Topic Four: Landscape, Landscape—Ambitious, In-Depth Assignment

During this beach visit near an art gallery I once visited in North Miami, I analyzed my environment a little bit more closely, centering myself in the nonmaterial field of possibilities. I thought about the relationship people have to Earth through a dark consumerist lens. I also meditated upon the human body and the duty we have to subvert harmful objectification that media continuously profits from. Do you notice the nuances of every step you take when visiting a location? Of every smell? Is there a biological duty we have to nature? Is technology inhibiting this natural synchronicity? Who is the creator? Is the creator a collaboration of sorts?

After asking Jessie if she wanted to participate in a landscape project I was working on, we decided to visit remote area on Key Biscayne. I brought a hand cut pearl fabric, see- through blue fabrics and different viewfinders to test different spectacles. I asked her "what is one thing that people assume of you and the truth to that false assumption?" She said most people think she is an angry person from her demeanor. She noted that she wanted to see herself in the most gentle light, free from reductive perceptions of what it means to be masculine or feminine. 

Holding both of the viewfinders I created, I observed my friend Noah and Jess while they applied makeup to the face. 

We used a blue eyeliner to reflect the linear aspects of the surrounding environment and to draw upon human biophilia, a hypothesis also called BET, which declares that humans possess an innate tendency to seek connections with nature and other forms of life. 

One of my favorite videos is of Alan Watts breaking down how oneness becomes duality, how existence and observation are mutually necessary for each other. I carried this idea through the use of a mirror.