EJ Hill

2013-05-12

From April 1 to May 2, 2013, I did not speak or use my voice for any reason. I successfully maintained a month-long vow of silence.

While there is much to be said of such an experience, the only words I am able to offer at this time are:

2013-04-08

I am not making the work, I am living it.

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Friday, April 5, 2013 - 6:57pm (Culver City, CA)

I keep asking myself, “What is it that you really want? What is it that you’re trying to achieve?” I am not sure I have any answers for that. No resolution, still.

It is day five of this experiment and ironically, I am still having trouble coming up with things to say…or write, rather. I fear that everything I write isn’t serious or substantial enough. Just diaristic blabber. I thought that when this started, there would be an outpour of thoughts, feelings, words that would describe exactly what was going on inside my head. Quite the contrary. While I have many thoughts racing through my head at any given moment, it is rather difficult for me to translate them onto paper, onto screen, into text. I am hoping this will pass.

Surprisingly, this whole thing is not as difficult as I had thought it would be. Oftentimes, it is quite peaceful and serene. My dreams are really weird now. I know, dreams are always pretty surreal but these have been like…reeeeally weird. And I have found myself examining social interactions a lot more. I have tuned-in to the way people interact with one another, since I have become somewhat of an outsider. I sit among a crowd of people but no one looks at me. No one engages me. It’s kind of like being a fly on a wall. I get to hear certain things. And see certain things. It is as if with this silence, comes a veil of invisibility. Last night I sat at a dinner table of about 16 people and it was as though I was sitting there alone. Only once in a while would someone make eye contact with me and acknowledge my presence. Why struggle to communicate with the guy who refuses to speak when there’s someone who will reciprocate in the manner you’d like just a few feet away? I was engaged in several gestural conversations here and there, but for the most part, I sat silent. Still, among many. I have to admit, it is beginning to get a little lonely. To thwart that, I have been making lunch and coffee dates with friends. The conversations aren’t actually that awkward (for me). But I haven’t really asked what it’s been like for the others. Maybe that could be a part of this project? Requesting the reflections of my lunch and coffee partners? Hmm…

Everything is louder now. My ears have become super sensitive which I didn’t anticipate. I could understand if I were blinded for a month, my sense of hearing would be heightened. But I’m not. And because I’m not speaking the things that I do in my studio involve making sounds. I have been stomping around my studio simply because I like the way my heels click on the floor. I’ve been blowing up and popping balloons just for the hell of it. I’ve been thinking a lot about these balloons actually. And how they contain something that you can’t see. The thing that gives life to a balloon—breath—is completely invisible, intangible, unmeasurable without the aid of something that contains it. I’m thinking of that in terms of silence as well. You can’t touch silence. You can’t see it. But what does a representation of silence look like? What is the container of silence? I’m thinking of silence almost as a potential energy. The moment right before sound. Something just waiting to happen. The calm before the storm… Just like the filling of the balloon. Potential. But at a certain point, the balloon will only hold so much. Its walls, its boundaries will give way and violently release the very thing that it was made to contain. How tragic.

The more I think about it, the more I want to just say, that this…this right here, this silence, this experiment, this action (or inaction), this refusal to speak is my most ambitious work to date. I am considering it as my thesis piece. Ending grad school, not going out with a bang or a high note, but in silence. That’s it. My grand final statement is one of silence. I mean, I make things from time to time, and I could show those things, and I am interested in those things to an extent, but there is something about these simple gestures that just get my brain going and my heart racing. I cannot fully comprehend it, but performing them is part of understanding them. They do something else to me. They are tortuous but virtuous. This may sound silly, but I believe that they get me closer to something outside of myself. Something larger. A higher power? Some may call it God (or whatever or whomever that may be for you). But you know, the thing that drives the beating of hearts. I don’t know, I’m still learning.

The part that I still struggle with is how does one present a piece like this in a gallery for the run of an 8-day exhibition? Is it just a wall-label? Is it just telling people and simply relying on word-of-mouth? And what is this piece actually about? Is it about a refusal? Control? Power? Discipline? All of the above? And to what ends? What am I really doing this for?

I set out to perform a task. A simple rule I laid out for myself: No vocal expression for a whole month. I am my own lab rat. A life experiment. Just to see what happens. At this current moment I am not sure what it means. But I know that I had to follow this impulse. I was excited about the prospect and had to see where it would lead. Anything else that happens is just part of the process.

2013-04-03

going back to this one.

2013-04-01

Vow

I, EJ Hill, am beginning a new performance work. I will remain silent and speak to no one. I am reserving my voice for one full month. I will not speak under any circumstance, however, I plan to document the experience here through writing, as I see fit, as I deem necessary.

2013-03-24

britticisms:

Chicago turns something out of nothing. It is not the city itself that does this, but the people within it, homegrown or recently transplanted. Chicago gives artists and other creatives the opportunity to build from the ground up, allowing them to not only visualize their dreams but to actualize them.

A couple of weeks ago ago, I visited photographer Matt Austin to talk about his new project, The Perch. Part dinner party, part art experiment, the discussion was born out of a desire to uncover why Chicago artists stay and what they gain from creating in the city. You can read the story for WBEZ here.

Matt Austin, y’all.

Source: britticisms

2013-03-20

blackcontemporaryart:

KENYA (ROBINSON) by Lee Ann Norman Mar 20, 2013 via BOMBLOG

Kenya (Robinson) is currently wrapping up her MFA in Sculpture at the Yale School of Art after several years as a working artist. An astute observer of culture, (Robinson) explores a range of issues from race and class to perceptions about gender, privilege, and consumerism. Her newest work places rogue installations within store displays and merchandise to emphasize the act of shopping, beginning with a Walmart in New Haven. All kinds of people encounter art every day, she explains, making this a good moment to think about the American national character and its shifting nature. (Robinson) took a break from searching for fabric, materials, and other supplies for her thesis exhibition to meet with me in midtown Manhattan to discuss how graduate school has influenced the direction of her career and creative practice.more

Image: Welcome to Walmart #2371, 2013, Store #2371 – Wallingford, Connecticut, hydrogen peroxide, crushed velvet, double ended zippers. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Nice.

Source: bombsite.com

2013-03-18

I have resolved on an enterprise which has no precedent and which, once complete, will have no imitator. My purpose is to display to my kind a portrait in every way true to nature, and the man I shall portray will be myself.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau