Fulbright Global Scholar Award: Final Post

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This is the last blog post for my 3-country Fulbright. Awarded one of the Fulbright’s first Global Scholar Awards in 2016, I traveled to Germany, Chile and China from 2017 to 2018 and returned from the last leg in Hong Kong less than two weeks ago.

Sneakaway Studio. The Speed of Thinking. 2019 mobile game. https://sneakaway.studio/the-speed-of-thinking

I write this post as a way of giving back to the Fulbright community and future applicants. Major thanks also to the many people who supported me during this experience: Owen and Sophia Mundy, Jan and Joel Dietrick, Davidson College (the Jay Hurt Hub, Mark Sample, Katie St Clair), The Fulbright and through them, Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg, Peter Kroeger Claussen at Pontificia Universidad Católica in Valparaíso, National Archives of Chile in Santiago, Ozge Ersoy and David Smith at the Asia Art Archive, Penn State University, Drexel University, North Carolina Arts Council, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and The MacDowell Colony.

With several major exhibitions approaching (more on my news page), I’ve shifted into studio brain, with which writing comes less easily…but if you are still reading, you are likely thinking of applying to a Fulbright. In the spirit of end-of-year lists, here’s my end-of-Fulbright points to consider:

-       1) Be honest about your strengths and what will put you into a productive state of flow. In all three locations, what stuck with me was the landscapes, each city's infrastructure, the people I met and observed on my walks, my basic routines like getting groceries. Other highlights include:

o   Germany

§  Michael Kress at Port Journeys

§  The people I met at the Gästehaus der Universität Hamburg

§  Missing Keller Easterling on the boat MS Stubnitz in Baakenhöft, HafenCity but instead encountering Marcus Rediker on hydrarchy

§  Seeing Laurie Anderson introduced by Wim Winders

§  The tour of the Speicherstadt and Hafen City by Urban Planner Thorsten Gödtel during which we learned about architecture that anticipated the inevitable, rising sea levels

§  Biking through the port with Owen

§  Learning Blender / prepping models for our new mobile game The Speed of Thinking

o   Chile

§  My artist talk at Pontificia UniversidadCatólica in Valparaíso

§  A visit to PUCV’s architecture program with PUCV Professor Peter Kroeger Claussen

§  Lunch at the Open City of Amereida

§  Valparaiso, a city of murals

§  Having PUCV Professor Peter Kroeger Claussen as the kindest host ever

o   Hong Kong

§  Walking up the Morning Trail after long work days finishing our first mobile game The Speed of Thinking

§  Meeting Ozge Ersoy and David Smith from the Asia Art Archive

§  Starting a new game about my 8-year old daughter navigating this Fulbright

-       2) For me to be productive as a digital artist, I need to get away from my computer to move around and have a big monitor as an extension of my laptop. Think about what you need to make your work and arrange for this in advance.

-       3) Being in the center of a large cultural hub fed my artwork, but if I ever apply again, I’m curious about what it’s like to be in a smaller community.

-       4) Important: if you have small children and you cannot work with them by your side, gravitate to year-long programs and email past participants before you choose your cities to see what school options are available. Also ask them if the Fulbright funding will allow you to get housing big enough to accommodate a family. Sometimes most ideal is  university-subsidized housing sponsored by your host university. Get the answer to all of these questions before you apply.

Overall, my Fulbright experience was a life-changing experience that has taken my work to the next level, but it was a lot of work. The upside to this award is the cross-culture comparisons, but the downside is that you can multiply your administrative tasks by the number of countries involved. Please take that into consideration and plan wisely.

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Good luck! I look forward to reviewing Fulbright applications in the future. In the meantime, if you are near Philadelphia, please come to our opening and panel discussion at Drexel University’s LeoPearlstein gallery on Wednesday, February 13, 2019. If you are not near Philadelphia, please download and playtest our first, humble mobile game The Speed of Thinking. We’d love to hear your thoughts. Happy 2019.

More about my Fulbright Global Scholar Award to Germany, Chile and Hong Kong
More about the Fulbright Global Scholar Award in general

100 Days on a Fulbright: Day 91: Wim Wenders and Laurie Anderson

Today, HFBK's 250 Year Anniversary Celebrations kicked off with Laurie Anderson's film Heart of a Dog. She was there, introduced by Wim Wender's who said: "A film is about what you invest, and if you invest a lot of love, that’s what you get out of it." Owen and I were feeling that recently during our studio production for the Korean hackathon. Sounds cheesy but it's absolutely so true.

Also true: Laurie Anderson's thoughts on death, the focus of this film. Released in 2015, the film was created as she mourned the death of her husband Lou Reed in October 2013. There is no mention of him until the end, but during the film she walks us through her mother and their dog's death. A Buddhist, she explains that the Buddhist do not cry when someone is dying, it confused the dead. As my aunt on the other side of the Atlantic is dying, I find this comforting, especially since I cry so easily. More here and here: From a Buddhist viewpoint, that kind of situation is one that’s just going to set off your attachment and make it incredibly difficult to leave. If somebody’s dying and their relatives are in there crying and crying, “How am I going to live without you? I love you so much!” Doing these things invokes a person’s clinging and attachment, making it very difficult for them to die peacefully. The mind is agitated, making it more likely for negative karma to arise.

That makes so much sense. So impressed by Anderson and Wenders. Both seem to be filled with kindness and compassion. 

100 Days on a Fulbright: Day 29: saidtocontain

Laura Kalauz, Maja Leo, Bojan Djordjev and New Urgency. Said to Contain, series of events about global trade, 2013-present. https://saidtocontain.org/

This week at HFBK, my students told me about a project by other HFBK students called Said to Contain (https://saidtocontain.org/). The basic premise is that the three artists ship themselves to Zurich (Switzerland), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Hamburg (Germany) and Belgrade (Serbia) to initiate social practice events where they gather local participants to discuss the effect of global trade at a human level. Although attracted to the title (http://www.logisticsglossary.com/de/term/said-to-contain/), at first I was irritated by the pictures of artists with camera, book and wall drawings to communicate the heavy lifting of proposed art making (https://saidtocontain.org/residency-on-board/). Even the event photos seemed too easy (see people gathering, isn’t it wonderful? see https://saidtocontain.org/schedule/). It felt limited and from a privileged point of view.

But upon a chance encounter with another section of their site, I found the notes at https://saidtocontain.org/2016/10/24/a-revolution-of-letting-go-notes-on-the-stuttgart-session/ able to extend the artwork beyond the local event. The online documentation also introduced me to Laleh Khalili, someone who should be on my radar (https://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff36189.php)  Such notes, recordings with sound, and other thorough documentation allow the project to affect those of us without money or time to travel. For starters, I would find a bibliography helpful.

Making artwork about global trade from a privileged position is tricky business. So here I am. On my Fulbright in the strongest economy in the European Union in a guest house for a top university with additional support from a private liberal arts college in the United States. What’s important is how effectively and rigorously we produce and disseminate the artwork from this entitled position to be sure that it involves many voices and is less top down. But battling commercial tech control over our lives requires tech-savvy interventions.

The few of my HFBK students scorn documentation and institutional or commercial vehicles for dissemination. In the face of the type of data harvesting that yesterday’s New York Times Magazine reviews (see Amanda Hess’ “How Privacy Became a Commodity for the Rich and Powerful” from May 9, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/magazine/how-privacy-became-a-commodity-for-the-rich-and-powerful.html), would it not make more of an impact to co-op some of these companies’ tools to introduce to a larger audience some playful, through-provoking online creations? I appreciate social practices’ goals of gathering people at time when too many focus on their devices instead of face to face interactions, but still, my greater sense of urgency leads me to think that some device-based intervention, perhaps coupled with local physical events is ideal.

Over the next week, I’ll review the work from another container-themed residency (http://www.containerartistresidency01.org/), but also keep my eye out for people effective online interventions. My husband Owen Mundy and his I Know Where Your Cat Lives (http://iknowwhereyourcatlives.com/about/) as one such example. What’s amazing about his project is how many changed their privacy setting after visiting the site.

Owen Mundy. I Know Where Your Cat Lives. 2014-present. http://iknowwhereyourcatlives.com Image from here.