12.3.10 Lecture Notes

Paintings 1950-1980s

After WWII America became a super power so art had to adjust

Abstract Expressionism (Action painting):
Jackson Pollock "Jack the Dripper"
-personality - LIFE Magizine - became a celebraty
-new "art stars" (first one)
-buyers began to change
-human being expressing himself
         "I am nature"
-the movements of man were beautiful (dancers knew this)
-Pollock had a working relationship w/ the people - like celebraty

Colorfield painting - no mark making. Just areas of color/
-look through a paint as a window, instead of at it
-art dealing was new

Acrillic paint invented 40-50s


The painted world - Tom Wolfe poked fun

Hard Egde: (Frank Stella)
-shaped canvas - very simple - "Where's the expression??" - neat and tidy
-nerd art

Op art:
-nothing to know about it. To get it you don't need to know anythinbg, it just is.

Pop art: (Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp)
-Andy was making everything famous
        -he wanted to make art like hamburgers

Logo

getting logo ideas~

Photo combinations:

Kathy suggested that I replace the Jack head logos with a real picture of myself. Gave it a try and I really liked, but I would like to actually draw it in my style instead of really realistic. We'll see what happens.



Writing Assignment: compare 3 pictures

*Parentheses show my inside comments. regular text is the actual analysis.

A picture taken by me of someone else:

a. To capture a moment/document a time: To show the interest of the subject in their surrounding.  (<-This and I just felt a desire to have a picture of him. We had gone to the Galleria of Dallas[which I have not been to since I was a kid] and it was kind of a special time that I wanted to have record of.)
b. The relationship is close: The Subject is not paranoid of a looming photographer, and the photographer takes care in making the subject look good. Could be friends or family. (This is my boyfriend Jake.)
c. I think it was intended for personal use, though it kind of looks something like street photography...kind of. It by no means is for advertisement because the subject would probably be more ingaged with the photographer if that were the case. It is meant to be used amongst friends and family.

 A picture taken of me by someone:

a. To capture a moment: opening of a present. (yeah, my friend gave me an early Chirstmas gift.)
b. Seems friendly: Could be a family or friend relationship. Subject is attentive to the photographer. (My good friend D'andra took this.)
c. Intended to be used amongst friends or family.

Random picture:

a. To capture a moment/document a time: The woman is driving a boat, possibly a rare event or an event new to the photographer. Could even be a documentation of the use of a new boat/rented boat/etc.
b. Seems friendly: Could be family or friends. The subject is smiling for the photographer and is not forcing a pose.
c. Intended for personal use amongst friends and family. Could not see this as a possible advertising photo or anything of the sort.



Inflatable Project

The original dome bubble house design was not working...at all. So we had to scrap the whole thing because the bubble house had turned into more of a bubble of terror; It basically devoured you when you walked inside. The new cylindical design worked awesome though! Things were a little rough in the first few hours of the Inflatable Happening but in the end we got things together and I'm pleased with what we accomplished.

 

We gave it a test run before we left and, man, is it hard to deflate!



Setting up for the Happening

 

inside



 

The outlet we were using got a little over worke and shut down on us!



Figured out a new power source with the help of another group. Finally back in business!

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A few of our visitors: 

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The bubble house was definately an evolving project. Over the course of the Happening we decided to take the bubble machine out of the house; The wind had caused the house to shift which caused the machine to flip. We took it outside and started to put balloons inside instead. In the end I think this was a better choice than the bubbles. Visitors had moer fun with the balloons than they could hve had with the bubbles.

Balloons flying

Looking out from the inside

11.19.10 Lecture and Reading

Contemporary Photography

-photography is very technologically dependent
-it captures an instant/documenting an instant of time
-Street photography: capturing things as they happen
-every picture has the viewpoint of the artist
-"The decisive moment" -Henri
______
1981 - Appropriation
______
-photography has always been taking something
-investigating yourself with play-acting
-theme of a photo: globalization. Sharing/adopting of culture
______
Constructing Worlds:
making things to document. Eleborate creation
-picture of a situation
-assume that its a real event
______
Stranger than fiction
______
Personal Investigation:
-darker sides
-quantity was more important than quality
______
Objectivity
______
People looking around

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 Reading - Ch1

.photography invented in 1839

photos:

  -teach visual code

  -alter and enlarge our notion of whats worth looking at

  -are grammer/ethics of seeing

  -puts the world at our fingertips

.To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed

.Written words, paintings and drawing are all interpretation..photography captures a reality

.frigile objects, easily torn and mislaid

.Furnished evidence. incriminates. proves things. Justifies

.Even when photographers are most concerned with mirroring relity, they are still hunted by interpatives of taste and conscience.

  -will take dozens of pictures of the same subject until they get what they want.

  -by choosing one picture over another, photographers are imposing standards or their subjects.

  -though pictures record reality, and harbor just as much interpretation as a painting or drawing

.1840s and 1850s sped mentality of seeing the world and a set of potential photographs

.photography implied the capture of the largest possible subjects

.democratize all experiences by translating them into images

.First cameras(made in France in the early1840s) were only operated by inventors and buffs.

  -no professional photographers, nor amatuers

  -no clear social use

.It was through the industrialization that photography came into its own art

  -provided social use

..to be continued

Contrast Self Portrait

**note: sorry for the lack of photographs...the phone I used to take pictures is no longer working so I didnt get a chance to upload any.

Progress report:   When we first given this project I instantly wanted to use my traits of quiet and shy yet crazy and colorful. Upon first impression I am quiet, to myself, and shy. However, if an effort is put forth to to get to know me, I am quite sociable. And those who I am friends with or am close to know that I can be pretty silly and fun.

just some ideas

I liked the idea of a smooth white outter shell. It doesn't give much informatition to the viewer and portrays a kind of untouched, pure vibe. Since this is suppose to be representation of me then this partrays how it is hard to read what kind of person I am if you have not met me. It is a clean slate. It's quiet, and unintrusive, just like me. However, I invision a sort of lip that reveals the bright colors inside. It is a peek into what my personality is. My goal is to perk the interest of the viewer so they must come in closer in order to see what is inside. Very symbolic of what it takes to get to know a person. Unfortunately my building supplies are limited..I have a very small amount of money to spend so I have to make due with what I have. This may lead to me changing my project because in the end it's more about what it looks like.

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Progress report 2:   My supplies are not going to work for this project. I spent all day brain storming: what I finally came up with is a tree. I want to take a branch, stip the leaves and take parts of the branch to make a small tree. Then I will put tin foil leaves on it. This is a sort of representation of my love of nature and also man made things. I want to show that they both exist in me. All i have to do now is get the supplies (both free! I have some foil left over from a previous project and there are pleanty trees on campus).

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Progress report 3:   The small tree idea ended up not working. It took up way too much time and effort. So now I've decided to reverse roles of the medium. I'm using tin foil as the bark and real leaves. It's going pretty well. I used a part of my NASA newspaper project as the base to build the foil upon. I've gotten a few branches made and glued on. I'm letting them dry over night and hopefully they will stick to the base.

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Progress report 4:   Finished! I was going for a self-standing sculpture kind of thing but there's no way it would have gotten done on time. So it's wall mount! Problem solved. It also helps the weaker branches that droop by gluing them to the wall. The leaves ended up being pretty heavy. I used the branches I was stripping the leaves from as a guildline for where I should put the leaves and leaf groupings.

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THE CRIT

+likes, -Dislikes, ~nutural comments

+witty

+Has a bit of character: wilted ->sad

+contrast in colors: bright green leaves - grey metalic foil 

+contrast: minty - aluminum 

+It is a realistic, natural looking tree (splits in two, etc)

(~could have been more industrial looking to be more

 contraditory to the fact that a tree is natural. To make it

more industrial would have given it a completely different feel)

+good choice to come off wall

+life size branch

+good execution in making the foil look like bark

-some parts are boring compared to others

(+the delicate and fragile branches are more interesting.

As well as the ones sticking out)

+the way the bark was broken/frayed made it more "realistic"

~Just having a natualistic tree made out of tin foil could have possibly been

 enough of a contrast in it self. It may have not even needed the leaves

Interpretations:

1. protect: armor. protection of something natural and fragile

2. Man made vs. Natural

Overall I was very pleased with the responses and feedback during this crit. It sounded like my idea got across in a least one form or another. This project was definately a big stress to figure out what to do, but what I ended up with was successful. Woohoo! It was totally worth all the weird looks I got when I was yanking branches off trees on campus.

10 Miniposters

The knocked out pictures:

Group crit towards the last standing:



(Final pick)

-The quote is visually mimicked by the splatter

-emphasis on "out"

-more grungy feel

-closure: makes you think of an exploding lightbulb

I ended up picking this one because to the visual cohesion between the mark and the text. Out of the top three it is the most relivent to the quote.



-Had closure: looks like water/tide coming in
-if it were rotated and the words fixed, it could look more like waves
-"beach"

-emphasis on "out"
-repetition of circle shapes
-"poping" or "explosion" of light
-doesn't go with text that well. not a visual
representation of quote

Surrealism Notes

(Max Ernst, Rene Magritte, Salvador Pali, Man Ray, Jean Arp)

-post WWI
-less political(??)
-acces to the cubconcious mind
-new psychological theories of Sigmund Freud, "the interpratation of dreams" 1899

Techniques->Automatism

surrealism: take expectations and SNAP THEM
trying to shock you out of the ordinary

-middle class artist - rebeling against it.
they didnt want to be cogs in the machine-against social order

-fantasy is not new. Surrealist, however would do their own as oppose to shared

Dada Notes

Dada, Surealism, and After

dada-began in WWI: protest war, society, old social order  (Contributions: -appropriation -assemblage, construction -conceptual art/more moved action -chance/let things happen)

Merz painting - using anything
Fled Germany breaks down language as a sound was to reflect craziness that led to WWI

1916, Cabaret Voltaire{filling time by making nonsense} in Zurich, Switzerland

spread out, Berlin 1919. These Dadas watched HItler, became very political
Paris. More Surrealism. More interested in the art than the politics

Dadas wanted to sweep away old culture

"reactions can be xD or >:/ or >xD"  <----dada reaction as explained in my notes
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Conceptual Art  not much to look at, but alot to think about

Identity Essentials

Thats pretty good ...for a girl

[1st wave of feminist art - plus the ripple '64 and after]

1. Essentials (identity)
-personal
-body
-sexuality
-vaginal icongraph
2. Materials/techniques
-unique to women
3. Pictivism
-performance
-sisterhood
4. Distinguish art of men/women
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The tongue: gender
When I think of the use of body parts I try to think of how certain ones are advertised. When I think of tongues (which I picked merely because it's my favorite body part) its closely associated to females for sex appeal. So I thought that  could pertain to the essence of gender and was a possible direction to go. However, the tongue can be also be used to portray silliness of excitement. So I thought that could also be something to capture. Both are included below. It's possible that it can be considered a container of something(like desire or expression) but I'm not sure. Something that I wouldn't mind talking through to come up with a result

Modual Madness

**note: I loved this project :)

Pics:

Half way done!



detail shot

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10/15 Progress report

OH NO!! My project got smashed!

I was nearly finished with my project and decided to take it with me to my home town so i could finish it over the weekend. Unfortunately though, I was rear ended shortly after my departure... Soooo, my my project (as well as everything else) got flung and broke on impact. So Im going to have a hard time getting things to fit back together, I can already tell..

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10/17

Got it pieced back together at least. Def not how I wanted it to turn out but I did the best I could fitting it back and filling it in. It sucks that there is an obvious disjunction at the bottom but luckly, if I present it right, it's not noticable.

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The final product Crit

I ended up presenting two different pieces. The round one was my main one and the hanging one was a side project

Round

- Shape: Somewhat round, yet not quite; excelent choice for the object because I did not force it to do something it could not do. How it is an irregular, sphereical shape makes it more organic. The "wart" adds a little pizzaz and it possibly would have been better to add a smaller wart to compliment it. It was a good choice to break up the plain surface. the bad: there are a few parts that are overly jarred. Half of the shape is pretty nicely round, but the other unevenly flat. The hole also is not quite big enough. The inside is not interesting enough for the viewer to go out of their way to look inside. It does not catch their attention enough to be of help. It needs to be either bigger or filled in.

- Size: Good size for object; Making it much bigger would cause it to lose the detail of the acorn tops. The strength is in the porous detailing. If it loses that then it loses what makes it interesting.

- Object: It's nice that the acron tops in the piece are not all the same size. It looks like a pattern, yet it's not because there are irregularties. the bad: there are broken pieces that detract from the object and distract the viewer. Also, it would have been nice to not see as much hot glue. It takes away from the organic-ness.

Hanging

- Shape: The bottom half is better than the top. top: "like an explosion." it's too simular to the shape and idea of the round acron object. It doesn't match the bottom part, It would have been better to do one of the other. bottom: "Bell-like." The way that the acorns hang and sort of radiate makes it an excelent wall piece.

- Size: The size makes it very hard for the object to work as a.."table" piece(?). It is too small and would not hold onto a views attention for very long. As a wall piece a viewer would be more attentive. However, It would be much better if it were longer/bigger. It's much too short and stubby. It has continuance which makes one longing for more.

Mark Making with Tool

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