Michelle Israel

So for my documentation of a ritual, I made a video mocking my OCD tendencies. Basically, every night before I go to sleep, I set up my night table in a very specific way (though I won't say how because it's kind of crazy and obscene). The video mimicked the way I feel about/towards this nightly ritual: pathetic and ridiculous (with the first half of the video being very melancholic, and the second half being upbeat and repetitious).

For my final project, I'm combining projects for both Ken's and Regan's classes. For Regan's class, I'm doing a project inspired by the Bargello. I made myself into a sculpture by wearing bed sheets and painting myself white (what an experience, might I add!) and posing in my living room, thus making my living room into a "sculpture museum," like the Bargello. But when I researched the history of the Bargello, I discovered that it was once used as a prison and barracks, and that there were a lot of public hangings there way back in the day before it became a National Museum. So I did a re-shoot of myself as a sculpture. Except this time, instead of posing arbitrarily, I posed "with a purpose." In other words, I created a sculpture scene where all the sculptures are dead, dying, praying, crying, etc...all the different emotions one would witness during a hanging ritual. I'm playing with the cast shadows on the back wall to subtly hint at the story of what might have happened in the sculpture scene, but I don't want to give too much away. I've attached to Flickr what I started out with, and what the project progressed to. Enjoy!

Molto amore from Italia,

M