RHIZOME COMMISSIONS 2010
Quotidianity/Cotidianeidad

PROJECT PROPOSAL
We tend to think that our daily lives are seemingly uninteresting. However, the success of web technologies such as Facebook and Twitter which turn the everyday into the center of attention indicates that we are, actually, interested in the mundanity of others, demonstrating a posture of digital voyeurism.

Quotidianity/Cotidianeidad will visualize this everyday living in a publicly accessible website (www.quotidianity.com and www.cotidianeidad.com) via short (1-3 minutes) video and sound bits of a diverse (with regards to culture, language, age, profession, and socioeconomic background) group of people. My goal is not necessarily to document each hour of the day for every person displayed, but instead focus on a number of representative times and moments throughout the day.  The media pieces will not be straightforward video documentation, but will be treated and edited as individual video/sound art works.

Phase 1
The project will start off in Guatemala in June 2009 when I travel to the village of San Lucas Tolimán for an ongoing university project with a group of Mayan weavers.  During my residency in San Lucas I will, in collaboration with some of the artisans, document their lives (providing them previous training and the equipment.)  In previous workshops with this group of women it has become clear to me that in addition to the obvious socioeconomic differences there are subtle, yet interesting, elements I hope to capture such as their value of time and the overall pace of their everyday.

Quotidianity/Cotidianeidad will continue in Fall 2009 in New York City as I document my own daily life, as well as of people who have very different lifestyles – my students, my cleaning lady, friends in the corporate world, a struggling artist, and even someone recently unemployed.

In December 2009 I will be traveling to my hometown of Bogotá, Colombia where I will collaborate with and document a wide variety of people in my local network.  My upper class retired parents, my artist friend, and my parents’ maid are just some examples of the variety of individuals I plan to include.

Phase 2
Once the website launches, I expect to receive video uploads from the general public, based on guidelines available on the site.  I will broadcast the project as broadly as possible, since diversity in the submissions is key to my thesis.  For this reason, I have secured domain names in English and in Spanish (with both pointing to one bilingually designed website.)

The media on the website will be organized by hour and day (ie. Monday, 7AM; Thursday, 8PM) such that viewers can selectively navigate the documentation, either choosing to watch all videos from one person, or sorting by “Day of the Week”, and/or by “Hour.”  The splash page of the site will always display media representing the actual local time of the viewer, creating an instant, yet every changing, connection between the user and the content.

Like many of my other media projects, I see this project as beginning in 2009 yet ongoing without a definite end date.  I will be interested to explore alternative formats for its exhibition (multi-screen or interactive video installations, for example) and I will submit it to appropriate venues after Phase 2 initiates.

PRODUCTION TIMELINE
2009

• June: Recording & digitization of footage in Guatemala
• July/August: Recording & digitization of NYC footage
• September – November: Website design & coding – soft launch (start receiving submissions from the general public)
• December – January: Recording & digitization of Bogota footage

2010

• February: Full launch of website (broadcast via email, blogs, listserves, etc.)
• Start project submission for alternative venues for exhibition and screening.
• Submissions from the public will be ongoing and fed into the larger video database of the website

The project continues after the initial one-year period as an ongoing database of everyday video captures (both of myself, people I know and meet, and the general public.)  After the initial period I will also actively continue to disseminate this work, both in academic and artistic venues.

PROJECT BUDGET
Artist Fee: $2000 (for video digitizing & web coding)
Website domain & hosting for 1 year: $119.40 (quoted with dreamhost.com)
2 Video cameras and microphone rentals (3 months): $5400 (quoted with adorama.com)
TOTAL: $7519.40

Requested from Rhizome:     $3819.40
Other Sources:                      $2700 (1 set of equipment provided by The New School)
Unconfirmed Sources:           Funded one-semester leave from The New School to focus on my creative    practice

RESUME
Click HERE for my Bio and HERE to read my Resume.

WORK SAMPLES
Voicemail Diaries (2009): An ongoing audiovisual compilation of voicemails left on my answering machine(s).  The editing process is a memory trigger and the inserted text then serves as a journal through which people can read (and listen.)  What are everyday messages and potentially private are extended, and decontextualized, in a much more public realm.

28 Days – Week 2 (2007): In the 2nd week of this month-long daily-video project I recorded whatever was happening in front of my laptop’s camera between 3:00 and 3:01 pm.

thenewschoolcollaborates.com (2008-present): A blog that I started and on which I am the principal author that documents an ongoing collaboration between The New School faculty and students (I am the faculty coordinator for the project), the international humanitarian organization CARE, and a Mayan weavers association in Guatemala, Ajkem’a Loy’a.  (The link is directed to a blog entry on the Pricing workshop, in which the artisan women and our students each visually showed a typical day, hour by hour.  It is during this workshop that the conceptual framework for this Rhizome Commissions proposal began.)

All About My Mother (ode to Almodovar) (1999): A video and sound art work that takes an everyday action (making the crust of a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving) and extends it into a much more important and meaningful sequence of moments.

slippingglimpse (2007): A 10-part generative Flash poem combining videos of ocean patterns with text. The work introduces three modes of reading: fullscreen, high resolution, and scroll-text.