Christo SOVA activity PART 2

This was an interesting and fun activity we did during a SOVA lesson about a month ago. We started off small (perhaps it being our first time wrapping like Christo), working on a handheld camera. Here are some basic questions pertaining to the assignment which I shall answer now, with pictures (:

What: As part of our SOVA lesson, we decided to wrap a school camera.

Why: The lesson was to get us involved in wrapping ready-mades or nature (our choice) as an art form, like Christo did.  For us, the main idea behind the wrapping was to stop time and capture memories. We all hold on to memories. And in a way, cameras are like storage spaces to jog our memories, a whole book of pictures from a movie we've lived in ourselves. Our recollections make up who we are, what we want to become, and they help us improve on ourselves. Even as we collect the memories along the way, we also have the things we hope to purge from our lives or memories(hence the eraser).

How: We used cling wrap, marker, and an eraser. As you can tell from the pictures, we originally planned to wrap just the camera. But we felt it was too plain; then an idea came and we used it. Not very Christo, wrapping a human hand.

Was it successful?: I think it helped to bring across our idea.

Our main focus was the camera lens, but the more we wrapped it got less and less obvious. Hence, we tried to use marker ink to emphasize the lens and the hand. We also used directional lines to separate the lens from the hand so that it could be seen more clearly. I feel that our use of the human hand, though it was not very Christo-like, helped bring across the image of holding tight to memories. The eraser also helped to show the wish of deleting memories, while the mesh of cling wrap it was buried in served as imagery for a hazy wish wrapped in the folds of a daydream. Hence, I think we were successful in this respect.


Areas for Improvement: We attempted to wrap the camera in a way that showed texture.However I think we could have done more to bring out more texture in the work. The medium could have flowed more, like how Christo played with the fluidity of cloth as he wrapped the Reichstag in Germany. The shadows and the rippling effect the cloth displayed as the wind swept by it helped create the notion that as time flew by, the Reichstag stood the test of time; the general shape of the building still retained itself. We could have left some drapes of cling wrap loose while leaving other layers tight to create a similar effect of rippling. We could have placed the camera near a fan or window so that wind could pass through the drapes to accentuate the fluid nature of smooth cling wrap.

The marker ink was a clumsy medium to bring out the intricacies of cling wrap. I think that we could have been more careful with presenting our medium by adding more layers of cling wrap to retain the texture and to add more folds with each layer so as to create a greater sense of depth and texture in the work.



Overall evaluation: All in all this was a tremendously exciting and refreshing activity, and I feel that I've learnt much from Christo's style of wrapping. Though I may never have thought of it, Christo's style of art can do much to change our perspective of the simplest things in life. The activity helped me think of ways to infuse beauty and meaning into the simple, helping me understand on a greater level that beauty and elegance can be infused into even the least complex of artworks.