Ten Years and One Day

Ten Year Polaroid Project 1999-2009 (photography, performance, installation, video)

I took a Polaroid self-portrait every day for ten years and one day. I began doing this more than 5 years before YouTube came into existence. 10 years before Polaroid stopped selling instant film. 14 years before Oxford Dictionary added “selfie” to the lexicon.

If laid side by side, the photographs–documents of daily performances—would span over a quarter of a mile, or nearly 4 football fields.

Along the way, there were several exhibitions and meta-performances, like this one at the Walker’s Point Center for the Arts, a third of the way into the ten year long performance.

After digitizing the images, the once analog artifacts were embedded with metadata, such as color of clothing, places, interior or exterior, other persons appearing, smiling, etc… The metadata allowed sorting by thematic categories, making possible a series of taxonomies.

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4,583 Polaroid self-portraits taken on 3,654 consecutive days (July 24, 1999- July 24, 2009). SX-70 and 600 Polaroid Film. Approximate area 480 sq feet or installed as 40’x12’.

Taxonomy from 2006 of Polaroids on days in which I wore this particular blue track jacket. From the Ten Year Polaroid project (July 24, 1999- July 24, 2009).

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Blue Track Jacket (2006). Polaroid 600 Film.  Scanned and printed as 11×14” giclée (2009)

Taxonomy from 2006 of Polaroids on days in which I photographed myself with my son. From the Ten Year Polaroid project (July 24, 1999- July 24, 2009). Father and Son (2006). Polaroid 600 Film. Scanned and printed as 11×14” giclée (2009).

Taxonomy from 1999-2000 of Polaroids on days in which I photographed myself in visually striking or exotic locations (places). From the Ten Year Polaroid project (July 24, 1999- July 24, 2009).

Places (Boca Raton, Hyde Park, Lower Manhattan, Dead Sea) 1999-2000. Polaroid SX-70 Film. Scanned and printed as 11×14” giclée (2009).

Interviews about the Polaroids:

• Mark Metcalf. PODCAST INTERVIEW: A tsunami of [Marc] Tasman,” ThirdCoast Digest, May 13, 2010.  http://thirdcoastdigest.com/2010/05/podcast-a-tsunami-of-marc-tasman/

• Bonnie North . RADIO INTERVIEW: One Polaroid at a Time,” Lake Effect, WUWM, Milwaukee Public Radio, 89.7 FM, April 16, 2010.  http://www.wuwm.com/programs/lake_effect/view_le.php?articleid=949

• Dick Gordon. RADIO INTERVIEW: “What’s In a Name?” The Story produced by American Public Media, February 10, 2010. http://www.thestory.org/stories/2010-02/whats-name

• Rebekah Modrak. VIDEO INTERVIEW FOR BOOK WEBSITE: Reframing Photography: Theory and Practice, 2010, Routledge Press.  http://www.reframingphotography.com/artists/marc-tasman

• Mary Louise Schumacher. PRINT INTERVIEW: “The 10-year-long instant portrait: Marc Tasman turns decade of life into art via daily Polaroids,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 20, 2009. http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/entertainment/79448062.html

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Proposal for the New American Flag

Proposal for The New American Flag (photography, video, performance, installation, interactive media).

Proposal for the New American Flag is an intervention in the form of a museum exhibition, designed to draw attention to the changes in American culture and laws since 11 September, 2001. This work was first shown at the 2007 Nohl Fellowship Exhibition at the Institute of Visual Arts. Catalog, with catalog essay by Sarah Kanouse.

 Installation view. Institute of Visual Arts, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, October 12, 2007.

Screenshot of the proposed design and excerpts from letters from the website (99starflag.com) that accompanies the Exhibition, Proposal for The New American Flag (2007).

Changes to The American Flag, 32 x 40” Poster for display in the Exhibition, Proposal for The New American Flag (2007). Inkjet Print mounted on gator board.

40 x 32” Poster for display in the Exhibition, Proposal for The New American Flag (2007). Inkjet Print mounted on gator board.

Screenshot of the interactive map from the website (99starflag.com) that accompanies the Exhibition, Proposal for The New American Flag: Representing a New Constellation (2007).

Who is Stealing My Signs?

An interventionist, performative, and net-based project, Who is Stealing my Signs? documents my attempts to protect a political yard sign during the US presidential election season in 2004.

Devising a Rube Goldberg-esqe surveillance, alarm, and reporting system made from fishing wire, motion detectors, cooking oil, an infrared video camera, an 8 hour VHS tape, and a website hosted on angelfire.com, I captured several failed attempts to steal the yard sign, in addition to the often humorous and surprised reactions of the unwitting would-be sign thieves.  By crafting my complaint using the rhetoric of an audio-visual narrative, I succeeded in soliciting the help of TV news and radio to tell my story in the local media vernacular. Of course when one hands control of the narrative over to another producer, one relinquishes control of certain aspects of agency and accuracy in exchange for recognition and sensation.

But how else could one respond to the tropes of the local media vernacular, where digital remixing is possible, and the best chance to reclaim agency? A Video Vigilante Fair Use Mashup, of course.