Crafts.

This week’s guest speaker was Anya Kivarkis. She talked about crafts. Before this lecture, I had never thought jewelry could be used as a statement. I had always thought of jewelry as a style type of thing. Like something people use to express themselves, not as a real statement. Honestly, I had a lot of problems understanding what the pieces we were shown were trying to say. Basically, all I saw were pieces of jewelry and sculptures. The only one I understood was the artist who made a teapot and then encased that teapot in a box. The teapot was the kind of teapots that isn’t actually used, but it put on display. By putting it in the box, its value was taken away. I really liked that even though it was in a box, it could still be used as a teapot. The artist made holes in the box so that it was still usable. I don’t understand people who buy everyday objects purely to put them on display. I understand displaying objects that you own, but never using them seems pointless. It reminds me of those stories about grandparents who have cabinets of dishes and things that aren’t allowed to be touched. It just doesn’t make any sense.

People maybe buy things like these because it gives them a sense of power. They buy this fancy or special object that maybe makes them feel important or something, thus giving them a sense of power. I have cool things therefore I am cool. However, I think that the item actually has power over the buyer. People go to such effort to keep things safe and clean and nice even if they are meant to be used. They are just objects but they hold such power over people. But eventually this power fades over time and the object just becomes another object.

The artist we looked at this week was John Feodorov. He seems to be a very humorous man. His art deals somewhat with spiritual ideas and symbols. His work “Totem Teddies” was very interesting. He put totem heads on teddy bears kind of making them this buyable piece, just in case someone needs some instant spirituality. I really liked his piece where he put feathers on the kids toy and wrote spirit under all of the animal names. The piece is called “Animal Spirit Channeling Device for the Contemporary Shaman.” I found this hilarious. What I got from this piece was that people want instant spirituality, spirituality that they can buy. This way, they always have that ‘save’ if they do something wrong.

I particularly liked the quote we went over in class, plus I thought it was pertinent to talking about the power that products have. In the interview “Forest at Night,” he says, “For some reason, Western culture likes to castrate the powerful, maybe because it doesn’t want to be less powerful than something else, that maybe it has to bring everything down to a level where…well, maybe it’s capitalism really, to where it’s a product, to where it’s something that can be controlled by purchase, controlled by owning it and by owning even in art.” People need to have power over something. For some reason, we long for it.

 

This is an iPad. Recently, my dad turned sixty. My mom and I decided to get him one of these fancy gadgets. He probably thinks that he has complete control over this iPad. However, this is where he would be wrong. He has basically lost himself to this new toy. Every time I see him, he is sitting with the iPad in his lap, scrolling through various apps that he finds. When he has free time, he is rarely without his new gadget. It has complete control over him. Also, there are plenty of various spirituality apps. Which I find pretty funny.

Environmental Art.

This week, our guest speaker, Carla, talked about environmental art. When she first introduced this topic, I couldn’t really imagine what she meant by environmental art. The only thing I imagined was art about nature. This didn’t seem very interesting. However, my opinion changed when I found out what she meant by environmental art. When art is brought up, I have never thought about things like making a line in the grass by walking back and forth. This was very interesting to me. It brought a whole new perspective to what art is. I thought her artwork was different. I didn’t really know what to think about it. Having ants walk through ink and create marks isn’t something I would typically think of as art. I can’t say I particularly liked it. There was one piece that she showed us about an artist who learned to tightrope walk. She then went to the Bahamas and set up her rope on the beach so when she walked over it, she was walking on the horizon. I thought this was beautiful. The scenery and the idea were both very impressive. 

We learned about the artist Kiki Smith. She seems very down to earth and as if she knows exactly who she is. There aren’t many people like that. I enjoy her views on life. In the interview “Family History and History of Objects,” she talks about how the perception of beauty changes throughout our lives. “You always have to be shifting your idea of what beauty is to make your life wonderful.” I like this idea a lot. It makes a lot of sense to me. If you don’t change your views of what beauty is, your life will be spent trying to achieve this beauty that may never happen. In her other interview, “Learning by Looking: Witches, Catholicism, and Buddhist Art,” she talks about how art comes from your insides. “And art is in a sense like a proof: it’s something that moves from your insides into the physical world, and at the same time it’s just a representation of your insides.” It as though you’re sharing yourself with the world by creating art and that the art has a specific person.

On the other end of this spectrum, there is Roland Barthes’ “The Death of the Author.” This basically says that the author dies when the reader sees what they want to see in work. It is like the author is creating something with no intentions and the reader sees what they want to see in it. In class today, we looked at a picture of a man sitting and holding a dog. We then discussed how everyone in the class would come up with a different story for this picture, thus creating the birth of the “reader.” We don’t know the intentions of the author, therefore there aren’t any.

We also watched the video “Anything is Possible,” which is about William Kentridge. There was something he said that tied into the ideas of “The Death of the Author.” He said something along the lines of “My job is to draw pictures, your job is to figure out what they mean.” This is exactly the same. By saying this he basically said that he has no intentions with his work, and people should think of it what they please. I particularly enjoyed his view of his opera, which was basically that he was creating drawings. I have never heard anyone refer to an opera as drawings. I really liked his drawings where the mirror was used to see the actual picture. The drawings were just an assortment of lines that didn’t appear to make much sense until looked at in the mirror. This was a really cool idea. I was kind of baffled with trying to figure out how he could draw these “mirror images” so well.

The tightrope walker that Carla showed made me think of the documentary “Man on Wire.” This is about Philippe Petit and his quest to tightrope walk across the world trade center towers. When I had watched the movie, I didn’t really think of what he was trying to do as art. I just saw it as an intense goal that he wanted to complete. After Carla’s presentation, I saw this in a new artistic light. 

Digital Arts.

This week’s topic was digital arts. Our guest speaker was John Park. I was pretty interested in what he had to say about the topic, as I can’t say I know that much about digital arts. However, I was a little disappointed with his presentation. I did enjoy listening to him talk, but I was expecting him to talk more about digital arts. I did particularly enjoy listening to him talk about how facebook and electronics rule our lives. We talked about that again in class and it made me think about how much facebook really does take control of people. There are many people who strive to get as many friends as possible. There many people on my friends’ list that have over five hundred friends. This is silly. I highly doubt they talk to or even know all of these people. I have a little over two hundred friends and I only use facebook to talk to the people I see every week. I do understand that some people use facebook to keep in contact with people, but most people use it to disconnect themselves from the world around them. It’s frustrating that this happens to so many people. Even I fall victim to it. I often find myself staring blankly at the facebook homepage, aimlessly scrolling up and down, hoping something out of the ordinary happens. There are so many other, more interesting things that I could be doing with my time.

Now that I’m done ranting about facebook, I’ll go back to talking about important blog topics. I was particularly impressed by the dance crew dancing along with the digital images. It was kind of chilling. At first it was hard to tell if the dancer was following the image or if the dancer was creating the image. This ties into something Paul Pfeiffer said. He said, “Is the image making us or do we make images?” This is an interesting idea. This is a hard question to approach. It might even be a collaboration of the artist and the piece. Obviously the artist comes up with ideas for this work, but as the piece is being created, it will be reworked and remodeled to fit its specifications. The artist and the piece work with each other.

Pfeiffer also talked about his definition for what terror is, which I found interesting. In the interview “Scenes of Horror,” he says, “I think of terror as really a disturbance in one’s sense of the normal or disturbance in one’s sense of groundedness—who I am and who other people are and what the world is and maybe what the boundary between these things are.” I thought this was a fantastic definition. There have been many times where I have been scared by a shadow or a misplaced item in the dark. There have been several times where I have been driving in the dark and stop at a stop sign. Across from me there would be buildings with big windows that my headlights would reflect in. I always have this moment of “whoa… where did they come from?” And then I realize it’s just my reflection. This also relates to Janet Cardiff’s walks. I can’t say for sure, but imagine that her walks incite this same kind of terror, like a sort of frightened anticipation or suspense, even though it is just a normal scene. I looked at her “The Carnie” installation and it had kind of the same effect. It started with something normal and as it went on, the music became creepier and made this normal scene somewhat frightening.

The last thing we looked at was David Byrne’s “Playing the Building.” I thought this piece was very unique. Just looking at it, it’s easy to tell it’s something out of the ordinary. I know I would feel like a kid who had control over some new toy or something if I were to play this piece. I would be sitting in this building that could completely consume me and I could control every sound it makes. That would be pretty awesome. Even though Byrne is the creator, he gives complete control to the participant, which gives them a sense of power.

Watch out! It’s a trap! (I thought this was relevant.)

Photography.

I would like to preface this blog by saying that I was unable to attend Tuesday’s lecture, thus I cannot talk about what Craig Hickman had to say. I will attempt to write this as best as I can.

This week’s topic was photography. Photography has always been an interest of mine. Being able to view objects from another perspective and manipulating other people’s views of that same object is very interesting to me. I enjoy the challenge of taking an interesting photograph. I also enjoy editing those pictures to make them even more aesthetically pleasing. This week’s reading was a blog post by Errol Morris, titled “Photography as a Weapon.” In this, he discusses the Iranian missiles photograph, and the topic of manipulating photographs. The main idea is that the validity of photographs should be questioned before believed. When the Iranian missile picture was released, many newspapers published the picture. Everyone believed that there were four missiles that were launched. Later, it was found out that the photo had been doctored and in reality, only three of the missiles were launched. This was interesting to me. In all honesty, I would have never questioned it. I am one that falls victim to believing that reported pictures are true. I realize that politicians and reporters lie, but I had never thought about questioning pictures that were reported.

In class we discussed if our generation is savvier to this type of manipulation than previous generations, based on the fact that we grew up surrounded by these distortions. Some people said that they were savvier to it because it is everywhere. It is in magazines all the time. Advertisements are ridiculously manipulated, as are models and many other pictures. I disagree. First of all, I believe the context in which the picture is presented matters greatly. Obviously things in a magazine (referring to entertainment and fashion type magazines) have been doctored to be aesthetically pleasing. If they were not aesthetically pleasing, they would not be successful and would not likely be used again. If the photo was in a newspaper or an informative or scholarly type of magazine, I would be more apt to believe that it was unedited, purely because of it’s setting. The second reason as to why I disagree is simply because we have grown up surrounded by it. It is the norm, and people often believe what they see. This is proven by all the women who starve themselves because they want to look like the people in magazines. Because we are surrounded by this deception, we are oblivious as to what is true and what is false.

We also looked at works by Alfredo Jaar. His work was eerie, but interesting. I could never do work like he has done. I am incredibly impressed by his ability to travel to countries where terrible things happen to document these events. I particularly liked his work “Let One Hundred Flowers Bloom.” At first glance, I didn’t understand what he was going for. There are flowers in a room with fans blowing at them. That’s cool I guess. I had a new found appreciation for it when I read the interview “The Gramsci Trilogy.” In it he says, “Intellectuals may die—they may be suppressed—but ideas never die.” I was very impressed with this. I completely understood the significance of the flowers living and dying in this cell-like room with fans blowing them in every which direction. His piece “The Silence of Nduwayezu” was also very interesting. I liked the idea of the pile of slides all of the boy’s eyes. His sadness was expressed through his eyes, which is the only way to portray something of that magnitude.

Don’t believe everything you see.