Peevee “The Freelancer”
Doesn’t have health insurance
By Olivia Liendo, Photograph by Emily Anne Evans
March 5th, 2010
Sharp After Dark
By Megan Isaacs
What’s in your window?
Send F an image: artdirector@fnewsmagazine.com
March 4th, 2010
The Artist Inside Out
F asked four SAIC students to show us what an artist would look like through an X-Ray machine. These “Artist Views” are the results…
Noah Atkinson
Cody Petruk
Luke Armistead
Olivia Liendo
February 15th, 2010
Prose and Poetry · Student Voices
Tales from my Fisherman Father (If I follow my hands, can I shake the winter fish from the trees?)
by Rachel Slotnick
In Tiburon, on a Wednesday, I saw a seabird with my father’s face. “Why don’t you get yourself a decent boyfriend?” it cawed. As it flew, it sprouted up and vanished, and it cast a flicker on the sand by my feet, like the limb of a tree, breathing out slowly.
*
On the night before a final exam, I dreamt that my father was eaten by a bear. There was blood everywhere. The bear’s belly bulged, and the very next day that same bear grew an enormous fisherman beard, and complained of uncontrollable cravings for seafood. I didn’t realize I was still dreaming the next day.
*
When I turned seven, my father’s beard filled with silver carp and curls of seaweed. His brown spotted cod eyes scrambled from reef to reef. When he spoke he emitted an enormous gurgling noise, which made everything prickle because it sounded like death. But to me, this was his lullaby. It was the sort of burbling tonality I needed in order to believe in things like that stuff that shifts the clouds.
*
When my father was a child, a shark bit his arm off. He replaced it with a wooden stump. Logically, he became a shark hunter of a fisherman, and he hated all trees for daring to resemble him. Stumps were the worst of the trees for my father, because he knew they were already dead.
*
My father was tormented by winter fish. He saw them everywhere, dangling, ornamenting the trees, reflecting lures chiseling the air, hiccups of green ocean swallowing the sky. I tried to explain that they were only apples. “See, they’re not fish at all,” I said as I plucked a red, ripe one, but his scaly skin tautened, and so, like he had taught me so many times, I threw it back. Like a falling plea, the apple hit the ocean.
*
“My skeleton is shivering,” he said to me once, when his thoughts were cataloguing the winter.
*
One Passover, I brought home a handsome, rich, fish of a boyfriend.
“Is he Jewish??” asked my father, clutching the neighborhood in the palm of his hand.
*
Once, in the Tiburon hospital, I understood my father’s sadness. I tried to tell him so by scooping an octopus and spooning it to him. He slurped it in like an inverted wind. I watched legs and legs and legs swarm, and as they were consumed, they clung to the curls of his silver beard. I had never felt my hands so concretely – so many fingers to follow, so many unnecessary digits. That was when I first noticed it, supple and brimming, a perfect tentacle eroding from the heart of my palm.
*
There we stood, just two humans looking out the hospital window, at the edges of the fish bowl, talking about the weather.
*
My father’s stump arm flailed wildly as the train shook. When it went underground my father got confused. “But, look,” he insisted. “There’s a beautiful glowing fish at the end of the tunnel.”
*
“We’ll call him Charlie,” my father said once of a tremendous rainbow trout, as he gutted it and the paint colors spilled out. The clouds were gray as fish skin. My father wiped the purple blood on his pants, and he said, “Don’t worry, Sweets, he’s already dead.”
*
I knew when the clocks were still in the fish skin sky, and the carp rained down from the dying trees like rotten apples. “Be stilled,” said my father, like fishing for rotten apples. The leaves hummed, and everywhere was tentacles for hearts. I knew then that this was the beginning of something slow.
December 8th, 2009
Strung
by Shane Graber
Walks right up, pulls it from the paper bag. Moves fluidly and
deliberately, like new shag carpeting.
She grabs my wrist, leads my hand right to its white cotton pocket, if
you can believe. I withdraw a long strip of purple construction paper.
“Her scarf. Wants you to put it on her. Brrr.”
“Oh. Okay. There you are.”
Good thing no one watches. So forward and all.
“I think she likes you. Name’s Svatlana.”
Svatlana dangles before me for me. Bad timing. Want to avoid
entanglements. But those coal-dark eyes, woodsy cheekbones. I cave.
“Want to get out of here?”
“Out of where?”
“Not you.”
I reach out and take Svatlana by something.
“Let’s not ruin this with a lot of talk,” I say.
Uncontrollable nodding. She so gets me.
December 8th, 2009
Elaine Sturtevant
By Anne Knight Weber
For the first twenty minutes after I arrive to hear Elaine Sturtevant speak to the Contemporary Art Society at the Art Institute of Chicago, I view a series of the same very short film clips of around a minute each, over and over in a continuous loop.
While the films run, Sturtevant sits low in her chair on the very edge of the stage as far from the podium as possible, wearing a very short hair cut and trousers with a suit coat. Her appearance nearly disguises her gender, until I remember her first name is Elaine.
Funny things happen when I watch Elaine Sturtevant’s short film clips repeating over and over in a continuous loop. I am riveted to what appears to be a formless narrative. At first, I wonder if the films are slightly changed with each repetition, so each time I watch over and over, I am looking for some slight difference. That hand of the man thumbing the money, does he move his fingers differently each time I see the clip again? He doesn’t, so what does change, each successive time the film clip is repeated? When I see the same film clip over and over, what changes about how I view the film? When a film clip is repeated, is the piece different because I see it once again, in another version, which appears to be exactly the same? Will multiple viewings help me to find differences? How do I perceive a film clip that I thought I already viewed? Do I change how I see the piece? Does the piece change each time I see it again? Which time that I experience seeing a work of art will I value my experience the most and why? Do I change my perceptions and what I value about my experience each time I see the same film clip? How is each additional experience a repetition of what I thought I perceived in the first viewing?
If I get annoyed to be watching the same clip over again, why am I annoyed? In each successive viewing, am I having a different experience? If so, how is each experience different from the last?
The rest of the evening continues to be a zany exploration of how repeating an experience makes the original experience different. Sturtevant read from interviews printed in magazines that she had given previously. She selected an influential art critic from the audience to read the part of the influential art critic and Elaine Sturtevant read the part of Elaine Sturtevant, her own part. This both added to the original interview that had appeared in print and had merit standing alone as a current representation of a contemporary artist. Sturtevant seemed to enjoy herself, especially when a student asked a long rambling question and Sturtevant, barely containing her laughter, said, “Please repeat the question.”
September 28th, 2009
Olafur Eliasson
By Anne Knight Weber
THINK YOU UNDERSTAND LIGHTING? DON’T LIKE AMBIGUITY? DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME!
Recipe to change your perceptions:
One square room
Four mirrors mounted in the center of each of the four walls
Four tripods with lights beaming in various strategic directions
Museum of Contemporary Art goers
When I decide to step away, the imaginary world created by Olafur Eliasson’s set up of lights and mirrors disappears right along with me. My image in the mirror disappears for what feels like forever. Will I decide to come back to stand there again and gaze into a mirror to take myself in, or be taken in, by space and time and light? Who will see me there? As the saying goes, I can’t dip my toe in the same river twice.
An electrical cord trails irreverently away from each of four spotlights set high atop a tripod. Look, Eliasson seems to be saying, “No magic here, just an ordinary an electric lamp powered by a cord.” Yet, each light setting in the room plays endlessly engaging games with my notion of my head. Am I the subject of the lighting? Or alternatively, am I imagining myself the one who will use these lights to create an image? Or is another museum visitor the one being observed by me, who is both an observer and part of the scenario? If I stand next to this tripod, does what I experience have to do with where I look? Or is my experience about where I stand in relation to the pool of light?
Each of Olafur Eliasson’s four staged locations in a square room has the exact same deceptively simple ingredients: a tripod holding a spotlight , a round circle of pooled light cast strategically on the wall, the floor or at a mirror, a rectangular mirror and of course, reflections in the mirror. Despite the identical elements, each setting is organized differently, with a different stated goal: observer, spectator, visitor and user. Yet none of the four sets is strictly for one to just observe, or only to spectate, or merely to visit or only to use the space in a square room. Not one of the titles fits one of the areas of the square room precisely for only the one stated goal.
My first move is to stand smack inside the center of a pool of light cast on the floor from a tripod above me. I look around self-consciously. Phew, no one is looking at me, despite the fact I stand in center stage lighting. I can’t see myself and no camera or audience of any kind is aware of me there in the pool of light. I am invisible in a spotlight. I have nothing to do but spy on other museum goers’ interacting with light, space and time. So, I see a young woman enter the exhibit room in the mirror across the room from me. She is not aware I am watching her. I am like a man in a submarine looking through a periscope. I see her image in the mirror, the image bounces off the mirror as through a periscope mirror so that I see her without her being aware of being watched in the mirror. I am at one remove from my subject: a young woman entering the exhibit room. All at once I am using the light by standing in the pool, observing that I am not being watched, being spectator to another visitor and visiting an exhibit.
September 17th, 2009
Why your smartphone won’t work at SAIC
Connecting to the SAIC wireless network via smartphone continues to be impossible, and frustrating. Some students report having figured out how to connect on their own, but the rest of us will have to wait a little longer for support from the CRIT help desk. According to Hiroko Yamamura, Director of School Information Technologies, “This spring we will have a workflow in place to assist with the connectivity of current generation iPhone 3G and iPod Touch products.”
The complications thus far stem from the wireless networking standard used by the school. They use 802.1x, as do many large enterprises and universities, to ensure a secure connection that protects sensitive information from being intercepted. Again, Mrs.Yamamura, “The primary reason we implement this is to permit only authorized Artic account users to access our wireless network and campus network resources and to protect our user’s ARTIC account credentials. Since students may be conducting personal transactions of a sensitive nature (e.g. accessing School records, banking, shopping, etc.) we feel it is important that we take additional steps to ensure that wireless connections provide a level of security which approaches that of physically wired connections.”
Blackberry, Palm and Windows Mobile device support is not currently in the offering. But, it appears users of current model Apple WiFi products will soon be spared wandering the halls of the MacLean Building searching in vain for a cell signal. My next tech question: “Why can’t I ever find a place to plug in my laptop to a power outlet? Really, even in the lounges. WTF?”
June 22nd, 2009
Holography Lab Petition
Following a flood in January that damaged the Neon and Holography labs
in the basement of MacLean, the labs have remained closed all semester
and these areas of the Art and Technology curriculum have been removed
from the Fall 2009 course catalogue. Students have galvanized around
this issue and many who have either taken these classes in the past or
had hoped to in the future are committed to persuading the
administration to rebuild the labs in a timely manner and ensuring that
these unique areas of the curriculum remain intact.
If you would like to see our institution bring back the Neon and Holography labs, please sign below.
Mik Kastner,
Brookhart Jonquil,
Elliott Beazley,
Jeni Crone,
Cait Stephens,
Ashley Moellering,
Laura Rodriguez,
Kelly Stachura,
Allison Jones,
Peter Bowles,
April 23rd, 2009
The Blackest History Month Ever
by QX Roper
Four score, and many centuries ago, my great ancestors were kidnapped from their homes, torn away from their families, robbed of their dignity and given the burden of creating one of the most powerful nations on this Earth. Their children, descendants, and generations to follow carried this painful weight, not comprehending what their contribution would be to this great country called America. Most of them did not understand their identity but all of them understood the struggle.
Today, I find myself laughing at the irony that a century ago a literate black man was to be outlawed, and here I am, an articulate journalist, speaking of how evil white people “used to be.” These comments don’t come from a bitter place of resentment, but if we are to discuss exactly what Black History is, we can’t overlook the past realities of slavery, segregation, racism, prejudice, inequality, lynching, ridicule, gentrification, and psychological deterioration. So how do we define this month and why is it important?
Well, in my opinion, the 28 day holiday serves as an annual reminder that, as a Black American, I must be on my ultimate hustle. To achieve greatness, I have to work 12 times harder than any of my white peers just to be viewed as “equal”. I used to get made fun of for being an overachiever. Most people don’t understand my need to work overtime as my passion to go to school full time. Everyone makes comments about me doing too much. I used to have a part time job at Niketown and had a hard time making friends because being in grad school with high goals and no children while black was a bit odd. But when you experience the true meaning of being Black in America, it’s hard to accept anything less than perfect. You either go hard or go home.
Each February I am reminded of all the ridiculous, unrealistic, “Lifetime: Television Made for Women” BS I had to endure the previous year. At the moment, I am reflecting about my life as an undergraduate at my former school’s Theatre Department. This was a very special place where professors told me that I must minds because being in grad school with high goals and no children, while black, was a bit odd. But when you experience the true meaning of being Black in America, it’s hard to accept anything less than perfect. aster a black dialect because that would be 80% of my work, that I had good auditions but didn’t really quite “fit” any of the roles, and that my type would lead to a career playing stereotypes. I graduated having played a criminal, a servant, a juvenile delinquent, and a voodoo priest in some of their productions. Now, I am at SAIC pursuing a career in journalism.
For someone like me, Black History Month is a time to just think about how corrupt everything is. But it is also an opportunity to inspire change. Oh, yes. There’s that word again, “change”. And thanks to Obama and his incredible league of good doers, the word has been beaten into our skulls. But before we allow it become another cliche term (such as “getting jiggy”) we must really make an attempt to understand what changes can be made. Do you acknowledge security guards on campus? Do you surround yourself with a diverse group of people? Have you ever watched BET? Have you ever been on the south side? Would you ever date someone outside of your race? Do you have any role models who are not white? Did you answer “no” to any of these questions? Are you lying to me? Okay. Now we are getting somewhere.
For the most part, no one takes this month seriously and I doubt anyone in my new setting will be actively engaged in anything beyond Oprah and Obama—but Black History Month is a little bit more than just reading a poster about Martin Luther King Jr. It’s a little bit deeper than knowing that Jackie Robinson played baseball and that Harriette Tubman was a conductor on the Underground Railroad. The bottom line, is that there is no excuse for any American of any race not to take interest in Black History Month because as the McDonald’s commercials say, “Black History is American History”. We should all be very aware of the history of our country included regardless of how uncomfortable it makes us feel. Black History Month is a like a friendly Google reminder that pops up and says “Hey Bucko, Black people are important too!” But do you click on the ads and do a little investigating on the subject or do you merely hit the ignore button?
So I strongly urge you to take a risk in February 2009. Go ahead! You’re in school. Educate yourself. Yes, you might have voted for a Black president but there are still major problems with race in this country and knowledge is the first step in repairing that. Before you can allow yourself to have any spirited reaction to this article, I would hope that it sparked an interest in more information.
And for those of you who have been protesting for a White History Month, may I remind you that every fourth thursday of November we are all forced to celebrate the genocide and extinction of Native Americans… I mean seriously, since when did going away parties become annual?
February 12th, 2009
The financial crisis and where students fit in
November 4th, 2008
