Linda Sormin: Hey people in ceramics.
I am in my piece here in my living room, literally,
I am lounging on a sculpture, that, um,
I've been preparing for MASS Moca.
I have an installation there next year, and
I have been thinking about teaching and learning
and the situation we find ourselves in, which is,
how do we work together in a totally new way.
Students, and makers and, um, how do we
exchange ideas in this new virtual environment?
I have been thinking that there's a chance here
to be radical about the way that we teach
and the way that we learn and the way
that we, uh, engage our studio practice.
A lot of us are at home right now
and looking at the materials
that we have and wondering
what can we make of this situation.
I've been talking with students in like
four different time zones, and
the resilience and determination to make
with what they have is really inspiring.
Rhea Barve: I think one of the radical
ways in which we can switch up
our studio practice now that it's online,
is to just fully embrace the fact
that we're only gonna be interacting with each
other's work digitally for the rest of the semester.
So I was thinking that we can use
free and easy to use VR software tools
to design a virtual exhibition space
that can be our online crit room.
And I think it'll allow us to experiment
with installation of our works
in ways that would have anyway not been
feasible in a physical room in Barney.
Um, so I was thinking that firstly we could use
3d models of traditional objects like pedestals
and a wine and cheese table maybe,
to like furnish our virtual gallery space,
but we can also use the 3d models
to create many environments
within the gallery space that are
specific to each person's project.
Um, so for example, um, there
could be a VR water body in which
Adrian places photographs of his sculptures, since
he wanted to see them in like an aquatic context.
Um, and then there are just
so many other ways that we could
begin to integrate digital and
physical elements of our work.
So, maybe there can be a video and then,
pictures of physical sculptures are
superimposed or just placed
floating above the video,
um, and we can just layer
different types of files in that way
and the VR space could have music,
um, it could, we could experiment with
the materiality of the walls and
the floor and the size of the space,
and I think in the end it'll serve as
an online portfolio for our class,
but then it'll give each of us our URL link
that we can share with our friends and family,
and they can access this virtual gallery
space and navigate it three-dimensionally
on their phones and laptops, and I think
that's just super cool and contemporary.
Linda Sormin: So I've been
thinking today, about the chance to
collaborate with that energy
and I am here in Alfred.
I have about 15 bags of clay and a lot
of my students, most of my students
have no clay at all, and some of them
are in self-isolation in an apartment.
How might this kind of
containment be expressed
and examined through
work that we make?
Maybe in ceramics, maybe in other materials
that is springing from the discussions
and the hands-on making that we've had in ceramics
for the first seven weeks of the course.
So from this place, um, I offer my,
uh, bags of clay and my hands.
I have hands that um, have been
working in ceramics for 18 years and
I invite you, the 12 people in my class,
to think of ideas that could
make use of that clay and these hands
and we'll exchange ideas and labor
and figure out, reinvent new ways of
collaborating in material and with ideas.
Rhea Barve: So when I was thinking
about the logistics of the kind of
remote collaboration and exchange
of labor that Linda is describing,
I was reminded of the work of
Yoko Ono and Bruce Nauman
that we studied in our
theory art classes.
Um, so some of the work included
these printed sets of instructions that
at first I found hard to understand
back then but I think I get it now.
Because it would be so cool if we can
imagine giving Linda a set of instructions
in the form of maybe
verbal directions on video call
or printed instructions
like a DIY manual
or a series of diagrams or even
some kind of abstract code
that she can decode 
and then interpret,
to use her hands and her clay
back in her studio in Alfred
to make clay elements
for our projects.
And then we can stitch these elements
together in the VR space anywhere.
Like I'm planning to ask Linda
to make these little clay cubbies
for my foam cubbies 
since I don't have any clay.
