READINGS

1. The Kitsch on Wikipedia
2. Excerpts from The Artificial Kingdom by Celeste Olalquiaga (Reference: Amazon, CMU Library, Low Quality Scans: here)

I revisited the photographs of my project, and tried to go along with my concept of discomfort and awkward intimacy. I found people to model for me so that I could take the pictures. )When you ask people to model for you, sometimes they make strange faces when you tell them to look uncomfortable.)

I took shot of different groups of people, and this was my most successful picture.

Although seemingly ‘cute’ or ‘kitch’ at a first glance, this piece was geared towards a more morbid concept: death as an alternative meaning for the word, “sleep”. More specifically, it explores the role of food as a method of processing death for the sake of human indulgences. But what I found most interesting about food–such as the Japanese sushi dishes–was how a medley of dead animals can be neatly arranged in an almost ‘natural’ fashion on a plate – regardless of whether they were actually from the same hemisphere, or the same cubic kilometer of ocean. This unification of the different species in their final stage of rest is what makes them ‘strange bedfellows’ indeed.

When I was a kid, I used to have nightmares that a big black dog would come eat my dreams, and that’s why I could never remember any of my dreams in the morning.  So I created this padded sort-of-helmet, which would protect me and my dreams while I slept.

Sleep is an unconscious, vulnerable and unknowing state of which we all experience daily. This soft sculpture piece connects the sleeping, unconscious world to the alert and awake world. The photo series shows the process of a full sleep (the intact sleeping mask placed over both models’ eyes) to a half sleep as represented by a split, overly plush and exaggerated mask. The winding fabric in between not only links the models but represents the unpredictable state from the experience of sleeping. It is a connection to the unknown. In a way, this piece gives security to the models, as well as my audience, by only blinding one eye as opposed to sleeping with both eyes blinded.

GET STARTED Now!

SURG Deadline:  October 24, 2012

Research Support is Available for all Disciplines–the Humanities, Social Science and Arts, Business, Computer Science, Engineering, and the Sciences

Informationand Proposal Submission:  www.cmu.edu/uro

NOTE:  SURG Proposal Writing Sessions

Wednesday, October 10   12:00-1:00 p.m.  UC/Rangos 3
Wednesday, October 17    4:30-5:30 p.m.   UC/Peter/Wright/McKenna Rooms

Small Undergraduate Research Grants (SURG) are open to ALL undergraduates in any discipline, freshman-seniors.  Grants are available of up to $500 for single entries and up to $1,000 for group entries to cover such things as the costs of supplies and materials, time on laboratory equipment, or travel toanother city for archives.

The deadline for Spring 2013 SURG proposals is Wednesday, October 24th at 5:00 PM .  Apply online at www.cmu.edu/uro/.  We strongly recommend that you attend the SURG Proposal Writing Sessions.  It is the quality of the proposal that determines who is selected. We are also available to review a draft of your proposal: URO Director, Stephanie Wallach (sw4s@andrew.cmu.edu)  or URO Assistant Director, Jennifer Keating Miller (jkeating@andrew.cmu.edu), no later than October 22th.  Please contact them by email to make an appointment.

Make a contribution.  Work with a mentor.  Follow a passion.  Develop an idea.  Solve a problem.  Create, build, perform, discover. 

Apply for SURG.

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