[daniisweird]

IVFF: Holiday by the Sea

This last Friday, December 3rd 2014, Isla Vista held the first First Friday in conjunction with the excursion club. The theme was “Holiday by the Sea”, and there was definitely a sense of holiday cheer amongst the crowd. This event is a late night art and culture event that is essentially an alternative to the regular friday night in IV. This event started at 9pm and continued until 1am Saturday morning, and throughout the night the attendees wore a steady hat of snow. Snow in Isla Vista? Yes! Along with the christmas hats and christmas lights that lit up Perfect Park, there was a snow machine that showered people with holiday spirit!

In addition to the christmas snow and lights, local bands played until midnight including the improvisation act Sketch N’ Sniff, Sun Daes, and Yancellor Chang. Then with respect to the noise ordinance that is enforced in Isla Vista, from midnight to 1am there was a silent disco. And the attractions didn’t end there - there were hammocks and slacklines that were set up thanks to the excursion club, carnival games, food trucks, raffles, face painting and fire dancing that lasted the entire night.

This was my first experience going to a First Friday in Isla Vista, and a lot of preparation went into it. I decided to contact the person in charge of the event and see if there was any possibility that I would be able to showcase a piece of interactive artwork. I couldn’t get in contact with her, but on my way home from class that friday around noon, I noticed a small group of people setting up poles and lights in Perfect park. I got off my bike and proceeded to see if they needed any help setting up and happily contributed. I then spoke to a few people who were very excited about my idea, figured out a place to install my art piece for the night, and finalized meeting times and logistics.

This is where the real work began. I left the park around three pm, which left me under five hours to acquire all of my supplies, as well as create the base for the interactive piece. But i managed to pull it off, and around 8:50pm, a mere ten minutes before the event began, I hauled my gigantic piece of plywood from my house to Perfect park. I had to make a few trips, but I got my piece of art standing up, under a tree, in the warmth of the christmas lights, with two containers of different shades of green paint underneath, a few paint brushes, black paint and a lot of paper towels. Since I stood next to my interactive art piece most of the night, I am not aware of any other pieces of art at the event. But everyone was very excited to contribute and put their handprint on The Family Tree of Isla Vista. There were handprints big and small, perfect and smeared, as well as a few drunk hand prints/streaks. I was very happy with the turnout and how enthusiastic individuals were to contribute something to this piece that represented their community. People of all ages stopped by, young ones and wise ones, intoxicated and sober, “artsy” and not, and it was perfect - it was the exact representation of our beachtown I wanted to portray.

And this goes for the whole event, people of all ages and backgrounds and interests showed up, and I think that that says something about our goals as a culture and community. We want to be something more than our party image that the outside world sees us as, and we want to embrace the other side of our community, the one that embodies a sense of family, an appreciate of arts, a respect for our culture and our environment. That is the community I am proud to be a part of and the Isla Vista First Friday: Holiday by the Sea only reinforced my love for my community.

  (I would attach a few pictures of my art installation, but I think i’ll wait until the idea/project that inspired the art piece is finished, which will be this Friday, December 12th)

  Thank you to all that made this event possible! Including:

IV Open Lab

Excursion Club

IV Food Coop

Academic Services & Senate

IV Recreation & Park District

County Administration Services

[eekehduh-blog]

Surfs Up: The Graveyard

We would curate our show right on the beach at sunset low tide. Time TBD based on sunset and low tide meeting up

The Concept is artwork made from broken surfboards. 

Artists: surfers, Kahuna Hana, Seaweed Sally, Sandy Cheeks. Dave Dolphin

"It was the year 2014, and the only thing bigger than the ambition for art was the WAVES BRAH.  Breaking artistic boundaries and surfboards.  The tide may be low but their creativity is high."

[daniisweird]

Art Review: Damien Hirst

Tate Modern Museum, London

By: Dani Garcia

In the late 1980’s, a group of British artists from the Goldsmiths College in London came together and created an exhibition called Freeze, which was held in an old warehouse as well as organized by Damien Hirst [1]. This was start of the Young British Artists era, and these artists became known for the “shock tactics” they used, their unique attitude, as well as their use of throwaway materials[2]. Their new shock-inducing work breathed new life into the British art scene, as each of these artists influenced each other and had very similar skills since most of the initiators of this movement came from the same college. Their eccentric ways launched a new era of artwork that is completely open to the materials that can be used for art, as well as the processes in which this art can be made.

The Freeze exhibition launched Damien Hirst’s career, where he began to shock and surprise the public with his new works of art.  Just last year, Hirst had a five-month exhibition at the Tate Modern Museum in London. It opened on April 4th and lasted until September 9th of 2012, and this is the first exhibition where he gathered his key pieces of work from the last twenty years and put it on display[3]. Ann Gallagher was the curator of this exhibition, in which her and Hirst worked together to exhibit Hirst’s early work, his most popular pieces, as well as his latest creations.

The first room of the exhibition showed his early works Boxes 1988, Spot Painting 1986, and 8 Pans 1987, which all displayed different forms and materials of the same combination of colors. The last piece in this room was With Dead Head 1991, which sparked Hirst’s reputation as an artist who is very interested in death. He said in an interview with Tate Modern, “Every art work that has interested me is about death”. He continues to explain how he used to afraid of death, until he realized the only thing worse is decay.

This moves us to the second room, where A Thousand Years 1990 was displayed. This piece of work revealed a decapitated cow head lying on the ground, surrounded by hundreds of flies that were consuming it. This expression of decay and the processes that take place after life show the viewers that although this process is grotesque and makes you want to stay away, there is something that interests you and makes you linger.

Then when you walk into the third room, you are confronted with The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living 1991, which is a large shark with its mouth wide open that is suspended in an enormous tank of teal formaldehyde. Now this piece of work really catches the viewers off guard, because for most people, they have never been up close and personal with a shark before. The fact that you can just walk up to it and stand in front of its open jaw almost gives you a feeling that the shark might come out to eat you. Not only is the shark terrifying, but the gigantic tank of formaldehyde that it sits in is also a fear for most people, as it represents a large body of water that you could potentially drown in.

Fig 1, Damien Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991, Glass, painted steel, silicone, monofilament, shark and formaldehyde, 2170 x 5420 x 1800 mm | 85.5 x 213.4 x 70.9 in. Tate Modern, London. Damienhirst.http://www.damienhirst.com/the-physical-impossibility-of   

 To follow Hirst’s continued theme of death, the fourth room houses The Acquired Inability to Escape 1991, as well as Crematorium 1996. These were both pieces where Hirst used cigarettes, a leading cause of death in many countries around the world. The large ashtray that is Crematorium 1996, emits a stale stench of old cigarette smoke, that some viewers found to be nauseating, but also intriguing[4]. In a video with both Damien Hirst as well as his curator Ann Gallagher at TATE Modern, he mentions how he used to smoke and didn’t trust anyone who didn’t, until he created these pieces and now “…doesn’t trust anyone who does”. These pieces show his growth and some realizations he had come across during the creation of these pieces.

Rooms five and six are a little different than the previous four rooms. Room five displays In and Out of Love 1991, where there are canvases on the wall with dead butterflies almost trapped on them, as if they accidentally got stuck and struggled until their ultimate death. In this room there is also a table and one each corner there is an ashtray of cigarettes, that plays on the previous room and is a symbol of death even though this doesn’t seem to be the cause of the butterflies loss of life. This takes us to room six, where there are live butterflies flying around and hatching out of canvases instead of getting stuck and dying on them. This brings about a great contrast as well as the beauty of both life and death, as both rooms portray these butterflies in breathtaking manners.

Then you walk into room seven where Pharmacy 1992 is held. But this room almost discombobulates you as you feel like you are walking into an actual pharmacy instead of an art gallery. This links Hirst’s obsession with death to the obsession of human kind with survival, as we are constantly taking medicines to prolong our lives when in our past history we would have died from simple illnesses.

  Fig 2, Damien Hirst, Lullaby, the Seasons, 2002, Glass, stainless steel, aluminum, nickel, bismuth and cast resin, colored plaster and plainted pills with dry transfers, 1833 x 2753 x 102 mm | 72.2 x 108.4 x 4 in. Tate Modern, London. Damienhirst. http://www.damienhirst.com/lullaby-the-seasons    

This is where we hit a change of pace with Loving in a World of Desire 1996 in room eight. This is a room that kids would actually enjoy since it displays large circular art pieces with vibrant colors as well as a distended beach ball. In room nine, Iodomethane-13c 1999-2001 is installed and this canvas of multi-colored dots follows the bright color trend from the previous room.

There are many more pieces in the last remaining rooms ranging from Doorways to the Kingdom of Heaven 2007, a large stained-glass window made out of dead butterflies, to Black Sun 2004 where from afar it looks like a charcoal black circle, but in reality, if you just step a bit closer, is completely created with the carcasses of dead flies. Although many of

  Fig 3, Damien Hirst, Doorways to the Kingdom of Heaven, 2007, Butterflies and household gloss on canvas, 2803 x 1830 mm | 110.4 x 72.1 in (left) | 2943 x 2440 mm | 115.9 x 96.1 in (center) | 2803 x 1930 mm | 110.4 x 72.1 in (right), Tate Modern, London, DamienHirst. http://www.damienhirst.com/doorways-to-the-kingdom-of-hea

Hirst’s art pieces are very shocking and almost sickening, they elicit a response from the viewers that not many pieces of art are capable of. But I believe he balances his unpredictable pieces with beautifully crafted, vibrant pieces that convey the importance of the contrast between life and death and how one cannot be without the other.

Many believe Hirst is just a power-hungry artist who is only interested in the wealth he can acquire from selling his work, but I believe that he sells his work for that much because he believes it is worth that amount. For example For the Love of God 2007, a diamond encrusted skull that is worth around 50 million dollars[5]. But this piece of work is so breath-taking beautiful, and the fact that he did use real diamonds, it doesn’t surprise me that the price for this piece is so high. Artists do have to make a living you know, and I’m sure the materials for piece weren’t cheap.

As for the rest of his pieces, I do not believe any of them were made with easily acquired materials, which must have made them pretty pricey. But this exhibition that shows twenty years of his work in a handful of rooms takes the viewer through a journey of the relationship between life, death, and decay, as well as the afterlife and the uncertainty of it all.

          Bibliography

Brown, Delacy. “Damien Hirst at Tate: Repetitive, super-sensationalized science-show

which is strangely enjoyable.” The Daily. May 21, 2012. http://daily-

norm.com/2012/05/21/damien-hirst-at-tate-repetitive-super-sensationalised-

science-show-which-is-strangely-enjoyable/

“Damien Hirst.” TATE Modern. http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-

modern/exhibition/damien-hirst

Wright, Katie. “Damien Hirst at Tate Modern | Prebook or prepare to queue part two.”

Wordpress. April 9, 2012.

http://styleandthensome.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/damien-hirst-at-tate-modern-

prebook-or-prepare-to-queue-part-two/

“Young British Artists (YBAs).” TATE Modern. http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-

resources/glossary/y/young-british-artists

  [1] “Young British Artists (YBAs),” TATE Modern, http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/y/young-british-artists

[2] “Damien Hirst,” TATE Modern, http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/Damien-hirst

[3] “Damien Hirst,” TATE Modern, http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/Damien-hirst

[4] Katie, Wright, “Damien Hirst at Tate Modern | Prebook or prepare to queue part two,” Wordpress, April 9, 2012, http://styleandthensome.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/damien-hirst-at-tate-modern-prebook-or-prepare-to-queue-part-two/

[5] Delacy, Brown, “Damien Hirst at Tate: Repetitive, super-sensationalized science-show which is strangely enjoyable,” The Daily, May 21, 2012, http://daily-

norm.com/2012/05/21/damien-hirst-at-tate-repetitive-super-sensationalised-

science-show-which-is-strangely-enjoyable/

[daniisweird]

Close Packing and Cracking

I am reviewing the Close Packing and Cracking exhibition that was presented from October 24th to December 10th, 1978 by Bradley R. Miller. This exhibition took place at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles, California. Bradley Robert Miller was born in 1950 in Hillsboro, Oregon and acquired his B.F.A and M.F.A at the University of Oregon. His work began in 1975 where be took pieces of ceramic stones and put them through a rock tumblr so the rocks would look like they had been originally from a flowing river. Many times the rocks would crack and disassemble, but he would but Miller would find a way to pack them together again and believes that these unexpected events is what led to the end products in this exhibition. Miller mentions that his exhibition would be a "major reference for anyone with an interest in analyzing the evolution of forms", and also believes that his rock cracking and packing give insight to these two patterns that are abundant in nature.

The book Synergetics by R. Buckminster Fuller proved to be very influential to Miller, and helped him understand "nature's rational order". He therefore dedicates his book to Fuller, and Fuller responds in the Forward - "...I am delighted when I encounter excellent work done by others regarding the conceptuality and principles of nature's coordination". 

Miller's work is truly breathtaking, as when you usually see a handle full of rocks they usually don't fit together almost perfectly. He presents some rock clusters that are very simple, that then gradually form into intricate, delicate designs.  

[daniisweird]

Comics & Biographix

I was never really into comics as a child, and that pretty much continued until today. I used to associate them with superheroes, but Scott McCloud brings up very valid points that I had never really thought of before. This isn’t the first time i’ve seen an excerpt from his book Understanding Comics - I saw chapters of this back in my 10th grade of high school when I participated in a project with my class that involved making our own comics.

After reading many chapters from this book, as well as reading Persepolis, which is a book in comic form that tells a story with simplistic drawings that help portray it, I was fully emerged into this new form of expression. 

He beings this chapter with the history of how pictures and written word came to be. He explains how the language we used to use was a combination of pictures that told of a story, and that some of those primitive languages still survive today although they have somewhat evolved from pictures to more of a script. “Written word became more specialized, more abstract, and more elaborate” McCloud explains, and once written word and pictures became separated, they didn’t come back together for a long time.

This started the revolution in the 1800s where western art became obsessed with all things visible, and writing became consumed with portraying emotions and senses. Pictures became more realistic and less symbolic. Then artists started creating more abstract work, which led to most of the famous art styles like impressionism and surrealism. And while art became more abstract, writing and language became “more direct, conveying meaning simply and quickly”.

But eventually they did find their way back to each other, and McCloud mentions, “The different ways in which words and pictures can combine in comics is virtually unlimited”. He then goes on an gives a brief description of different ways they can combine ranging from word specific and picture specific to parallel and montage. But the one way that artists and writers should shoot for is the interdependent route, where they convey an idea together and neither could do it alone.

“In comics at its best, words and pictures are like partners in a dance and each one takes turns leading”. I really enjoyed this comparison and it made me picture how both pictures and words can compliment each other while also getting a point or story across to the reader. I have experience with dancing with a partner, and I know how essential it is to help each other and compliment one another, in order to make the whole dance work as a whole.

For the Biographix project I did in 10th grade, I had to create a story, write a script, and from there decide how I wanted to create the pictures, how to frame each section, and how much of the script I wanted to keep in and how much I wanted to portray with pictures. This proved to be a very difficult project for most of my peers as well as myself, as none of us had experience with mixing both mediums. I searched my entire computer for pictures of my finished comics, but it seems I have deleted all evidence of my less than adequate drawings. I did come across the book that some students chose to be a part of.

Here is a brief summary of the project Biographix, done at High Tech High International

And here are some excerpts from my classmates comics

Sylvia Gholson:

Pia Rivet:

After this project, and the variety of comics I read in order to fully understand this medium, I have to say that I am not very fond of it. I believe it is mostly because I don't believe I have any artistic ability when it comes to drawings, and I feel like I can express myself and the story I want to tell through words and creating images in the readers mind instead of through my poorly drawn images. But that's just me.

[daniisweird]

Kip Fulbeck

I am thrilled that I waited until today, October 30th to visit The Colloquium through the Department of Art at UC Santa Barbara. I was privileged enough to see the artist Kip Fulbeck present his journey through life, all the way into the present day. He is actually a professor at our school, where he has received the distinguished teaching award, as well as had many of his students help him with his work Perseverance, which I will talk more in depth about later.

He first began with a small video that he had compiled called Sex, Love & Kungfu where he took videos and pieced them all together to create a montage of different karate movies, along with his commentary in the background. Then, he began a slide show of important people in his life, as well as a somewhat random array of pictures he liked or had a funny backstory to. He mentioned his college friends quite a lot, and loved to talk about how one of them is two years younger than him, yet looks more like fifteen years older than him! He shared a lot of different doodles he had done during faculty meetings, which be said was “the most dreadful experiences he ever has to go through”. He then began to talk about his mom, and how she didn’t know how to put gas in her car until he taught her (he showed a group of around five pictures showing her pumping gas for the first time, all with a very disgusted face). His mom and dad had a marriage that was illegal, because his dad is white and his mom is asian. He has never liked how multiracial people had to decide/pick who they represent on government forms, because he could only pick one or the other and not both.

This is when he began to bring up The Hapa Project, where he took pictures of multiethnic people and asked them to write a phrase about themselves. He spoke briefly about this, and then moved onto his latest piece of work named Perseverance. This was an installation about the art of Japanese tattooing, and how they incorporate tradition, mythology, folklore and religion into their large tattoo pieces that span from the shoulders all the way down to the rear end. He explained the process for how he asked all of these very famous japanese tattoo artists to come to the United States and pose for pictures for him, so he could show off their artwork. But in Japan, they are illegal, and getting one of these beautifully crafted pieces of art is pretty difficult. But Kip Fulbeck had one, all done by hand (without a tattoo gun). He spoke about the importance and care that these artists put into their work, and how it took his artist around an hour and a half just to place his work on him, because he kept drawing it on, then stepping back, looking at it for five minutes, then taking it off and adjusting it until it had utterly perfect placement.

I have a few tattoos myself, and I have always wondered why people go to cheap tattoo parlors and get a pretty meaningless tattoo that isn’t executed right and was obviously not thought out or thorough. This piece of artwork is going to be on your body forever, and I believe it is important to think about the design you want for a long time and it is equally important to find a tattoo artist that has the skill and the attention to detail to give you a breathtaking piece of work. I searched for a long time before I found a tattoo parlor and tattoo artist that I loved, and I am so happy I have stuck with her ever since. I am actually getting my 5th tattoo by her next week, and am driving four hours down to San Diego just for it. So in this way, I believe I share Kip and the Japanese artists view on the importance of detail, planning, and execution of a tattoo because it is after all, a piece of art.

This is a piece from his show Perseverance 

Kip Fulbeck is an amazing artist, overachiever, guitar player and surfer. For more on his work, click here

[daniisweird]

Introverted Age No More, Thanks to Holi Paige

Holi Paige has started a uphill battle against the introverted society we have adjusted to, and believes that everyone has the ability to be an artist. The only difference between artists and the average joe is the fact that artists are “just people who won’t let their thoughts and experiences go unshared”. Who is to tell you whether you are an artist or not? Your own interpretation of a piece of work could be vastly different in the eyes of another, and Holi Paige insists that there should be no requirements for what can define you as an artist.

There are is a enormous amount of different ways to express yourself through art, whether it be a young couple arguing on their lawn, to a man documenting his life of being fully outdoors for 365 days straight. She dismisses the fact that artists have a “gift” - she believes that those gifts don’t define who you are or your skills, it is your ability to illicit a response out of the viewers, whether it be through a piece of work or even unintentionally. This new found confidence would change the world as we know it. There wouldn’t be any “standards” for an “artist”, instead everyone would be an artist and there would only be different mediums to express ourselves through.

The stupendous amount of variations that art work takes the form of allows us to share our experiences with others. The viewers can possibly take away a completely different meaning to it from the art than what the artist thought it meant, and that would be completely fine. Holi Paige believed that “No matter what the final outcome takes, art allows us to transform or individual consciousness into an accessible form for the world to see and feel.” This shows that there would be no right or wrong way to interpret anyones artwork, since they essentially just expressions of their own experiences.

Holi Paige is converting our society of introverts to a society of inspired and imaginary artists. Unwilling to be a bystander to this monotonous society we live in today, Holi Paige is launching a new era of confidently creative masterminds - ones that feel free to liberate their souls and imaginations to the outside world through any form of expression they desire, even if that means participating in a shouting match between you and your girlfriend on a rather ordinary day on your front lawn.

  “How well you can draw or sculpt or paint is irrelevant”

“”...art lies in the visualization, not the physical skill of making”

[daniisweird]

10 Gallon Statement

Dani Garcia's Artist Statement Through my work I attempt to examine the phenomenon of Jimmy Neutron as a methaphorical interpretation of both Beyonce and Dying. What began as a personal journey of Fuckism has translated into images of Pizza roles and Toes that resonate with Guatemalan people to question their own Beigeness. My mixed media Doughnut embody an idiosyncratic view of Buddah, yet the familiar imagery allows for a connection between Michael Jackson, Trees and Goldfish. My work is in the private collection of Jamie Lee Curtis who said 'Damn!, that's some real Exhausting Art.'  I am a recipient of a grant from Folsom Prison where I served time for stealing mugs and tie clips from the gift shop of The LACMA. I have exhibited in group shows at In n Out and Target, though not at the same time. I currently spend my time between my Bathroom and Berlin.

http://10gallon.com/statement2000/

[daniisweird]

The Artist Statement of an Urban Independent

In Jennifer Liese’s article “Toward A History (And Future) Of The Artist Statement”, she begins to attempt to explain and concretely define what an artist statement really is. The “unofficial” format for these statements is somewhat universally accepted, but in no point in history was it ever really set in stone. These statements used to be used to explain an artists’ work, with no real format or limit. But as the years went by and centuries passed, statements that used to be romantic, self-doubting, process-oriented, or even exhortatory, became repetitive and dull. The artist statement is now a dreaded piece of work not only for the artists, but for the art professionals that read hundreds of these statements that all sound fairly similar and monotonous.

According to the authors of Art/Work, these statements that are produced by artists fulfill two purposes, they “describe, as simply as possible, what it is that you hope to do, or show, or say, with your art, and what it is that makes you interested in doing, showing, or saying that”. Today artists steer clear of statements that are quirky or daring, because the situations where they are required for are when they need grants or when they have an empty website about me section.

Maretica Potrc is an architect, but around 15 years ago she began creating building-themed art. She thoroughly expresses her belief in the individual's role in creating better living conditions for people in settlements that aren’t government approved. She explains how important self-sustaining technology in the advancement of these communities and how her work is an example of how architecture and technology can make a positive difference. Her artist statement resembles more of a technical and explanatory route that really is centered on her reason for the creation of her artwork.

The “combination of strict guidelines and obscure goals” for these artist statements have ruined the true meaning and creativity that the artist statement can be used for.

  You can read her statement here:

http://www.potrc.org/urbanindependent/artists_statement.html

[addeoabode-blog]

Review on Bollywood Review

1. Best aspect is their comparison to propaganda. It is very observant of them.

2. They only focused on one image in detail when there were a lot of available pieces to mention or at least bring up, so we felt like the exhibit was summarized too much.

http://eekehduh.tumblr.com/

[addeoabode-blog]

1. “Beltz’s new installation at UCSB adds depth and alternative interpretations to commonly negative objects and symbols. The provocative nature of this project is only harmed by its relatively small size, yet the weight it carries exceeds the gallery room leaving patrons wanting more.”

We chose...

[addeoabode-blog]

Among the numerous construction sites, projects and delays plaguing UCSB, the Art, Design & Architecture building is a bright spot, having just been completed, a shocking occurrence on a campus full of cranes, hard hats and detours. This beautifully redone building is now home to Eric Beltz’s...

[daniisweird]

#art

The increased availability of technology to the public has made the creation of art using different mediums easier than it has ever been before. This technological evolution has made the creation of art pieces easily reproducible and Walter Benjamin, the author of 2, believes exactly this. He talks about how our sense of perception changes with “humanities entire mode of existence”. Our current belief of what “art” is is vastly different than it was a decade ago. Years ago the art that was created had a special and unique aura about them. Benjamin argued that, “the familiarity of reproduced art works has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object.” These pieces of art were one of a kind, but now that our technological advancements have made replication as simple as the touch of a button, these original pieces of art don’t have the same finesse as they used too.

The purpose of art has changed and evolved as the years have gone by, but now the uniqueness and noteworthy aura of it is being destroyed. As a society, we do not appreciate art the way used too. Art is made through a broad spectrum of mediums, and was created for an endless amount of reasons. But one thing remained true - art was supposed to illicit an emotional response, one that would challenge or refine your beliefs. But recently the public has recently become fascinated with social media networks like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and these media sites have increased the amount of attention certain items, categories or topics get online. This has further accelerated the increased amount of artistic replication that has taken place in the recent past, which thus continued to destroy the one-of-a-kind “aura” of individual art pieces.

Pieces of art are supposed to be hard to create, and are supposed to require some sort of effort. The loss of aura in modern mediums of photography shows that the standards for artwork have been somewhat lowered. As these replications give these original pieces of art new meanings, these new mediums can make viewers have different interpretations of the implications the piece of art is supposed to have. His argument, which he made around a decade ago, still remains true. It is actually probably more relevant today than it was when he wrote this piece. Every teenager/young adult seems to believes that any picture they take with their phone can be perceived as “art”. And while it can be possible that these individuals take a special and unique photograph, it is rare in the amount of people that consider themselves artists.

I further examined the hashtag on instagram #art, and found a very large variety of different images under this category. The majority of these pictures were obviously taken as jokes, and weren’t carefully constructed pieces of art with any unique “aura” attached to them. I do believe that art consists of a very broad spectrum of mediums and topics, but many of the pictures exhibited on Instagram to do not seem to be carefully planned. Although I do believe that our advancement in technology has allowed people of all age groups to tests their creative ability, I do not believe that it has created an increased amount of valuable and challanging artwork. I believe that all art needs to be executed with great care and selectiveness, and our generation that is obsessed with social media and how many “likes” we get on a specific picture we post, does not really understand the effect art is supposed to have on its viewer.

[daniisweird]

Benjamin Analysis: Part (III)

In Walter Benjamin's essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, he discusses how population and mechanical advancement led to the increased availability of different forms of art to the public. He defines the aura of an original piece of art as having an aura that makes it a unique phenomenon. Benjamin writes that the familiarity with reproduced art works, "has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object by means of reproduction." He argues that this increased availability of original works through replicas and reproductions is slowly destroying its aura. 

[daniisweird]

My Writing Process: In 2 Pictures

My writing process tends to make me flail in confusion as to what i'm going to write about.

But then towards the end I realize that whatever I have been able to write has come together nicely, and this is usually the way I feel when I turn in a piece of writing. 

[daniisweird]

Art: The Vehicle of Imagination

Simply put, art is a way to express emotions in a way that language is not capable of. Since the beginning of time we, as the human race, have felt the need to have some sort of way to show the emotions and feelings we experience. And as Susanne Langer mentions, “...the form of language does not reflect the natural form of feeling, so we cannot shape any extensive concepts of feeling with the help of ordinary, discursive language”. So in order to reveal the way we feel internally to the external world, we use different forms of art.

Art is the way we project our imagination. It is a method of communication from what is within us to the outside world. It has been a vital component of many societies to express themselves when language barriers have been present. It has helped people come together and experience a sense of unity. But it also serves a different purpose as Dave Hickey argues in “A World Like Santa Barbara”. He believes that art civilizes us, and it is what separates us from the animals.

From a young age we are presented with a variety of mediums of art from colored pencils to playdoh, where learn basic skills that help us put our imagination in tangible form. As we get older and progress through grade school, we learn that art can also portray powerful messages, ones that we feel passionately about. Hickey explains, “Art is a safe place where we may nonviolently come to terms with disorienting situations and adjudicate their public and private relevance in a public discourse”. Every individual has experiences some situation, whether it be exciting or terrifying, that can be expressed through almost any art medium ranging from paintings and photographs to music and dance choreography.

I’ve been a dancer since I was very young and I have always believed that people need some sort of creative outlet in order to survive. The fact that when I performed a dance on stage that elicited a reaction from the audience showed me that it doesn’t matter what the dance meant to me, but that it meant something different to each person in the audience.

When I got more involved in contemporary dance, which is a form of dance that involves intense emotions and ballet-like movements, I had to really reach down into my soul and figure out what whatever dance I was working on meant for me. The choreography that was perfectly set to the music was a perfectly painted pathway for expression. Even if the music was sad and solemn, that didn’t mean that the way I danced had to portray that. And that was what I liked most about dance, the fact that there was no “right” way to do the choreography.

Hickey touches on this fact and says art’s ability to challenge us is limited because we are presented art in a way that is packages that are“perfectly controlled, explained, and contextualized”. Our freedom to interpret a piece of artwork is inhibited by the way our culture has begun to try to “civilize” art itself. These patterns of regulation and domestication are creating a society that is absent of soulful art that is meaningful. This downward spiral we have begun to travel down needs to be stopped, as there will soon be an abundance of art, but none of it will be meaningful. In order for our society to continue to expand and grow, the cultural aspect cannot be ignored. It needs to be embraced and celebrated, as it is a vital part of our very existence as a human species. It can be used in powerful ways to provoke thought and even provoke change, which is something that most are not comfortable with. But without change, there will be no advancement.

[daniisweird]

Sensory Disorientation with James Turrell

James Turrell works with light and space in order to test our perceptions of the world. He creates geometric light projections that project onto entire rooms, as well as creates prints, drawings and holograms. More recently he has begun a project at Roden Crater in Arizona where he wants to almost bring space down to us so we can unify with it. Turrell has had many exhibitions, including The Light Inside at the Museum of Fine Arts in Texas, as well as more recently A Retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The Arts 21 video of his exhibit in Texas looked very similar to the exhibit I visited at LACMA over the summer, where I realized it was very hard to distinguish where the light started, where it ended, and the boundaries of the room we were in. In the Art 21 segment on James Turrell, an onlooker said, "When you really start to look, then you sort of lose yourself, and that is when it becomes almost disorienting".

He then starts to talk about using a crater to see celestial events, where the unique shape will allow you to see things that are not able to be seen from many other places on the earth. He also wanted to gather light that is beyond our solar system so that we can almost feel like we are holding “old” light.

James Turrell wanted to combine science and art together by using the starts and the light they emit to create art in his most recent art piece at Roden Crater, but his previous geometric light exhibitions at various museums across the United States really tests our human idea of perception and our limitations of context based on our sensory abilities.

One opening at Roden Crater, Arizona (Not accessible to the public yet)