

Pernilla Stellgren, Student Work

"Yet a thorough description of homogeneous "space" and sequential "time," as objectively existing entities, had to wait until the invention of the printing press. For it was the dissemination of printed texts (texts that until then had been meticulously copied by hand and preserved, like treasures, in monastic libraries and universities) into the wider community of persons, and the subsequent rise o vernacular literatures, that effectively sealed the ascendancy of alphabetic modes of thought over the oral, participatory experience of nature" (David Abram, the spell of the sensuous).

This chapter inspired me to create the preservation of the oral language but with the modern aspect of it. We are a society obsessed with preserving, whether it is food that has been modified to last longer than normal or even our own youth. The glass device has the scientific suggestion of preservation and the blue represents earth and the color of the oceans viewed form space. The liquid will eventually evaporate and the text dipped in the liquid will also eventually fade away; All to contrast the inevitable part of life’s cycle of change and development.

Response to the book A Natural History of The Senses, Student Work

Smell, Rachel DeCuba
"I chose to respond to the chapter on the sense of smell. While reading the portion about smell that is naturally based and those created through chemical manipulation and our connection to certain scents I began to think of the historical connections I hold with scents. I connected this with the book 100 years of solitude, a book of latin realism, in this genre of literature there is emphasis on the senses and I wanted to illustrate this connection of illustrated smell and traditional uses. I created oils of rosemary, lavender and sage, traditional smells in the latin culture with a range of perceptions. I placed these into small jars that fit into a folding wooden traveling case, to resemble that of traveling gypsies that would traditionally sell these goods from village to village."

Taste, Tristan Dollinger

Synesthesia, Chryssha Guirdy.
For entire series of photos go to Chryssha's blog.
Link here.

Hearing, Brittany Higgins
"I explored the effects of what certain noises can have on people. Whether scary noises, thrilling noises, sensual noises, or exciting noises people cannot help but have a response. For my project I wanted to push sensual noises and see how people would react. I chose to set up a situation where the a person could listen to sound, but nobody could see the peron's face, only their body.  I asked  people to wear earbuds and put a box over their head.  Once the person was in position, I played sounds of individuals engaging in sexual acts. The result was a performance made by the person listening to the sounds as those present observed body reactions and seemed to gain excitement in not knowing what the person was listening to.  This excitement created a line of people to take part in the experiment."