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Friday, June 26, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
strange aftermath
Zach's absence is sorely noted every time I promote the project, talk about the project or look at the project.
A rather odd residual effect came today when the topic of dating came up online with a stranger who had viewed the project. It seems he didn't look at it very closely because he had the impression that my mode of operating romantically was within a capsule relationship. It was neither intelligent nor humorous on his part to make such a blanket statement or assumption.
Am I forever branded with a scarlet "C" for doing this project?
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Today is the real ending.
Today is the day I really say goodbye to Zach as he leaves for camp and a summer without contact. I am heavy with sadness.
This means that I will be dealing with the project alone from this point on. Look forward to:
July 8th: Me speaking about the project at the First Person Arts Salon in Philadelphia
July: The publication of our book on blub.com
July: Publication in Plateform and Burn magazines (hopefully I have the timeline correct here).
Beyond: Possible exhibitions of the photography and audio and venues tba.
Zach's writing on the project, which as yet to be seen will be debuted in the published book.
I don't regret getting so emotionally involved in the project, but boy, this hurts.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
timeline update
The book will be available on blurb.com in two weeks. Please stay tuned for details.
It will be called: Ten Days in the Capsule.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
current events
In the next day or two I will finish uploading all of the audio representing each of the days. The book will be uploaded and for sale on blurb.com in a matter of weeks. Stay tuned.
To come completely clean about the project, Zach and I did become involved around the time of the honeymoon and had been navigating both a real and a conceptual relationship at the same time. When the conceptual relationship ended, the real one became more difficult because there was no script to follow and it was just me as me and him as him. There was often confusion around making decisions between the balance of the workload and our real-life relationship. Now that he is leaving and frantically trying to finish his writing for this project and other things, there is no more room in his life for the real relationship. What is ironic to me is that in the script, I am the one who leaves town and in real life it is he.
I am quite sad that our real relationship had to end in such a weighty and sudden manner. What did I learn from this? Don't pretend to be intimate with someone for the sake of art because real intimacy may get in the way of the work. No, I don't regret getting personally involved at all and I do think it made our scripted relationship more believable. The problem lies with separating the work from the personal. For example, now that it's over I have to proceed with any future presentation of the project (including the book) on my own. I don't have Zach's writing and don't know if I ever will.
Normally when one ends a relationship, there is not a long trail of writing, audio and photographs documenting time together. This is not the case here and for now, these are all sad reminders of what we created and who we were together.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
upcoming....
Burn Magazine online
nocommercialvalue.org
First Person Arts Salon in Philadelphia
Podcasts
The book!
......and who knows what else........
Monday, May 18, 2009
The Real Ending
The time for the real ending of the project is coming up quickly. This is not the ending of the capsule relationship w which already occurred and felt a bit anti-climatic and unresolved, but the ending of a real and working relationship. Because Zach is going away for the summer and has plans that don't sound like staying within proximity of me in the fall, it seems as if our working relationship is finished.
I certainly cannot collaborate with someone who doesn't even have phone or internet for two months this summer!
This is very sad to me because I did (and still do) have grand plans for the project and now I feel that they are squelched because of his absence. I don't feel comfortable taking on the entire project on my own, though at times, I may have to and have already.
I am also losing contact with my friend and partner. This to me is a much bigger loss then the capsule relationship ending. It's going to be a huge re-adjustment to get used a life without him to talk to, plan, work with and hang out with, especially since we've met it's been a constant and intense period of time together.
We learned that by playing a relationship, we actually formed a relationship to both of our surprise.
I am giving this ending a thumbs down.
Friday, May 15, 2009
A Quote from the artist Susan Miller
This is FIVE from "Ten Months"
"She now understands that it is perfectly possible to forget who one has been and what one has accomplished.
Continuing the piece requires great effort. It is her voice. It is her body. It is painful being inside and outside simultaneously."
I couldn't have said it better myself.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
Phase two, finished
We have finished recording our audio impressions of the project and I am hoping we can have them up for public listening in the next week or two.
The audio is a really nice supplement to the blog and photos because we are talking about expectations, things that occurred, feedback and our own emotional involvement. I am really looking forward to having the audio become absorbed into the whole of the project.
Now we are working on putting a book together with the photographs, my writing and Zach's writing. This seems like it may indeed be the final product of the project since Zach is going away and I'm not sure that I want to take on what was a collaborative project myself. This may change or course, but for now the book is the thing.
It is really hard to have such high hopes and ambitions for a project and then realize that they may not be entirely possible due to life situations. As an artist, that is a bitter pill to swallow.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
to reveal
The point of conversation between Zach and I now is primarily revolving around how much to reveal about the depth of the project and its impact and our personal lives. It has totally turned around the way in which I have been considering this project. Now I see that it IS necessary to include personal information in order to talk about the project honestly and show the road that it went down due to some significant outside factors. I think that these facts put the project in a whole new framework and though it may not be ideal or comfortable for us, we need to address all of the factors involved. Yes, I'm being vague....until I figure out how to write about things in an intelligent and graceful manner. I am happy that this river isn't a shallow one.
Monday, May 4, 2009
An influential image for me
When I shot the final picture of Zach and I in the relationship, I had Ingmar Bergman's Persona on my mind. There were so many shots that have stuck in my mind, even though I haven't seen the film in years and years. I think I should take the time to re-watch it now and see if the images are as I remember them. in love with love
Now that the project is over officially, more feedback is starting to roll in. It is something that I really appreciate hearing and actually want to hear more of if you care to share.
I had a very interesting conversation yesterday with a woman who has been following this project since the very beginning and had expressed concern for my emotional well-being in terms of being to separate the fictional from the real because I am not an actor. We discussed how real feelings could evolve out of a fictional situation like a capsule relationship because of the simulation of the real. In her mind, it has to do with the feelings of loving to be in love and having the satisfaction of someone mirroring you and your behavior. This is something that I hadn't thought about before. That Zach and I get along in real life and therefore it was easy to slip into acting out the feelings of love; especially on the third day in the park with the marriage proposal. Being loved fictionally induced real feelings that I wouldn't label as 'love' per se but are more akin to warmth and caring. It's so interesting to me how that if Zach and I had met in real life under real circumstances, we probably wouldn't have formed such a close bond and it's ironic that in playing out the feelings of a real relationship conceptually, we developed actual caring towards the other person. I wonder if under a tight scrutiny, if we somehow started to become the very thing that we were looking at critically in the project?
I love analyzing the complexity of this!
Saturday, May 2, 2009
minor celebrity
I love when Zach and I go out into public together and either of us are recognized through the project. On the receiving end of that, I still feel weird being identified as his conceptual ex-wife and not me, Ellie Brown the artist. (I guess that was the whole problem in the conceptual relationship to begin with; the loss of my personal identity into that of wife and mother). Point taken.
I think Zach doesn't mind being recognized as part of the project as much, but on the other hand he doesn't like his real persona to be as public as I'm used to having mine being. It's becoming an interesting dynamic. Hopefully we'll go back to being Zach and Ellie as people, not characters in a conceptual relationship, though if we pick up more press and exhibits, we may forever be stuck in these roles.
We've started recording our analysis of each day which I would like turned into podcasts. I'll keep info on that posted here. I think the interviews will be a nice addition to the written and visual aspects of the project. Would you subscribe to our podcasts? Yes!
I'm a little apprehensive about Zach going away for the summer to work and leaving me to bear the work load of whatever opportunities may arise for the project. It's not something that we anticipated when we began the whole thing.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
answers to an interview
This is where an upcoming interview will reside, but I can't put it here until it's actually published. Sorry!
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Photo Out Takes
These were taken with my point and shoot camera rather than my 'real' camera but I still like some of them. Here we have Zach and baby Wren, our honeymoon in Atlantic City and our first meal as a married couple at the Philly diner.
Analysis time
Tomorrow Zach and I are meeting to analyze the 'results' of our relationship experiment. We will look at it from both a sociological and cultural context. We have already begun a series of recordings reflecting back on the project, but I feel that it's necessary to delve into it from more of an academic standpoint. It's still not clear to us what form this project will take as he is still working on his writing and I am working on editing the images to send out to galleries, etc.
The other day he mentioned a related project that would be an extension of this concept but not involve us directly. I don't want to get into too much detail here, lest there be idea stealers reading. I do think the idea has potential after-all.
Now is the transition point in our real relationship as collaborators and so on. We still seems to feel the need to hang out and 'do something' related to the project. When we spend time outside of the project and see people, they still assume that we are IN it. I don't forever more want to be known as Zach's conceptual ex-wife. It makes me feel like I AM the character and not myself which must be something akin to being an actor and being called by your character's name in public.
I am still trying to remove myself for the intensity of the project and feel a little post-creative-powerhouse-mode let down. I think it's fair to say that this is not an emotional reaction to the conceptual split, but an actual hole left from a very exciting project in my life.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Closing with this image
Okay, closing the story with this image. I will most definitely be posting out takes from the capsule relationship as time goes on because I can't just leave it alone.
There will also be a lot more writing to come and talk of presentation and editing.
Day Ten: The Custody Battle and the Single Dad
I return from Spain to give Zach custody of Wren and though it's cordial, there is a strong sense of residual longing and regret.
Photos Day Nine: The Seperation
I am leaving for my job in Spain and leaving Zach behind to care for the baby. There is a really strong conflict between me needing to leave/ feeling guilty about leaving and him being very angry with me for leaving but also really wanting me to stay.
The photos are in reverse order.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
The end.
The relationship is actually over but neither of us feel like it is real or feel any real sense of closure. Tomorrow I will sort through the zillions of photos I took of us separating, me leaving, the custody situation and Zach as a single dad. I don't think that will make it feel more over either. Today we also recorded audio about how we feel about the project and our different expectations, etc. I think it's a really interesting 30 minute conversation which I would like to include in some future presentation of the project, but it still doesn't feel over. Maybe we are just too nice to each other and too close in our real life relationship to have really gotten into the awful feeling of the separation and the end. Maybe if we had really duked it out it would feel more final. We fought half-heartedly here and there but it wasn't enough to really get me upset or actually emotionally affected by it. I know that I did not want to be emotionally affected by the end, but I DO want to feel the end. Closure beyond the photographs seems important. I am at a loss right now. Maybe when this week goes on and I have nothing to plan or photograph I'll start to feel the void. Maybe I'm just in the denial stage right now.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Preparing for the end: Day Nine and maybe Ten
I feel utterly reluctant to bring this project to an end, but I knew it was ending before it began. There is no surprise here, it was written in the script. I think I am just involved with it so deeply that it's going to be hard to leave it behind. What will I do with all of my creative brain power after it is done? Ha.
Will I miss planning and preparing? Yes. I might even miss the uncomfortable parts where the real and the conceptual crossed over. I will also oddly miss calling Zach my husband. Though he and I will continue to work on polishing the presentation of this project, it won't be quite the same.
So....tomorrow is day nine which may be the last day or we may make it an even ten. Either way, this IS the end.
The story is that I've been resenting baby Wren and my unwilling attachment to him as his mother. The pressure was getting to be too much and Zach and I were bickering a lot. I wasn't making any progress in my career and when I was offered a professorship in Spain, I decided to take it as a break from the situation at home. This is where we will pick up; me leaving the husband and baby to go to Spain.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
about Day Eight
Day eight in a seven day relationship; we think there are just two more to go but sorting out the details is proving to be really difficult. How does one talk about staging a divorce? We have ideas but differ on the post-divorce ending. It will be interesting to see how it unfolds.
In short, (in character), the baby was NOT something I wanted but I had it anyways. As I'd mentioned before, the baby Wren was draining me in ways I never expected and left me only as his mom, not as Ellie the artist. He was always needing something leaving me no time for anything. Yes, I tried to sleep when he slept but I still could not do things like work on my art or look for a job. This baby is driving a wedge between Zach and I. I don't feel like I'm getting the support I need from him and he's feeling really possessive about his time with the baby. Maybe I am too, though secretly I wish Zach was able to just care for Wren on his own. Zach and I haven't had an adult conversation about anything besides the baby in forever. This is not why I married him.
Now to write out of character: There was actual tension between Zach and I in spending the day with the baby. He even at one point tried to goad me into a fight, but I didn't engage (though that just ended in a staring contest and me laughing). It's hard to actually fight because we are not there in real life, but it is easy to feel the tension a baby might bring between us.
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The thing that's missing is weeping. Somewhere, at some point, even in angry or combative public displays (which also seem to be normative for separations, etc), there is weeping by at least one party. Weeping and utter heartbreak...
You're right though I was trying to stay away from cliche. We talked about crying and I tried to shoot photos of myself crying but they just looked stupid.