Phyllis Baldino's "unknown series" - interview with the artist

"The Unknown Series (excerpts)"

A bunch of you had questions on this piece last lecture and so I thought I'd share an interview where the artist, Phyllis Baldino (PB), speaks a bit about her process and reasoning behind the piece.

JMS: There's a sculptural element to this particular work that calls to mind some of your earlier videos, such as "The Gray Series" and "The Unknown Series (excerpts)." Can you talk a little about how sculptural objects figured in those pieces?

PB: My early videos were very much processed-oriented. And the first works I did were literally done in the first take. They were very much about me interacting with particular objects. The objects resulted from the videos. So the objects are sculptural and they exist as an object; the video was a process that created that object. So there are times when I show the video with or without the object, because it doesn't really matter. You can see it separately or you can see it with the object.

"The Gray Area Series" was inspired by Fuzzy Logic. The objects in those videos are what they are-and they are what they are not simultaneously. All of the titles follow the same format: for example, "Silver Screen/Not Silver Screen." It's the question of function. Sometimes I had to destroy an object to make it functional-literally. For example, there was an old cosmetic case I saw in a thrift store on sale for $3. It was locked shut and could not be opened, so they sold it to me for $2. I destroyed it with a jigsaw to make it functional ("Cosmetic/Not Cosmetic"). In another piece ("60's dress/object"), I reconstructed a chair on camera from start to finish. First I chopped it up off camera. I wore a 60's dress that matched the chair and then put it back together just enough so it kind of worked. I mixed up the pieces so I wouldn't know how it was supposed to be put back together. That particular piece has to be shown with its own monitor. That's just the nature of that work. But the other sculptural objects don't need to be seen with their video.


JMS: And "The Unknown Series (excerpts)"?

PB: I kept on finding all these objects that I didn't recognize, like parts of parts of things. So I created unknown personas to fit the unknown concept. I made a rule for myself that each piece had to be under a minute (the excerpt 'is' the piece). What happens before and after is unknown to me, and unknown to you. So you jump into an action and then it's over. 

You can read the full interview here: http://www.fringeunderground.com/baldino.html