Week 7 Art- additional experimentation

Week 7 Art- Country Fish and City Fish

This is a collaborative piece between Megan Franck and I about the fishes' environment here in KY. Primarily about the comment that they "need a safe place to have sex" we wanted to make a commentary on the fact that in our city they don't. While natural environments also have their own issues the fish in Louisville are gone because of issues like that. Country fish is the first image and city the second.

Week 7 Responses

Society-

 

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-red-meat-20120313,0,565423.story 

Follow up: http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-red-meat-study-20120313,0,7594229.story

This new study released about red meat seems extremely obvious at first, "eating red meat increases risk of death," is an accepted statement among meat eaters. It is like saying "driving a car can kill you" to anyone who own an automobile, everyone knows the risks, but they accept them. However, the statistical implications of this study is what causes a person to ask if they really know the risks of eating red meat. While it may not seem like a lot, according to the study eating red meat creates a 13-20% increase risk of earlier death. The study was taken over the course of 20 years, and that percentage rate is based on people who passed away during that 20 year span of time. The result on the opposite end of the spectrum, showing what will help you live longer, are equally interesting. Many are under the impression that fish is better than chicken, but it would seem that the chicken of the sea can't hold up against the land-lovers (chicken doubles the percentage of fish.) While the connotations of this study are making me want to continue altering my eating habits, it is the reactions to the study (found in the second link) that are interesting me the most. Un-surprisingly enough, the meat companies are attacking the 20-years-in-the making study, using its form of data gathering against it. It finds the data to be too randomly compiled, and dislikes the fact that it is filled out by the participants. The fact that participants could be lying about their true eating habits is enough for the companies to attempt to debunk the entire study. It is responses like this (and like those of the many responses from internet users) that show our society's greater concern with living how we want and ignoring the consequences, as well as the maintaining of big-business no matter what the industry's effect on people and the environment (we know that meat industries are just as bad for the environment as others and worse in some cases.) It is irritating to know that no matter how many studies are put out members of our society would rather make the assumption that it is a scare tactic than a legitimate study that they should take head from. 

Art-

http://www.artnews.com/2011/12/06/biting-the-hand-that-feeds-them/ 

I know we have mentioned this in class, but this article detailed some of the work that is happening in the art world around the idea of "the art world." Artists are working to critique the institution of art, but inevitably finding themselves encapsulated in it, needing it to give recognition to their ideas. One of the larger issues that surrounds the art world and the artist is that of money. Money is needed for artists to continue to create, but in order to get that artists must show their work in galleries or artistic institutions. This creates an interesting loop that artists submerged in "the art world" full of galleries and collectors can't always find a way out of. However, I find the relationship between the artists and the world in which they are presenting their work to create a much more interesting paradigm than that of other works. They need the institution they critique, and that institution is embracing them for defacing their placement instead of rejecting them outright (as I can imagine the critics of old would have sought to have done.) Art is being created to make a dialogue about how the artistic institution is bad, and yet the only people who can endorse or provide space for the artists and their work are those who belong to that same institutions. The artists themselves admit the strangeness of their placement in the art world, but they continue to present their work in these places to continue fueling this paradigm and unconventional statement about the relationship between artists and the artistic institutions they inhabit. 

Week 6 Art- A Nest for Nature

This is the installation piece I did involving another nest.
The nest I built was still there from two weeks ago, so I built this one and placed it in the same area. It has moss eggs this time to imply a place for nature to grow. It is on a bench to show concrete vs nature.

Week 6 Responses

Art-

http://www.ulrikearnold.com/galerie_meteorits.html

The work of Ulrike Arnold is very interesting, in that she insures that all of them are unique to the areas in which they are created. She travels the world and creates “Earth Paintings” that are paintings that use the Earth from the areas she visits to create them. While I found that to be an interesting pursuit, her newest project intrigued me even more. Now Arnold is creating works out of components from meteorites. She went from using the natural material of the Earth to the natural material of space in a shift to her new style of painting. The works expand on the nature of the universe as well as the beginning of the Earth from which she has created so many works. Her Earth works had viewers thinking globally, but her newest work has them thinking on a much larger and more impacting scale. The universe is full of potential, and for me personally that potential comes across in her works. The forms she creates using this alternate material are astonishing and really facilitate her project well. The forms are entirely organic, negating man-made principles of perfect geometry, and accepting the chaos of the universe from which they are inspired. Overall I find her work to be breathtaking and extremely interesting in their genesis.

Social Change-

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2012/02/google-glasses-new-york-times/1#.T0Ushk6PW8A

While this was an extremely short article, the implications of products such as these really intrigued me. Futuristic movies bring items like the glasses Google is in production to make all the time. (The first that came to mind was Pixar’s Wall-E where people are spinning around in their TV-chairs.) In my opinion, though, the implications of these spectacles are going to be much less extreme (at least in the near future.) The primary concern I found with the product is the idea of it video-recording your surroundings to assist you with finding things (which the article pointed out as a hitch with the release.) The idea of a product recording everything you do as one that has yet to be encountered.  For now all technological products give you a choice, however, the iPhone doesn’t always alert you that it is using your current location. The new Siri feature just assumes you want it to be used in order to assist you (it can be turned off, but you would have to know how.)  The primary difference with these glasses is the fact that it is video recording you versus knowing where you are. Essentially the two could be construed as just as bad as the other, they both track you in order to provide help, however, video recording is perceived as a larger invasion of privacy. Will the tracking features of the glasses eventually be accepted as common place, though? Will it fall into the realm of Facebook knowing everything we like, Amazon knowing everything we buy, or the iPhone knowing where we are at any given moment? (With unnerving accuracy I might add.) Only time will tell; but these glasses are something that (if successful) will continue molding the future of our society. In my opinion whether that change is for better or for worse will depend on the users.  

Week 5 Art- Mightily

This week's piece was made using an old book my grandma gave me for collaging, a scrap piece of cardboard, glue, and ink pens. The words that write the poem I created are all from 2 pages of the book, and were arranged by me to create a narrative to the piece, following along the idea that it was created from a story to begin with. The poem is intended to be concerning environmental as well as internal issues.
The size is approximately 5x10"

Week 5 Responses

Week 5

NEWS

http://www.app.com/article/20120210/NJNEWS/302100011

After taking a course on Civil Rights History last semester, I have taken an interest in the portrayal of African American History in America today. During the last portion of the course we read The Civil Rights Movement In American History edited by Renee C. Romano and Leigh Raiford. That book helped give me a starting point for analyzing this depiction of African Americans in history. The debate about having a month dedicated to African American history began when the week was brought to fruition (as the article states,) and the arguments are valid. One of the main arguments against the idea of separate history months is that it does not support the equality in history that is desired. From the opposing stand point, African American History should be a year-round integrated part of teaching history, not just highlighted once a month and then set aside until the next February. This is a valid argument, but the reason we have the monthly celebration is obviously because the struggle of African Americans is one to be highlighted. The history of African Americans (as well as women and other groups that have a month dedicated to them) deserves attention in the public’s eye. In schools the information should be integrated, yes, but that doesn’t change the fact that the average adult American can forget about the history of America at leisure without being reminded of events. The month also provides an opportunity for people to continuously learn new information about our collective history. For example, another article that I found involved a community coming together to honor a large burial cite that contains the remains of hundreds of slaves in an unmarked field. Situations like these, while they are reported on, receive extra attention during this month, and that attention helps the nation’s collective memory grow.

The only issue that I have with this collective memory is that it forgets the individuals who brought about change. The Civil Rights Movement had people working hard for equality long before Parks sat down or King stood up. Even looking at Rosa Parks there is a lot forgotten. She is remembered as an elderly woman who refused to give up her seat on a bus. What our nation’s collective memory doesn’t know on a larger level is that she was an activist long before refusing to move, and she was not the first to protest in this way. She is remembered because it was the trigger that brought Martin Luther King Jr. to the public’s attention. I’m not trying to say by any means that these great Americans shouldn’t be remembered for their deeds, but there are local heroes that are often forgotten who did more work for their individual communities than members of those communities now even know. The University of Louisville has done a great job of keeping our local heroes in our memory by installing the large glass panes depicting and describing Louisville’s Civil Rights workers in their new renovations of Freedom Park (by the Playhouse Theatre facing Cardinal Towne.) For this African American History Month I urge people to skim those descriptions and get a better feeling for the Civil Rights work done in our hometown, as well as learning about other heroes in the movement. African American History Month is a celebration of where our country is now, as well as a reminder of all of the work that has yet to be done.

(Sorry for the lengthy post, I started typing and couldn’t stop.)

ART

http://greenmuseum.org/artist_index.php?artist_id=15

http://www.amdandart.org/tour_solution.html

Created and lead by T. Allen Comp, AMD&ART is an interesting project that has a team of artists, engineers, scientists, and humanists working as a collective to help create a creative solution to a problem that is facing Appalachia communities, AMD (Acid Mine Drainage.) AMD is causing pollution to the water systems of the area in which they began their work in 1994, Vintondale, Pennsylvania. That pollution creates unhealthy environments and destroys the land. The team SPLASH (Sustainable Partnership of Landscaping Architects, Scientists, and Historians)  uses three key aspects in their approach to making real change in that area. They start with the sciences, treating the water, then use the arts, public works created by the suggestions and needs of the public throughout the park, and finally the humanities, using history and humanities to get large amounts of community involvement on the project.

I find this project to be very interesting. It is hard to necessarily critique the work itself, as there are not many photos of the artistic side of it nailed down on the site, however the project is an ambitious and interesting one. The idea of bringing so many different types of forward thinkers together to created one large project is something I really appreciate in art today. The ability to spread the conventions of art into areas that allow other types of thinkers to put their ideas into the project are generally more dynamic from works I have seen. 

Week 4 Art- close up on object

Week 4 Art- The Two Lenses: Electronic Vs Organic

For this week's project I created a birds nest using organic material- sticks and twigs from fallen branches (which is now on a bench outside the art building if anyone wants it.) my purpose in making the piece was for a photograph embodying the idea of the duality of our society (continuing on the path of my first weekly project.) This one is about the two lenses of seeing real life and viewing life through a screen of some sort. This photo is to how that the viewer would rather look at the object on the screen of her phone then at the actual object which is right next to her, highlighting the tension between society's perception through electronics vs what's really around them.

Week 4 Responses

http://news.yahoo.com/man-stole-glacier-cocktails-063000532.html

I found this article and didn’t even link it to the detriment it is to the environment at first, being too busy thinking ‘who would pay that much just to have “rare glacier” ice in their glass?’ Evidently enough for a man to swipe ice from a glacier that has parts over 1000 years old, not to mention the fact that it is one of the world’s fastest receding glaciers. While this is an environmental issue, that can not be denied, what does it say about society? This ring of ice thieves transported 11,453 pounds of glacier ice for the purpose of making money (estimations are around 6,000 dollars.) Making money and catering to the outlandish eccentricities of the wealthy is the only reason for the theft of an environmental landmark that may not be here much longer. Perhaps that is exactly why they justified taking it. Who is to say that that 11,453 pounds wasn’t part of the mile that was going to be gone within the year? They were preserving it in their ice truck, that is at least until the rich could swallow it with their brandy. This act of strange theft is one that speaks volumes about the world. It’s come down to making money and piggy backing of the trends of the rich in order to make it faster. These thieves stole part of an environmental landmark that isn’t going to be around forever just to make a quick buck and facilitate more strange trends for the wealthy.

http://www.janeingramallen.com/Janeweb-environment/Janeweb-environment.htm

I found the work of Jane Ingram Allen to be very interesting. Being a handmade paper artist, her work is not what I would have automatically assumed environmental. But in looking at the “environmental work” link in her gallery, I found her work to be extremely environmental. Her choice to make art that react to nature by being changed by nature is a choice that makes the work well rounded. What she got from the ground, the plants to make her paper, is being returned to nature through the eventual decay that will happen as the works are weathered down. The work I found to be the most interesting was the Earth Day art installation at Tunghai University in Taiwan. She combined her paper making art with nature in order to create a more permanent work that has a real message behind it. That message is saving Earth’s water supplies and not taking it for granted. To make the work she used non-toxic dyed paper pulp with seeds in it, and poured it along the tilled up soil path that was created in the shape of the Earth with a long stream of water flowing off of it. The paper will eventually degrade into the soil, causing the piece to loose its color until the flower seeds that were mixed into that pulp bloom and produce the same colors that were in the papers. The piece will change and adapt to nature over time in order to carry the same message, but be completely integrated into the natural environment in which it rests. The flowers will create a three dimensional piece of art that is a natural statement about environmental issues.