Radio Name, a Kind of Loss or Heartache
An HTML text poem as digital projection, first presented as part of Digital Lion, an evening of computer art at Baktun, New York City.
View low resolution images of the slides (black and white version):
View low resolution images of the slides (color version):
Video Sample:
Note: This work is video only, (there is no audio.)
Radio Name, a Kind of Loss or Heartache
Project Description:
On the internet there is a bit of text code named for the physical buttons used on older car radios to select preset stations – when one of the buttons was pressed, other buttons would pop out, leaving the pressed button the only button in the “pushed in” or chosen position.
Sometimes when you are filling out an on-line form you are asked to click on little buttons to indicate a choice between one of several possibilities. These elements within HTML web forms are called Radio Buttons, and if you look at the source code each one is actually only a piece of text and will have a “name” and a “value” ascribed to it.
As I was teaching myself HTML for the first time, and looking for examples of forms to better understand them, I ran across the code for a form which was a long on-line survey for some company that sold vibrators and sex toys. They wanted to understand their customers in order to serve them better.
As I looked at the source code, I was struck by the word “value” which is part of programming language but can relate to money and commerce, can also be used to indicate that which we as human beings care most deeply about, on a fundamental level.
Reading further through the code I felt a sudden overwhelming sense of sadness at the human condition. Not a disgust for the subject of the survey but rather a heightened awareness of the isolation people can suffer from and the genuine emotional needs that bring people together.
Many elements of the code seemed to be speaking with multiple meanings. Even practical and mundane elements of the survey such as a button at the end for anyone who had accidently made errors, which was labeled “I need to start again” seemed also to reference a lonely soul.
Radio Name, A kind of loss or Heartache is a revealing or a making visible of the original hidden text of the HTML source code for that sex survey, with edits and alterations which both break the code and add to its poetic meaning.
It is presented as a series of slides in either 800×600 pixel resolution on a computer monitor or alternately on a DVD as 640×480 pixel SD video resolution output. It has also been presented in two different iterations, one in color and the other in black text on a white background. In the color version the blue of the text refers to color coding in HTML text editors and the red of the background alludes to the lurid quality of the original survey.
Presented as part of Fashioned, The Runway Show, an art runway show featuring half a dozen artist designers, and which included outfits designed by Paul Clay and Adriana Arenas, presented with agency models. Produced in conjunction with Fashioned, a group show, at White Box art gallery, New York City.
Partial photo documentation of the Fictive section of the runway show:
Polaroids of Fictive model try-ons and dress form work:
Project Description:
At the end of an earlier project, Fictive an art and Fashion Event (or Fictive Runway), a number of pieces of women’s fashion crafted from bedspreads purchased in Chinatown were not ready to be exhibited. When approached by White Box to participate in this event, we decided to finish the works and then present them as a “group”, for Fashioned.
These works explored industrially produced off-the-shelf products which still contain some hidden trace of the actual craft objects they were manufactured to replace. It is an attempt to find hidden beauty in things usually dismissed as kitsch.
Credits:
Conceived and Produced by Paul Clay
Outfits Designed by Paul Clay and Adriana Arenas
Drapery and Pattern making by Lise Kovar
Makeup by Yukiko Takagi
Photography by Tukuru Asada
Models:
Aysel
Greta
Jen
Kamila
Keith
Marg
Lea
Fictive Runway, An art and fashion event
A line of fashion made from a wide variety of everyday materials and products. Everything from plastic table cloths, to bed spreads, to children’s jump ropes, gets incorporated into actual wearable clothing. Presented at The Tunnel, 27th Street and 12th Avenue, New York City, Thursday, September 18, 1997. Sponsored in part by the Downtown Arts Festival.
GROUP 1. Six (6) outfits, Plastic Table Cloths/Car Upholstery
GROUP 2. Ten (10) outfits, Curtain/ Mattress Fabric & Digital Prints
GROUP 3. Three (3) outfits, Little girls dresses worn on the front of the body with latex backs
GROUP 4. Three (3) outfits, Jump Rope Dresses
GROUP 5. Three (3) outfits, Rug Stop & Digital Prints
GROUP 6. Five (5) outfits, Bed Spreads from Chinatown
Project Description:
In an earlier age the majority of people on the planet lacked financial resources to buy clothing worn by the upper classes, yet they had traditional clothes made of natural materials, and with the use of generations-old craft techniques and the devotion of time toward the making, they had clothing of great beauty.
With the coming of the industrial age of mass production and global cultural homogenization, many of these traditional techniques got washed away in the flood of inexpensive Euro-american material culture items. As a result most of the poor around the world wear and use cheap synthetic fabrics and products. Things made of natural materials through craft processes are hugely expensive, and only the rich can afford them.
Often the artificial products look like the worst of Western culture, but sometimes these synthetic objects mimic the beauty of the original natural craft products they came to replace. Plastic tablecloths printed or cut with a lace design, machine quilted acetate bed spreads, plastic jump ropes with a cork screw pattern to imitate braiding, all are examples of such products.
Recreated in these new materials they have been read by most arbiters of taste as either undesirable abominations or as interesting kitch objects, but to the people who use them they are not kitch, but rather the most beautiful objects they can afford. Further, despite the apparent loss of local culture, indigenous communities are the ones from which the original material culture arose and so the new cheap synthetic materials sold in these markets eventually begin to absorb and reflect earlier cultural aesthetics which might seemingly have been lost. Cheap everyday synthetic products containing some jewel or trace of little recognized aesthetic value form the basis for this fashion/art project.
The event is in the form of a fashion show with six groups of clothing each based on a different set of everyday synthetic products used as raw material from which to make the clothing. These include plastic table cloths, car upholsteryfabric, curtain and mattress fabric, Little girl’s dresses from 14th st., children’s jump ropes, rug stop (the material put under rugs to keep them from sliding) and quilted acetate bed spreads from Chinatown. Accompanying the show is video art reflecting the aesthetic. The idea is to explore the grace inherent in these materials through the medium of fashion, and to put forward a new set of notions about beauty and elegance by juxtaposing the origins of the materials with the carefully crafted qualities in clothing’s finished form.
It may be made from a plastic table cloth but we hope you’ll wish you could wear it. – Paul Clay ‘97
CREDITS:
Conceived and Produced By Paul Clay
Clothing Designed By Paul Clay and Adriana Arenas
Lise Kovar – Draper and Pattern maker
Diego Valencia – Additional Pattern maker
Thomas Miller – Executive Coordinator
Jeannie Yi – Key Coordinator
Reiko Catakura – Illustrator/Coordinator
Naomi Sebu – Additional Coordinator
Frances Sorensen – Make up Concept
David Hicky – Hair Concept
David Newman – Choreography
Rick Murray – Technical Associate
Mike Shlafer & Scott Laully – Set design and technical help
Jamie Leo – Invitation and Program Design
Stephanie Diamond – Assistant to Paul Clay
Lisa Salvador – Assistant to Lise Kovar
Sewing:
Soyeon Kim
Charlott Corday
Jennifer Clemente
Make Up Team:
Frances Sorensen
Patricia Johnson
Danielle McDonald
Liza Zaretsky of Make Up For Ever
Kim Wahmann of Make Up For Ever
Alberto Machuca of Make Up For Ever
Angelrafael Gonzale of Make Up For Ever
Shannon Frank of Make Up For Ever
Make Up provided by Make Up For Ever
Hair Team:
David Hicky for Red Salon
Brad Langtry for Red Salon
Gregory Melendrez assistant at Red Salon
Shannon Williams
Almog
Video:
Christy Edwards
Veronica Vasicka
Photography:
Esao
Danielle Levit
Dressers:
Kerrin Hoeffler
Patrizia Hoeffler
Katherine Sidor
Eric Pritchard
Linda Serrone
Ron Serrone
Nana baek
Naomi Sebu
Erica Pritchard
Models
Ford:
Kate Hromada
Karin Models:
Tuesday
Stephanie Richards
Rebecca Brock
Cortney Miller
IMG:
Audrey Quock
Company Management:
Jamison Ernest
Independents:
Aaron Cantor
Adrine Hurd
Megan Mitchell
Marchcelina
Mariana Suarez
Miguel Bohmer
David Newman
Rick Murray
Arron Cantor
Keith Krystofolsky
Jennifer Clemente
Special Thanks:
Louie and Ashton at Ford Models
Mora at IMG
Nicole, Christian, and Sara, at Karin
Danielle at Make Up For Ever
Brad & John at Red Salon
Jennifer Clemente
The Downtown Arts Festival:
Simon Watson
Craig Hensela
Ron Lasko
Xplosions Productions:
Heidy
Ed
Patricia
Sasha
Mike
The Tunnel:
John
Felix
New Age Productions:
Maya
Leeza
Soren
Make Up provided by Make Up For Ever
