3 conceptual art things outside the classroom

1. San Jose Biennial: I came across many types of vehicles that are powered by human strength. I saw this two person ferris wheel titled "Over the Top" created by Steven White. The structure is activated only by the arm muscles of the two people. I found this appealing because the artist created this piece with two questions in mind:  “How much fun can you have without a motor?”, and “How beautiful can a machine be?” Many of the pieces I saw at this festival were concerned about sustainable energy. This piece "merges furniture with mechanics on a large scale."  It is a visual and an interactive piece of artwork.. Here's a photo of the ferris wheel

2. I also noticed a bicycle that looked like an egg at the Biennial. I tried to research it online because I thought it was funny, and the person moving the bike kept saying how she was an egg. Well, this piece actually has an interesting story. It's called the "Egg and Sperm Ride" created by Janaki Ranpura. It's described as "a long distance date with destiny." The egg biked pedaled all the way from Minneapolis to meet up with "Sperm Riders." The sperm riders are just bicyclists wearing helmets that look like they have sperm on them. haha. The project is exploring human partnerships.
Egg and Sperm Ride

the Egg

3. SF MOMA- I came across a sound installation by Bill Fontana called “Sonic Sounds,” which are basically sound sculptures. They generate the 5^th floor walkway into musical instruments and use the kinetic energy of walking passersby to “create an acoustic translation of physical space.” The installation uses hypersonic speakers attached to the ceiling and railway, and vibration sensors that are activated by the steps of those walking by. An audio-sensory experience is created when the sounds are reflected off of the surrounding walls and are heard around the entire bridge and staircases. I really love the concept of giving things that aren’t entirely physical like sound or movement, and giving it life by creating a soundtrack with it.

Improbable Monument

 Research and Development of Concept

"A survey once found that gifted children (truly gifted* as opposed to public school definitions) watch an average of less than 5 hours of television a week during their preschool years.  Compare that with a national average of twenty-five hours a week (beginning around the second birthday), and you can begin to appreciate what a drain on the brain the idiot-box truly is."
- John Rosemond, psychiatrist and author


Children and Statistics
Approximate number of studies examining TV's effects on children: 4,000
Number of minutes per week that parents spend in meaningful conversation with their children: 3.5
Number of minutes per week that the average child watches television: 1,680
Percentage of day care centers that use TV during a typical day: 70
Percentage of parents who would like to limit their children's TV watching: 73
Percentage of 4-6 year-olds who, when asked to choose between watching TV and spending time with their fathers, preferred television: 54
Hours per year the average American youth spends in school: 900 hours
Hours per year the average American youth watches television: 1500

The Aim:
to create a monument that allows any visitors the ability to interact with it. This monument provokes childhood remembrance, awareness of the too large an influence the TV has on our culture, and the encourage people to use their imagination.

Monument Specifics:
Approximately 10 x 16, the size of a shed
Made from wood, oak and painted with water resistant oils
Cement mold of playground carousel

This monument is pretty versatile and can fit in many settings and situations. I picked Union Square because there are many different types of people there, of different ages and backgrounds. It is busier and people are usually not self-aware aside from the daily grind. I think this would be something fun for people to interact with.

This piece can also be in locations that compliment its nature, like a library for example, where imagination use through books is welcomed.

my monument deals with childhood and the reflection of it. the older i get the more aware i am of how time passes by so quickly. my monuments's purpose would just to prompt some kind of reflection and to change the mood where it's placed. i would like to place it at parks and empty lots. the idea i have would be to have a child, with a bucket face up at his feet, holding a time-symbol where the sand drains into the bucket....

art intervention

Kyle and I decided to dress up a statue in costume Halloween weekend. It was a fun idea. The statue definitely appears masculine and it's a large statue that begs for attention. Dressing the statue in a pink boa with a skirt/loin cloth made it seem more feminine and way more humorous than the seemingly serious statue.

culture jam II

I decided to make a kind of ad dealing with laziness as an issue. It's just something playful and fun, but also can maybe prompt people to think about their own laziness and productivity.

Mark Dery’s Culture Jamming

1. I found the section about "Media Hoaxing" quite alarming. The culture jammer would act as a professional in a field and fool the media into believing whatever outlandish claims he would make, and they would take his word for it. It's also a commentary not only on the media, but that people are so easily persuaded and influenced. All of the culture jamming techniques Dery mentions are still relevant and used today, like the "Billboard Banditry," "Audio Agitprop" (where people are still challenging copyright law by most recently posting free downloadable books on the internet), and "Sniping and Subvertising."

2. Symbols seem to have like an objective meaning but also more abstract, symbolic meanings. Marilyn Monroe for example is a symbol for sexiness and femininity. According to Dery, culture jammers use semiotics to make explicit the implicit. I think they would do this by exploiting some kind of advertisement that were suggestive in some way.

Culture Jamming I

culture jamming artists

1. Michael Aaron Williams is an artist creating street art.  He creates portraits of the homeless on cardboard and places them throughout the city in London. He wants people walking by to notice them, and even take them home.

"This series are all done on cardboard and depict the homeless. They are put up and are able to be taken down so that they can be taken home. They are therefore extremely delicate. Its interesting because just like the actual homeless, the people on the street ignore the pieces and many times see no worth in them. However, Some people have and are encouraged to take these home where the pieces can survive."

 Michael Aaron Williams' website 

 2. A british bank gave money towards a bike rental program, and had their logo on the bikes. People added stickers to the advertisements to change the meaning.
Barclays Bikes Busting Article

Chance Project

My idea-
1. carry your camera with you on Monday and Tuesday
2. take a photo of the scene in front of you at 2PM, 4PM, and 6PM
3. In photoshop, create a canvas that is 6 inches tall and 4 wide.
4. Divide canvas into 3 sections
5. On the top section, place all the 2PMs, the middle section 4PMs, and so on.
6. for the 1st pic make it 100% opacity and the second 50%

tada

My Version

Amber's Version

My extended body

There are two aspects to my new body:
- To avoid verbally expressing something my ears change color. They are mood changing. When i'm shy they turn pinkish in color, when i'm anxious they're purple, etc.
- I thought it would be interesting to have a defense mechanism like other animals (porcupines, skunks, blowfish), so whenever I feel frightened my skin develops a skin like that of a cactus.

My idea is mostly just so I can non-verbally communicate and that as humans, we don't really have physical defense mechanisms. They are mostly psychological. I wanted to take a natural-animalistic approach to my body.

I have used various tools: the magic wand, the marquee tool, the polygonal lasso tool, layers,  and i edited the photos a little bit

 

 

Artists working with "extended body"

Here are two artists that I found interesting working in robotics and extended body:

1. Sonia Cillari- "“GATC/life is an immersive experience inside units of life." 

This is a virtual reality project. In a cube-like room there are 3D projections of genes and cells. 

GATC/Life 

2. Seemen Organization- artist Kal Spelletich and 40+ other artists working in robotic, interactive art. They encourage the audiences to interact with the robots and other machines. Some of their work even incorporates bio-feedback: where it can read heartbeat, movement, respiration, etc. 

http://seemen.org/

- EKG UNIT triggering flaming ring: The fire ring pulses with one's heartbeat 

-Monkey on your Back: person puts on gloves and monkey robot. The gloves have EKG and flex sensors to activate the monkey. The EKG picks up the volunteer's heartbeat and moves the tail and spine of the monkey. 

Zach Roberts' Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/profile.php?id=100001563905538

Zach Roberts is a 20 year old boy, whose selective interests include video games, some rock music, and food. His social life is entirely online, where he interacts with other gamers each day and several hours into the night. He has unnatural relationships with the characters he encounters, or plays in the virtual world. He idolizes the female characters--their strong personalities and more proportional bodies. He doesn't care to interact with others outside of the virtual world due to his belief that mortals can't match up, and he'd end up disappointed by their flaws. 

Google Earth

 Artists working in Google Earth
1. James Dive's 'God's Eye View'
 He uses the satellite images of Google Earth and 3d objects to recreate some scenes from the Bible

2. Bill Guffey uses Google Street View as inspiration for his paintings & here is his blog
Bill Guffey paints scenes from Google Street View. With the program, he felt like he could travel the world outside his rural home in Kentucky. He has created an entire series: one painting for each state in the U.S.

My Google Earth Assignment 

Here I have documented all the places i've lived and a memory attached to them. This assignment brought about some interesting perspectives and thoughts. When I think of home I never think of a house or location, I think it's more about people or memories that make a place home. This also made the term seem so fleeting and artificial. There's nothing stable about it, although originally stability would be a word that might come to my mind when I think about my home.

Pack Rat Series

Sol Lewitt's "Sentences on Conceptual Art"

#10 "Ideas can be works of art; they are in a chain of development that may eventually find some form. All ideas need not be made physical."

I have some issues with this statement. I don't agree with ideas being art at all. If  by ideas he means a thought, something abstract that has no physical form...I don't see how that is art unless it is executed in some way. I think for something to be art, it should have some kind of form; it doesn't necessarily need to be a physical form. But I am confused as to what he interprets as "physical" does that mean something one can touch and see? If he means that art does not need to be in a 2d or 3d form, then I would agree. I think art could be in other forms as well--sound or whatever. Could sound/video be physical? I would have a better understanding if I knew what his definition of art is, because it tends to be very subjective, what he means by ideas and what is "physical."

I also thought some of his sentences contradict each other. With more thought, I'll respond to that.