It’s hard to believe that when I met Mariela she was only 19 and I had just turned 20. We were two kids in our second year of college and Mariela was my tenderoni. Today is her 29th birthday and I can’t believe how strong we’re going as two grown-ups navigating the real world. It’s a crazy time of transition for both of us but especially her, Mariela will be graduating with her master’s in less than two months. I’m so proud of her hard work and inspired by the passion she has for her field. Happy Birthday Mariela! I love you.
With all the writing I’ve been doing about animated gifs I couldn’t leave things without a little gaudiness thrown in so here we go!
I’m all jazzed up with inspiration and ideas tonight after viewing Chicana artist Zulma Aguiar’s latest graphic I’ll Judge You.
In my last post on animated gifs I wrote about their ghetto stigma and about artists like Mariana Rojas who bravely work in the medium. With this installment I thought I’d share some tools in how to create your own animated gif reclamations and interventions. Making animated gifs without access to programs like Photoshop and Illustrator can be tricky but there are websites that allow you to add animated objects and text on top of any .jpg formatted image.
First up is Glitterfy. It’s somewhat barebones in its options but is great for something quick and simple. It allows you to add colored text and a top layer of stars, hearts, and other chingas to your image. Below is something I created using a classic image of Dolores Huerta.
The text is of course a reference to the countless myspace glitter graphics sites with images like:
The next site is pikipimp. Compared to Glitterfy, pikipimp has a huge amount of options but is poorly organized. The site allows you to layer both static and animated text and objects onto your images. Understanding its interface and organization can take some time but the wealth of possibilities allowed me to create this ghetto-glam remix of Richard Avedon’s portrait of Cesar Chavez.
The text this time around is an homage to Mickey Avalon lyrics. Images generated through pikipimp come out larger than most sites but the clunky interface means a greater investment of time. Regardless, it’s the site I’ve returned to time and again to get what I want.
So what does it mean when we slather glitter and catch phrases onto our images? Does applying the effects of animated gifs to icons like Chavez and Huerta equalize them with the usual subjects of self, friends, and family? Can we change the meaning of an image by decorating it?
When I first started experimenting with these gif generating websites I began by using the most unexpected and unorthodox image I could think of as a test subject. As a Chicano, the most sacred image in my visual lexicon is the 1970 photograph of Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputy Tom Wilson murdering journalist Ruben Salazar at the The Silver Dollar Cafe during the Chicano Moratorium march. I wanted to create a critical examination of guady gif aesthetics by applying them to the most profound image I could think of. Does heaping on animated graphics recontextualize the photograph or alter its emotional impact? I’ll let you be the judge.
I believe that by using the medium of animated gifs that we are both speaking to and co-opting working class youth culture. Amongst young poor Brown kids there is no language better universally understood than that of the animated gif. They are masters of myspace semiotics. The democratization of internet graphic tools has so far been pretty crass and vulgar but the access to these tools has provided young Latinos to be fluent in a whole new visual language; one that is not even being discussed in art academia.
So how do we continue to elevate the discussion and challenge what currently exists? Again, I defer to recent self-portraits by Mariana Rojas.
Gloomy sunday by Mariana Rojasbzzzz by Mariana RojasUntitled by Mariana Rojas
The images below are taken from the blog of Calarts photographer Erin Azouz.
My mom always said “The best artists always know how to have fun!” Seeing these silly photos that Erin posted on her blog brought a smile to my face and made a great day even better. I guess some people just know how to have fun better than others.
When I graduated from Calarts almost all of the other Chicano/Chicana students in the art department seemed to have left with me. I was struck wondering who would fill the gap at Calarts and hold things down. I was heartened to stumble across the work of student Erin Azouz. Her Identity Series has long been a favorite of mine. Her combination of cultural confusion, suicide, and the semiotics of Mexican-American folk culture articulate so much better what I struggled to present with my own work in my early years at Calarts.
Homegirl is also a fascinating animator. I’m not sure if she’s ever labeled her work as animation but one look at her videos and I can’t think of a better way to describe her brilliant sequencing of still images. Depending on the Light is my favorite of her video projects. Erin describes it as “one of several visual responses to a paper i am writing about psychosomatism, with an open exploration of the mind (my mind); eastern philosophy provides the antidote.” Check it out below.
For the record, I intend to shamelessly steal the techniques she uses in her Summer 2008 video.
Some of her recent work includes a series of c-prints meticulously covered in drops and patterns of hot glue. I was intrigued by them and wrote to her asking about them and she gave me the interesting response of “the hot glue bubbles I think about as an extension of the photographic print, as well as an emulation of the nature of film grain. I think the hot glue is a lot about the process of photography itself, and for me it contributes to the produced or ‘plastic’ quality of the photographic image. The idea that the photographic image is an objective viewpoint (i.e. that the camera just ‘sees’ what it sees and the photographer is merely a passive observer) has plagued photographers throughout the cultural history of the still image. I have been dealing a lot lately with issues of authenticity. In an age of digital photography when any shot can be ‘the’ shot, and we can take literally hundreds of thousands of pictures of the same thing from every angle, we must begin to question whether our cameras are oppressors or liberators of the photographic image. The hot glue is a decorative and illustrative element to signify the end of the ‘age of analog’ and aim to bring new questions to the discourse of authenticity in photography. Does authentic even exist in this digital age?”. I can totally dig it. Hopefully Erin will post more from this project soon.
I’ve never actually met Erin but we keep talking about having a print exchange one of these days. Hopefully it’ll happen soon; Erin graduates this year from Calarts and your boy Rio wants to wish her the best in her next adventure, whatever it may be.
Erin Azouz’ thesis exhibit will run from April 6th to the 10th in Calarts’ L-Shape Gallery. Coincidentally this was also the location of my thesis show. Fancy that! I’m going to try and make it out for her reception. I truly believe Erin is going to be doing big things with her art, get in on the ground floor while you can.
I spent this past Sunday hanging out with my good friends Manny Martinez and Sandra Garcia Rivera. Both Manny and Sandra are singers, writers, and poets whom I met last year while taking photos and doing graphics for their band Benito Cereno. I woke up Sunday morning and while I drank my morning coffee checked my facebook page. I came across a posting by Manny titled Oakland’s Gettin’ Hot, a written piece in reaction to the murder of four Oakland police officers the day before. I left a comment on the note, talking about the profundity of his words, and Sandra responded inviting me to a reading/performance they were both having that day at Rebecca’s Books in Oakland.
I knew I wanted to get Manny’s performance of the piece on video so I grabbed my flip minoHD camera and got on the BART to Oakland. There was a nervous energy in the air when I got out at the Ashby station in Oakland. Walking down the three blocks to the bookstore I felt the nervousness in the air, it was intense.
After the bookstore event I proposed to Manny and Sandra that we travel somewhere so that I could shoot some footage of them performing their recent works. They agreed and Manny picked Lake Merritt in Oakland as the backdrop for the shoot. I spent about an hour filming Manny and Sandra and interviewing them about their relationship and how they relate to the Bay Area as two Puerto Ricans. Below is the pair doing their thing with Oakland’s Gettin’ Hot and Manny’s original text.
Oakland’s getting hot-March 22, 2009
the day after four Oakland police officers were gunned down
Oakland’s getting hot
Four cops shot
bystanders applaud
Oh-lordy lord
Media machine is hummin’
Schwarzenegger’s comin’
To talk to Mayor Dellums
Wonder what he’ll tell ‘em
Four cops shot
Oakland’s gettin’ hot
Crowd starts to chant
“this is for Oscar Grant”
Last cop to die
Was back in ‘99
But how many brothers
Have died within that time
Four cops shot
Oakland’s gettin’ hot
When bodies start to stack
Most of them are black
The man who pulled the trigger
Just another Black man
It’s kind of strange
There was Love in his name
Now Oakland’s gettin’ hot
Four cops shot
To some it means nothin’
To some it means a lot
If you live in Oakland
Please watch your back
Things are getting’ wack
Be careful if your Black.
–
At the end of the shoot Manny brought things to a close with a freestyle.
My original work with Manny is the portrait below that I completed almost a year ago. It’s one of my personal favorites from my portrait series.
[Note: For more videos of Manny and Sandra, please check out my facebook page. I can’t seem to embed facebook videos in wordpress and flickr limits videos to only 90 seconds each.]
I recently went to see Richard Montoya’s Water and Power at Teatro Vision in San Jose. I thought Richard’s writing was brilliant and can’t wait to see what further forms this story takes. After the performance we went to Iguana’s for dinner and I ended up sitting next to Richard. He started a spiel about his one man band, Stink Finger, where he plays the drumsticks.
I told Richard I’d design a Stink Finger logo for him. The dangerous thing about two artists joking around is that they are often capable of following through with their ideas and ridiculous promises. Below is the logo I came up with that very night.
After our meal Richard treated the crowd to an impromptu Stink Finger performance in the parking lot. Richard let his hair down, flanked by staff members of Teatro Vision, and rocked out. My video evidence is below.
This video for Kid Cudi’s song Day n’ Nite was pointed out to me by a recent blog post from my favorite cousin Cat in San Diego. I know we’re family because we both have mad love for Kid Cudi. I had no idea a video had actually been produced for Day n’ Nite (I was under the impression that Heaven at Night was going to be his first video).
As Latinos and Chicanos we have enough drama defining ourselves under those names without further complicating things with terms like “Post” added to the mix. It’s yet to be seen if the idea of Post-Race Art will make it out of its infancy or simply come and go as a fashion trend but the dialogue over its validity has kept me transfixed for the last couple of years.
What makes the images of Raza in Day n’ Nite Post-Latino is that they present images of Latinos that aren’t dependent on any performance of race. This is an almost impossible dynamic to pull off in the mainstream media, Latinos that are semiotically apparent (their appearance, signs in Spanish, the aesthetics of the murals and store interiors) but without the usual tropes, stereotypes, and actions. Compare the images of Brown people in the Day n’ Nite video to recent videos by Beck and Gwen Stefani. Nobody is beating you over the head saying “These are Latinos!” There’s nary a mariachi band, Quinceañera, or cholo in Day n’ Nite. It’s the difference between “Being” and “Portraying”; the difference between an interesting setting and cultural tourism.
Kid Cudi is from Cleveland and the Director, So Me, is based in France so I’m more than a little curious as to where the inspiration for the video’s setting came from. Were the depictions of race by design or unintentional? Is Day n’ Nite a sign of things to come or the result of a unique vision? We shall see in the future.
I think this is the third blog in the last couple of months where I’ve mentioned Kid Cudi. I truly believe he is the next big thing and a creative visionary in mainstream music. As I’ve said before Kid Cudi’s free mixtape Plain Pat + Emile presents: “a KID named CUDI” was my favorite album of 2008 and you can download it at http://www.zshare.net/download/1549107772aa93ea/
What does everyone think? I’m calling out all my usual conversation partners on post-race art and identity: Rocky, Mariela, Cindylu, and Richard. Is this the real deal or am I just overly excited to see images of Latinos that simply aren’t embarrassing minstrel shows?
Much has been written about the differences between myspace and facebook and the implications of class, race, and education that fill the divide. Nothing has signified this paradigm better than facebook not displaying animated gifs on their site. People fleeing bling graphics and the gaudy pimped-out layouts of myspace have found peace and tranquility within the rigid boundaries of facebook.
I can understand the issues that people have with animated gifs. Aside from their mostly vulgar aesthetics that can make your eyes bleed they can also present technical problems as well. Back in the day when I only had a dial-up connection at home (about 3 months ago) I had to avoid the myspace profiles of certain friends because, quite frankly, they filled their pages up with so many gaudy ghetto graphics that the shit would cause my computer to crash. Even now with a solid wi-fi connection too many “100% Sexy Mami”, “Just dropping by to say hi”, and “(insert name of Latin American country) pride” animated gifs will still fuck up my mac.
As a Chicano, I do have strong interest in these graphics that I so frequently condescend to. Animated gifs are the Paño art for the current generation of young people. They are art created with the available tools and resources at their disposal. In this transition they have lost their technical hand made quality in exchange for color, motion, and easy deliverance. Art in magazines like Lowrider, Teen Angel, and Mi Vida Loca have also become outmoded in the rise of the animated gif.
The cultural and social dynamics and ghetto notoriety of the gif has made me interested in artists who work in the medium with this stigma in mind. My favorite is Colombian graphic artist Mariana Rojas (also known as La Furia). Her artwork embraces the gaudy aesthetics of animated gifs and turns them into something bombastic. My favorites are below.
Friday I'm in Love by La FuriaFeliz viernes 13 para ti! by La FuriaAmor Electrico by La Furia
While I was in Los Angeles last week I spent two days digging in the scene with my good friend (and one of my favorite art subjects) Cindylu. I had such a great time with her trying to define the difference between being an aesthetically dedicated Chicano and self-parody. While we waited to see a midnight show of Watchmen, Cindylu brought out her Wii for us to go head-to-head in a couple of games of Mario Kart and Wii Sports.
Before we began playing she showed me her rogues gallery of Miis that she had created or downloaded. Her Miis were of family and close friends and when she offered do create a portrait of me in Mii form I was honored and couldn’t resist. Our roles were suddenly reveresed and I was the subject and she the artist. I was highly amused with the results, especially after seeing the Miis in action while we played against each other. The artistic process is documented below.
This may seem like fun and games but video game portraits are no joke. There was a recent exhibit at SOMArts of avatar based art. Included in the exhibit were four self-portraits by artist Marque Cornblatt that he created from X-Box 360 games with create-a-character features. He presented them on monitors embedded in gold-trimmed frames and hung them on the gallery walls like paintings. The effect was impressive, an animated self-portrait in the guise of traditional flat visual art.
For the record, Cindylu schooled me in every Wii game we played. She knocked me out twice in wii boxing and among other humiliations. I’d say more but my nerd status would be revoked. I need to get a Wii quick to work on my mad skills.
"It was all a dream, I used to read Word Up! Magazine..."
Life is good and I am happy. Yesterday I sold a print of Don Barba to an amazing new art collector and spoke to a Humanities class at San Francisco State University about my artwork. It was my first time publicly speaking about my work outside of a gallery setting.
When I came home I discovered that my homegirl and BFF Ava Alamshah had uploaded polaroids that we had taken of each other while I was in Los Angeles last week. She presents them in a diptych below.
Ava and I have never collaborated formally on any artworks but we’re always up in each other’s mixes. Below is a video I shot and edited of Ava while I was in LA. One of the reasons that Ava is my BFF is that we have the exact same sense of humor when it comes to looking at ourselves and others as artists. We’re serious with a tongue planted firmly in our cheeks.
First and foremost, seeing m-flo’s video for Love Comes and Goes was a good reminder of why I assembled Hybridity in the first place. Frequent collaborators Emi Hinouchi, Ryohei Yamamoto, Emyli, Yoshika, and former member Lisa can be seen singing and walking around this meta-TV station set. The song itself is from their latest greatest hits album: Award SuperNova: Loves Best. I’ve been wanting to share some thoughts on it since I first saw it.
My homey Matt Lopez, a Latino, introduced me to m-flo’s Expo Expo album almost 10 years ago. My interest in hybridity and identity can be traced back to my obsession with Lisa (AKA Elisabeth Narita). When I found out that she was half-Colombian and half-Japanese it changed the way I looked at the world.
I’ve always been in awe of Verbal and Lisa’s ability to code-switch with such ease. As a Chicano, I’m fascinated at how the ability to code-switch affects the way we see ourselves in relation to other Chicanos and Latinos. My experiences in life in having only a pocho’s grasp on Spanish and being able to “act right” have been two of the most influential elements of my self-image.
In terms of how they pull off their code-switching, it’s almost seamless. Take a look at this video and see how easily all of the singers drop English into the mix and then take a look at a reggaeton video and the awkward stiffness of the singers yelling lines like “Baby! I love you! Te quiero!”
I’m not exactly a fan of Lisa’s solo work but whenever she collaborates with m-flo, she kills it. I’ve never heard her sound this intense in a song before and her gaze is haunting. Her look in this video is a huge departure from her early videos with m-flo. During their days as a trio, Lisa often rocked an androgynous look. I always thought it went well with her role in the group, the hooks and choruses she sang were ultra-femme but her rapping was distinctly androgynous. When I first heard her rap on How You Like Me Now? I didn’t make the connection that the second rapper (I get around like sushi on a kaiten!) was also singing the chorus. There’s no trace of that left in her S&M makeup artist outfit in Love Comes and Goes.
Seeing all of m-flo’s friends and collaborators assembled together makes the experience of the video almost melancholy. Maybe it’s the song or maybe it’s my associating sentimentality with a sense of loss and longing. It’s definitely a passing of the torch between Lisa and m-flo’s youngest collaborator Emyli. I’ve been following her blog for about a year now and it’s a curious documentation of her life as both a student and a singer on the verge of superstardom (she blogs in English). Aside from being a tenderoni if there ever was one, Emyli is an interesting hybrid astronaut herself. Her last single, Tekito Lover was an English/Japanese code switching song and the CD single also included her singing the b-side song Look at Me Now in Spanish. It may be crass marketing or a gimmick but I give Emyli her due for reaching out to a new audience.
This is the cover of Emyli’s Tekito Lover single (available for purchase via itunes in the United States). Are the cholo font and Virgin of Guadalupe star burst background just a coincidence? I’ll leave it up to you.
Peace,
Rio
Ps. The green guy from the Love Don’t Cry video is in Love Comes and Goes! I busted out laughing when I saw him walk out of the elevator. Verbal gives him a shove at the very end for good measure!
The text this time around is an homage to Mickey Avalon lyrics. Images generated through pikipimp come out larger than most sites but the clunky interface means a greater investment of time. Regardless, it’s the site I’ve returned to time and again to get what I want.
Graphic Art, Tortillas, Comics, and Troublemaking 