Affect

Jennifer Reeder - Tears Cannot Restore Her: Therefore, I Weep (video still) 2010 (image from Andrew Rafacz Gallery)

After a few experiences the past week, I have found myself considering affect in various expressive forms; like how a mixed-cd or tape represents the aura and intentions of the giver.

1. Jennifer Reeder's exhibition, Tears Cannot Restore Her: Therefore, I Weep, at Andrew Rafacz. Initially the objects in the gallery seemed kinda odd and idiosyncratic; really I couldn't place them or give them much time. I found myself in the screening room fairly quickly. There I was assaulted with a distraught never-ending-narrative that pitted my uncertain emotions for the characters against one another. It was the kind of piece that leaves you spinning like a dream that boiled up from somewhere between showing up to school in your underwear and an erotic nightmare. After viewing this nicely disturbed video the sculptures and print seemed to be effected. The feeling from the video carried through into the personal undertones and subdued color of the object.

Jennifer Reeder - installation view of a sculpture in Tears Cannot Restore Her: Therefore, I Weep

2. Joe Grimm's piece, It's Gunna Rain 2: I Make it Rain, in Ornament and Crime (and Crime) at Adds Donna. A chaufured Escalade ride around Garfield Park and under the CTA Green Line over Lake St, to the soundtrack of an art-remixed version of a rap song.

3. Listening to OK Computer by Radiohead on the Rock Island Line of the Metra, from Joliet to Chicago.


4. The Bad at Sports interview with James Elkins, about the Stone Summer Theory Institute and what comes after the anti-aesthetic (affect?).

5. The Danney's poetry reading series. Featuring Lagunitas beer, Joel Felix, Michael Earl Craig, and Lisa Olstein.

Michael Earl Craig
Night Visit

I'm awakened at 3 a.m. to the sound of an owl.
It takes me a minute to find my glasses.
I press my face to the window.
A silver flash crosses the yard.
It settles into an owl shape on a nearby post.
My nose and eyes are stinging.
A stinging behind my face.
Like some kind of problem behind a billboard.
Why would a man look at an owl and start to cry?
My body is trying to reject something.
I have no idea what it is.
The owl is sitting in the moonlight.
The yard is completely still.