Charisse Baker

STICKS: IN COLLABORATION WITH NATASHA SOLOMONS / 2009- 15 MINS / THE ARENA – OXFORD BROOKES

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 09:27:53 +0000

In a dimly lit room, two initiators place their fingers on either end of a thin stick and apply pressure in order to hold it off the ground. They walk onto a clay circle in the centre of the room, introducing movement while balancing and exploring the weight of the stick between each person. One person prepares to leave, offering their end of the stick to a viewer. The viewer becomes a participant. There is a feeling of connection, equality, subtly explored through the instruments of light, clay and sticks. Other viewers become participants by taking sticks that lean vertically against one wall, connecting to one another while walking over the circle. Minutes later, some participants engage with multiple sticks and multiple people. Eventually everyone in the group is connected to everyone else. Sticks begin to fall, at which point the participants stop and walk to the edges of the room. Lights slowly come up, allowing observation of the aftermath: shoeprints in clay.

CLAY: AN INSTRUMENT / 2010 / THE ARENA – OXFORD BROOKES

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 19:22:31 +0000

A plastic window in one side of a cardboard box allows viewers to look inside at a centrally placed mound of terra cotta covering a lit torch. Two cutout corners on opposite sides of the box make it possible to reach inside. Self-elected participants reach into the box and begin to shape the clay, warming it with their hands, but they’re unable to see what they’re creating. Viewers can see, but whether they can or will impact the blind process going on inside the box remains in question. What relationships, if any, will develop with non-participants watching the participants at work? Will those who can see make suggestions or will viewers remain passive? Aspects of the presentation resemble a television but what happens inside and around the box is an interactive theatre, a live model in which the roles of creators and viewers of media are explored.

MIRRORING: A PROCESS IN PERCEPTION / 2010 / MA STUDIO – OXFORD BROOKES

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 19:00:51 +0000

The underpinnings of how we view ourselves and others, and ourselves in relation to others are made visible in an intimate and sometimes challenging process of seeing. A circle configuration with chairs facing one another is arranged with mirrors set up behind the chairs. Participants are told that they can stop participating at any time, and each step in the process is introduced as an invitation rather than a directive. The artist is present in each step and performs the same actions as the participants. One: participants are invited to “see” each person without words. Two: participants are invited to turn the chair around and see themselves in the mirror. Three: participants are invited to use the mirrors to see themselves in relation to others in the room. Four: participants are invited to see the group with their eyes closed. These steps are performed in a different order with groups of varying numbers. Deceptively simple in phrasing, the steps become anything but simplistic as the artist and participants confront themselves in one another’s eyes, a feeling at times both painful and beautiful. Each time a new group participates a different energy is created, often magical and uplifting but sometimes uncomfortable, disconcerting. While documentation of the process—reflections multiplied—could be visually sublime, residue of the work is diagrammed later on a chalkboard, enabling more anonymity and present awareness for the participants. Simple chalk lines document the movement of connections, awareness and relationships that occurred throughout the process. If Social Sculpture explores the possibility of “oneness” within society, the human gaze is undoubtedly a social phenomenon that highlights both the challenges and the potential of this exploration.

HARVESTING TIME: A COLLECTIVE / 05.2010-09.2010 / IN & AROUND THE CITY OF OXFORD

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 00:52:44 +0000

I imagined: an organism, without a director. A way to push personal boundaries, multiply potentialities. An alliance based neither on politics nor ego. Non-hierarchical creation and engagement with others resulting in new thought, new action, mobilization.

Aims: individual, collective and project sustain and enhance one another. Projects realized by the collective will develop their own identity, which emerges in the field/space between the individual and the collective identity. Authorship transforms into the understanding of co-authorship—thinking, dialogue, and action in the service of the project’s embodiment.

LOST JOURNEYS: AN ON-GOING COLLABORATION / INTERNATIONAL

Sun, 19 Sep 2010 20:06:47 +0000

The Lost Journeys Travel Agency is a collaborative project of five Oxford and London based artists—Clare, Charisse, Jo, Nimmi and Richard—that asks the questions: Is there a journey you didn’t take, but always wish you had? And what if you found something on a journey you never had planned? Together with our participants, we explore ways of (re)connecting with those stories, events and potential experiences that are present in our minds but have yet to materialize. Each exploration is an attempt to retain the precious memories of things that never happened and relate to a world that is still full of undiscovered paths and journeys. Anyone and everyone can join the project via submissions to our website or by meeting us during our interactive film screenings, random walks and story collection days. Upcoming and past events, as well as archives of stories can be found on our website: www.lostjourneys.co.uk.

Random Walks / Film Screenings / Story Collection

All documentation by Craner.

MOVING IMAGE: FINDING CONNECTIVE PRACTICE IN VIDEO / 2010 / INTERNATIONAL

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 20:21:44 +0000

ENCOUNTERS
ranging from the anticipated—transforming city landscapes at night—to the unexpected: a revealing discussion and impromptu reversal of the roles of filmmaker and audience in an underpass.

PALMS
It began in a dark alley. Outside the Portabello Film Festival in London, with a tiny projector that clipped onto my phone, I began performing experimental micro screenings of a work-in-progress. There I was in an alley, and people were attracted to my tiny projections like moths to light. I felt a certain vulnerability speaking with people at night, a feeling shared as people offered me their palms as the backdrop for my projections, committing themselves to holding something ephemeral for the duration of each screening. Some people said there was a real weight in the image, perhaps referring to the warmth of light. I was struck by the way the image itself became warmer when projected onto skin. Images moved across the viewer-participant’s lifelines, creating an intimate encounter that momentarily collapsed divisions between private and public space. Dialogue emerged from the raw, unfinished aspects of the film. Shared responsibility in the outcome of an experimental process created openness between myself/artist and the participants that would have been hard to create in a more traditional context. Projecting onto people’s palms is an ongoing project.

BUS STOP
Bus passengers who sat waiting for a new driver to take over were shown films on our mobile phones. A great way to engage people quickly, these screenings were part of the Lost Journeys Travel Agency’s series of guerrilla projections and my own ongoing exploration of how to change power situations in media presentation and consumption.

WESTGATE MALL
I brought my pocket projector to the underpass just as the sun was going down, despite warnings that this was “not a safe place to go at night,” and encountered a group of teenage girls who were swearing at its entrance. I started playing a film, but questions and confusion about my intentions and the technology being used seemed ready to derail the screening. In response, I invited the girls to use my mobile phone to make short films of their own, projecting their stories right back on the spot. Audience became filmmaker and I became the audience. What began as a discussion about the technology being used evolved into a larger discussion about how films are distributed and consumed. Mass media tells us that people pirate films to “steal” but upon reflection it seemed to me that these girls and others like them are trying to live beyond their means—responding in their own way to the power dynamics of authorship and consumption that I’ve explored in my own work.

MICRODOCS / DOCUMENTATION / MOVING IMAGE

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 20:56:37 +0000

*Video coming soon.

These video enquiries as a whole reflect an effort to make films in a democratic, non-hierarchical way that diverges from traditional filmmaking practices. A move away from clearly defined roles is implemented in order to give a sense of ownership to the individuals involved in each film’s creation, including participants. In this conception of filmmaking, dialogue, questions, relationships and new experiences are favoured over premeditated storylines and imagery. By treating moving images as a working space rather than a finished product, the process of capturing, layering, and re-capturing images becomes a path of discovery and a point of entry for all involved, empowering creators, viewers, and participants to explore ideas that extend beyond a film’s creation and consumption.

	2010 INSIDE THE HIVE MICRODOC / DOCUMENTED IN OXFORD 09.2010 / 08:15 MINS Documentation of ‘Inside the Hive,’ a project by Daivd Grutzmacher bringing together contemplative enquiry, undisturbed bee colonies and conversation. In collaboration with Craner & Troy Adam Gordon.
	2010 CONVERGENCE MICRODOC / DOCUMENTED IN ESSEX 09.2010 / POST PRODUCTION Documentation of UK Permaculture Convergence 2010. TBD

	2010 LOST JOURNEYS MICRODOC / DOCUMENTED IN OXFORD 08.2010 / 06:37 MINS Documentation of an ongoing collaborative art project by London and Oxford based artists. In collaboration with Craner & Troy Adam Gordon.

	2010 QUESTIONS OF SUSTAINABILITY EXPERIMENTAL DOC / FILMED IN HAIDA GWAII 08.2010 / 10:03 MINS Images, interview and conference call documented during a journey to Haida Gwaii. Local resident talks about the Haida community and concerns regarding the Northern Gateway Pipeline. In collaboration with Craner & Troy Adam Gordon. Art Statement

	2010 CAMP0 MICRODOC / DOCUMENTED IN GLOUCESTERSHIRE 06.2010 / 1:29 MINS A participatory weekend exploring culture, change and the limits of global growth. Narration by Andy Freedman. In collaboration with Craner and Troy Adam Gordon.

	2010 RICK MICRODOC / DOCUMENTED IN WATTS, CALIFORNIA 01.2010 / POST-PRODUCTIONS Short conversation with Social Sculpture Artist Rick Lowe. TBD

	2010 JUAN EXPERIMENTAL DOC / FILMED IN LOS ANGELES 01.2010 / 07:27 MINS Conversations with ‘Juan,’ film maker, artist, professor, architect etc. In collaboration with ‘Juan’ and Troy Adam Gordon.

	2010 NEVA MICRODOC / DOCUMENTED IN CANADA 01.2010 / 4:55 MINS Conversations with Neva Murtha on visible and non-visible art materials. In collaboration with Paul Griggs and Troy Gordon.

QUESTIONS OF SUSTAINABILITY STATEMENT

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 20:31:15 +0000

In June, 2010, first nations municipalities in Haida Gwaii, an ecologically unique group of islands located off the northwest coast of British Columbia, made an unanimous statement in opposition to the coastal tanker traffic that will result if Enbridge’s proposed 1,170 km ‘Northern Gateway’ pipeline is realized. The proposed pipeline will flow more than half a million barrels of crude oil a day from Alberta’s oil sands to the Great Bear Rainforest area, crossing through the sensitive watersheds of the upper Fraser, Skeena, and Kitimat. From Kitimat, super-tankers will then navigate the Douglas Channel and around the coastal archipelago and islands known as Haida Gwaii to the open sea. Proponents of the project cite the benefits of job creation and growth in an economically depressed region. Detractors see these as short-term gains not worth the long-term ecological costs of a potential oil disaster along this sensitive coastline.

The economic scope of the project and the environmental repercussions are enormous, so why was it that I didn’t learn about the scale of the oil issues facing the northern coast of my province until I moved out of my home country? How can I highlight these issues to my friends back home who are working in one capacity or another for the oil sands? Is it possible to engage with a new place without being a tourist? Can I open a conversation with limited personal knowledge of the topic at hand, creating work broadens my own understanding while enabling others to imagine new ways of relating to the environment?

Questions of Sustainability is my response to these, and other questions, that formed far from home. I was interested in several things before I left London to visit Haida Gwaii. What, for instance, did local communities really think about the proposed tanker traffic along their coast? How correct was the media? Over the course of my M.A. in Social Sculpture, I had become increasingly interested in dialogue as an expanded art practice and had committed myself to exploring the transformative potential of questions. In filmmaking one needs to build a story in advance, but in order to document an honest impression of place, I abandoned preconceived ideas and structures and tried to suspend judgment on the people and place and the issues they were facing. I was concerned with facilitating a film that had the potential to touch on sensitive cultural issues in a place where I was practically an outsider, despite it being within my own province.

While in Haida Gwaii, I followed a Skype conference with Enbridge—a press call about an oil spill that had happened only a few days before with one of their pipelines. At the same time, I was looking at their website and press releases saying that the chance of an oil spill with them in Haida Gwaii was next to zero. And then I could see this pristine coastline through the window. I felt like I was in many places at once. I tried to embody that feeling in the film, by editing the audio of the recorded conference call with the visual speed of trees filmed from my passing car. I mixed what could be seen during my own physical journey, with a local face and voice, with what could be seen and heard via media and the Internet. My own feeling of disembodiment was reflected in the connections and disconnections between these juxtaposed sounds and images. I wanted to invent another kind of space, one that gave the viewer room for their own questions. Why this? Why that? I intercut the film with darkness, “spaceless darkness”, allowing for a kind of contemplation for the viewer. In the end, I hope the form and process behind Questions of Sustainability leaves the viewer craving more, compelling them to pursue their own journey of research and questioning after it ends.

This work was first shown at the 10 Afoot Festival of Interdisciplianary Arts-Oxford Brookes University. www.10afoot.org

PASSING: A 12 MONTH RESPONSE / 09.2009-09.2010 / INTERNATIONAL

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 21:02:05 +0000

2009 DEC 5 / EXPERIMENTAL MOVING IMAGE AND AUDIO INSTALLATION / THE ARENA-OXFORD BROOKES / 07:05 MINS

+ 2010 / ENCOUNTERS / INTERVENTION / WITH LOST JOURNEYS / PALMS / FRIEZE ART FAIR

Can memories of the deceased captured by technologies like text messaging and Facebook trap us in our grieving or can we use them to help us confront the confusing paradox of attachment to those who are no longer present in our lives? How does one make the medium of film malleable? By integrating a myriad of technologies in a stark environment with a presentation that literally asks the viewers to ‘back into a corner’ to see the work, these questions are explored and embodied. Unmasked moments near the beginning and end, a filmed sequence of events, movement in static images, and muffled sounds (intercoms, nurses, laughter, music, talking) evoke a sense of losing control in a situation where one has none. An awkward invitation to explore personal grief without sentimentality makes possible a surprising side effect: strangers come together, creating a corner of heat.

2009 PAPER / TRANSFORMATIVE PROCESS & GESTURE / CULTIS LAKE, CANADA

Hair on a person’s head is beautiful. Hair unattached to the head is not. Birth is beautiful. Dying is not. Why? What endures after physical death? How can loved ones carry the deceased forward? In a personal ceremony, ‘dead and ugly’ materials: a mother’s hair, dried up condolence flowers, and paper pulp, are placed around a Canadian lake and transformed into grieving tools of beauty and functionality. Paper is warmed by the hands and hearts of loved ones in the presence of Mother Nature and a mother’s spirit. Messages are written and left to dissolve into the environment.

2009-2010 FOUND JOURNEYS / INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION / STILL IMAGE + MOVING IMAGE / ONGOING

A collaboration with Jaimes Baker, Steven Baker, John Stott, Kelly Frink, Jesse Sanerud, Pat Piggot, and Zach Browman, Still Image + Moving Image was born of a decision to spread my mother’s ashes around the world with the help of traveling family and friends. Personal in impact, but social in effort, each journey takes the living and the deceased to places where neither could go without the other. One such journey can be found at http://www.kunst-am-gau.de/lostjourneys/?p=2431. Click on ‘found journeys’ and then ‘Penelope in Kyoto.’

2010 SEPTEMBER 17TH

The closing gesture in a year-long series of projects and processes through which I attempted to understand and respond to my mother’s death, September 17^th was a day of motion and creation based on the idea that one has to look inward to act outwardly and see outside oneself to transform inside. Friends gathered by the Thames River and members of the public were invited to join in creating beads and other forms from a lump of clay placed on a bamboo mat. A contact improvisational dancer and friend moved amongst strangers, welcoming people into our public/private space, where clay and simple actions became catalysts for dialogue. We passed through the city of London carrying a vessel of beads, dancing and placing our clay forms in new areas. September 17^th was made possible by collaboration with Troy Allen Gordon, Angela Nielsen, Espirito Santo Mauricio, Craner, and passersby.