Makeup Specificity

Controlled Disembodiment

In a moment of artistic self-awareness, Scott McCloud put together a comic explaining the definition, origin, and previous examples of comics. Although it varied from the traditional “superhero” aspect of comics, McCloud’s piece explored the complicated meaning of “comics” through an in-depth exploration of his own medium. Jackson Pollock did something similar; In an effort to break away from traditional painting methods, Pollock used everyday objects to splatter house paint on a horizontal canvas. This deliberate variation from the norm illustrated the specificity of painting as a medium. Pollock gave painting a new meaning as he warped the conventional techniques.

My medium specificity project represents various aspects of makeup as a medium. Daily cosmetic makeup is meant to cover up facial imperfections, accentuate desirable features, and give us control over how we look. So what if we could do all that without actually putting makeup on our face? In a reverse-Pollock, I used traditional makeup and application methods, but I changed my canvass completely. Instead of putting makeup on my face, I applied it to the mirror.

            I followed traditional contouring rules and application techniques, applying makeup to the mirror exactly as I would to my face. I ended up with a semi-realistic facial reconstruction with blank spaces for my eyes to look through. Technically, my disembodied face still counts as makeup. As I stood and looked into the mirror, the face obscured my reflection. While doing so, it covered up my facial imperfections, it accentuated desirable features, and gave me a great deal of control over how I looked.  It functioned exactly like makeup, but it rested on an unconventional canvas.

            This piece explores—although it does not necessarily critique—the mask-like qualities of cosmetics. We create illusions of perfection and control when we apply makeup. When combined with the animate movement of our faces, these cosmetics become an animated mask—a seamless (when applied correctly) integration between art and organism. Standing behind makeup, our faces are concealed, perfected, controlled. Our faces are exactly as we want to perceive them.

            Without the humanity of our faces behind it, however, makeup is just a false construction. It floats, disembodied and eerie, as a dangerous barrier between reality and self. Makeup turns into a mask that strips our individuality. It separates us from our own existence. It guards us from our life. Makeup can be beautiful, accentuating, and individual, but when we take it too far, we risk losing ourselves behind a stock projection of the ideal.

Historical Script

"MGM Grand"

In 1980, a small fire broke out in the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino’s delicatessen. The fire spread quickly and trapped many people on the upper floors of the building (LA Times “Burning Memories: Ten years later…”). Investigators blamed the fire on an electrical short, but what if they were wrong? What if the fire had more sinister origins? On Biography.com, we found out that Vegas’s most powerful mob boss-- Tony Spilotro-- was banned from casinos in 1979. Armed with this possible source of embitterment toward the MGM Grand, we constructed a story about Spilotro’s comeuppance arson.

In order to make our story seem plausible, we researched whatever we could about the hotel and the time period in which it burned. A copy of the original MGM Grand floorplan helped us orchestrate and describe scenes. The wire short that caused the fire gave us a basis for Spilotro’s involvement. We also used terminology from the time-- “Pap” was a common, almost derogatory term for paparazzi photographers in the early 1980’s.

James Higgins, our main character, is one of these “Paps”. Enamoured by the glitz of 80’s casino life, he loves taking intimate and expository pictures of famous people.  In some way, he feels like taking these photos gives him power over people.

He enjoys the power trip he gets from taking pictures, but wants something more high class. In an effort to raise himself above his life situation, James is willing to extort anybody’s misfortune or misconduct. Shamelessly, he photographs intoxicated people in compromising circumstances. Without a second thought, he runs into a burning building to photograph the panic, destruction, and possible injury happening inside. James’s position as a paparazzi photographer enables him to witness the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino fire objectively. James uses his camera to separate himself from the terrible events, and he feels no sorrow from it.

James doesn’t have the time or the depth to feel empathetic toward the MGM Grand fire victims. When he develops his photographs and sees Tony Spilotro fleeing the scene of the crime, he doesn’t get angry or upset. He isn’t overwhelmed at the loss of life Spilotro’s actions caused. He just sees it as an opportunity to blackmail himself into mob life. James has always loved power, and here he is holding a photograph that gives him power over the most terrifying mob boss in Vegas.

James’ chip-on-the-shoulder attitude serves as a contradiction, and even push-back, against the general disdain of paparazzis during his time. His occupation serves as a symbol for anyone who is seen as the lowest of the low at the beginning of Reaganomics. Although he rails against the common perception of his profession, James himself buys into a sort of “trickle-down” ideology. He wears well-kept tuxedos and fraternizes with people from a higher class. He acts as if spending time photographing famous people somehow rubs their importance off onto him. He also separates himself from the moral implications of photographing for tabloids through a twisted sense of jaded ambition. The world looks down on paparazzi, so he might as well expose the world’s dirty secrets.

This project was a collaboration between

Barrett Burgin

and Madison Ellis

Process Piece

"The Dawn of Woman"

The Dawn of Woman from Father Tanner on Vimeo.

The process film “Scriptures” captures the authentic moments of a family scripture study. Depicted with their parents and siblings, the children are captured in a raw and beautiful genesis of learning. Our process piece-- although it certainly includes ideas of “raw” and “Genesis”-- does not follow the simple observational approach of “Scriptures.”

Inspired by the Bible’s recounting of Woman’s creation, we decided to document God’s process of making a human being. Since the event happened long before our births/the creation of iPhone voice recorders, we had to create the situation ourselves. Working closely from the text of the Bible, we wrote out a rough outline of sounds we needed and got to work. We voiced the characters ourselves. The fleshy sounds of God building Eve were two pieces of raw chicken, smooshed together to imply the wet construction of a body. We tapped shoes on a carpet to mimic walking, flapped a jacket around for the sound of God descending from and ascending to the heavens, and snapped small chicken bones to mimic tearing a person’s rib out of their body. Once we successfully foleyed our list of noises, we strung them together in GarageBand to create our high class imitation of creation.

Although our entire project was contrived, it still had its own form of creative realism. We knew the story we wanted to tell-- we clearly saw the beginning, middle, and end-- we just had to come up with sounds that formed that story. Constructing those sounds from a scant three Bible verses, however, proved difficult. We had to think beyond our own interpretation of these events to come up with sounds that would make sense. Ultimately, we decided to use sounds that people were familiar with; generic footsteps and a Batman-esque flapping easily translated into movement in our audio process. We enjoyed telling the story with bits of modernity-- opening Adam’s side with a zipper, for example, and using the 1UP sound from Mario to depict Eve finally coming to life.

Unlike traditional process pieces, “The Dawn of Woman”  documents our process of taking a written biblical story and turning it into a modern audio narrative. As God creates Eve out of man’s rib, we create a story out of raw chicken and GarageBand. Armed with nothing but a few Bible verses, we developed and portrayed a working story. The real process in this piece is not God’s creation of woman, it is our creation of narrative.

This work is a collaboration between:

Madison Ellis

Nathan Tanner

Two Chicken Breasts

A Pair of Shoes

A Coat

Mario

and The Bible