Critique for February 3rd: Vanessa Calvert

Discussion of gallery model, screen prints, the symbolic use of velvet ropes/pillows, the idea of analog versus digital and the history of her work with social networking sites etc.

Things of importance-
-a feeling of being pushed / pulled
-navigating between shifting technologies
-pillows, velvet ropes
-‘creating a space’

Questions to consider-
-Are the images compelling? Do they communicate a feeling?
-Why are you interested in presenting this duality? What are hoping to really create?
-Are you trying to use color psychology to affect a particular experience?
-Can you think of a more clear counterpoint to the velvet ropes than pillows?
-How readable do you want these images/installation (plans) to be?
-Why are the pillows on the floor and on the wall?
-What is the system you are setting up?
--pillows-comfort and welcome –analog?
--ropes-unwelcoming boundary –digital?
-are you interested in using sound?
-are you worried about this being too loungy/vip room or do you like it?
-can you expand your symbolic vocabulary?
-have you thought about the vocabulary of pillows? the different things different kinds pillows could say?

Comments:
the images seem:
McDonalds-y
subliminal
hazy
violent
aggressive
tiger stripes
wrong
acidic
“It took awhile for me to see velvet rope”
“I can’t read these images”
“I thought I saw a bicycle”
“Its interesting to see video stills transferred to screen prints”
“reminds me of Warhol’s disaster prints”
“Have you seen Lamont Young’s Rainbow Room”
-"I think you need a stonger counterpoint to the ropes than just the pillows. I don't get anything from the pillows."

Suggestions-
-SHOOT MORE IMAGES/VIDEO so that you have a greater range of points and counterpoints/vocab to work with
-play with scale with the ropes and the pillows
-get a velvet rope prop
-map out every club/theatre in Portland and traverse the city to enter and leave each in a night – video it.
-play with digital vs. analog with the installation i.e. project on the pillows, on a wall painting etc.
-find a way to talk about crossing over, from one thing to another, one way of communicating to another.
-See Pipolotti Rist’s recent project at MOMA
-See Rachel Whiteread’s installed work at PAM
-push a viewer to navigate, be the dialogue between the poles of digital and analog