Curatorial Reflection

Though the curating project had a bit of a rough start, I think the final product turned out great! The theme, monochrome, didn't exactly fit each piece in the gallery as anticipated. However, the layout and installation of the gallery completely made up for it. Colors were brought together along the back wall where most of the paintings were (which is where my painting of the feminized wolf pack logo was hung) . Projectors displayed projects on two of the walls as well as the couch which made the gallery inviting and interesting to navigate around. I think everyone had something to learn from the installation of our gallery. Aside from some confusion and chaos in the setup process, I was very pleased with the outcome of our hard work. 

Light Box Project

The image I created for the light box was inspired by the movie, Interstellar, as well as the location of the light box--in the Church of Fine Arts. When I think of art, I think of creativity. This is where the phrase "think outside the box" comes from. Creativity is an idea of infinite possibility, of which, I related to the vastly unknown and limitless area of space. Creativity requires original thinking and new ideas that usually have yet to be explored. All work was done on GIMP and Pinta. I learned quite a bit about brush textures as well as color adjustment during the process. Overall, I think the project was a success and I'm pretty happy with the final product.

Triptych: Image Consumption

Triptych: Image Consumption 

“The need to photograph everything lies in the very logic of consumption itself…As we make more images and consume them, we still need more images; and still more.” —Susan Sontag (Davey, 11) 

  

Images play a huge role in social media today. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr—all are sites and apps we can access on our phones and computers with the simple push of a button. They are filled with pictures that draw us in and captivate us. These images, whether they are of friends, ourselves or subjects of interest, are consumed on a daily basis by people of all ages around the world.  

I chose the quote from Susan Sontag because of its highly relevant meaning in today’s society. Our generation is infatuated by social media and its corresponding images. It is not uncommon to catch sight of someone scrolling through images on their phone out in public. In fact, it has become somewhat of a problem. Students are known for bringing their phones and laptops into lecture with social media sites on the screens while their professors give lessons. This not only distracts the user, but the people around them as well. Parents now use the punishment of taking phones and computers away from their children because they, too, know just how distracting and mesmerizing all of it can be. It has even become a game at the dinner table; first to grab their cellphone in the restaurant pays the bill. Such an ordeal seems to beg the question we ought to ask ourselves; why have these images have become such a big part of our daily lives? 

The first part of the triptych is a stock photo of people sitting next to each other with their smart phones in hand. No interaction between the individuals is taking place. Instead, they are all preoccupied on their devices. Just about everyone is guilty of this action. Sometimes I find it hard to put the phone down even in social situations which is why I believe this is an important piece in the triptych. It highlights one of the many negative byproducts of social media which is, ironically, creating asocial people.  

Part two of the triptych progresses to multiple images. It is a GIF image that displays the logos of some of the most popular social media sites known for their image posts. Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr are perfect examples. The file was created in GIMP on a 300 x 300 canvas. It was a simple process: placing each logo on a separate layer and exporting the image at about 5 fps (frames per second). Each of the logos are visible but for only a fraction of a second. This correlates to the viewing habits of some social media users. An individual scrolls through pictures (some more quickly than others) until he or she finds something that grabs their attention.  

The final piece in the triptych is a video recording the actual interaction on a few social media sites. Tumblr, the first shown in the video, is a microblogging platform that allows users to find and follow the things they enjoy. Pictures, videos, music, quotes, and links are commonly shared on this site. Facebook is the second site visited. As of September, Facebook had over one billion active users. This is five times more than it’s closest competitor, Twitter (Tappin). Something I noticed when using Facebook was the fact that I only really look for the videos and pictures rather than reading the posts. as Andy Warhol coined, “I never read, I only look at pictures.” The last website, Pinterest, is almost entirely comprised of images. Videos and gifs are relatively new to this platform. It is known as a site of inspiration for projects, fashion, food, and art.  

I think it would be interesting if everyone, for at least one day, put their phones and laptops away. Instead of surfing sites, playing games, watching videos or whatever it may be that one does on their device, they would do something they normally wouldn’t. They might just see the world a little differently by being more observant—more aware of the environment around them.  

  

Sources:

Tappin, Steve. "Facebook vs. Twitter: Who Wins the Battle for Our Social Attention?" PandoDaily Facebook vs Twitter Who Wins the Battle for Our Social Attention Comments. PandoDaily, 6 Feb. 2014. Web. 07 Dec. 2014. 

Davey, Moyra. Notes on Photography & Accident (n.d.): 1-29. Web. 

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

Performance Art Video

For this performance piece, I went to San Rafael Park dressed as Minnie Mouse asking for people's autographs. The idea was to invert the role of the idol--blurring the lines between the idol and the everyday person, similar to the transposing methods of the contemporary artist, Murakami.

"Murakami’s practice involves repackaging elements that are usually considered "low" or subcultural and presenting them in the "high-art" market. He then further flattens the playing field by repackaging his "high-art" works as merchandise, such as plush toys and T-shirts, making them available at more affordable prices." --Rothkopf

Interestingly enough, three out of twenty individuals did not want their autograph taken. All of which were in the older age group (55-65), while the younger group was much more enthusiastic about the opportunity. In all, it was quite an experience and I enjoyed dressing up and trying something I wouldn't have done otherwise. 

Project 1: Collage

The original painting was very strange: an elderly woman standing before two candles, possibly a religious piece. I decided to collage around it with images from a fashion magazine and a science magazine. The message  I was trying to portray was the idea that people sometimes put their own petty wants and needs before the real problems that threaten the world.
Getting the picture back into the store was relatively easy, though it was definitely nerve-racking to sneak it in. In the end I was able to put it back where I originally found it and left it in plain sight for someone to discover.

Reading Assignments & Artist Lectures

Scott Tsuchitani

As a multidisciplinary art interventionist and printmaker based in San Francisco, Scott Tsichitani proved to be quite the activist in his lecture, “Of Guerrilla Geisha and Samurai Subversion”. His socially engaged art underlies the theme of ‘undoing the other through anti-anti-Asian art’. Tsuchitani aimed his work to “reframe cultural discourse and subvert social norms and stereotypes” of the Asian lifestyle—which he had done quite successfully on a smaller scale. 

Tsuchitani’s main pieces revolved around the Asian Art Museum and its featured exhibits. The first exhibit was based on the geisha. Scott saw the museum had completely romanticized Japanese culture and decided to make a stand. He took the museum’s poster and replaced the woman’s face with his own, changed the title, and took it to the museum kiosk where people could take a pamphlet. This guerrilla art strategy worked surprisingly well. He received many emails concerning his work and had an anonymous article published in the newspaper. This brought him to his next project when the museum later featured the geisha’s male counterpart, the samurai. Tsuchitani created both a parody pamphlet and website parallel to the museum’s that criticized their mere glorification of war and violence, “masking the real history” and “selling militarism as beauty in a time of war,” which gained him further notoriety as an intellectual activist. 

When word spread through media about his work, Tsuchitani decided to display his success in a local gallery. However, just before the gallery opened, he was asked to take down the documentation of responses to his work. The faculty claimed it was not art and therefore should not be displayed. Despite this setback, Tsuchitani feels that though his impact was limited with this art, he was able to open people’s eyes to the over-glamorized portrayal of Asian culture through the museum.

Dada Exhibit

Dada was a major art movement that emerged in the early 20th century. The artists pushed the boundaries of what qualifies as ‘art’ and questioned the contemporary political and social conditions. The shocking, unconventional style of Dada gained much attention and later inspired avant-garde movements such as pop art and surrealism.

This exhibit in the Jot Travis was full of various Dada works done by both current and past artists, including a visual of Duchamp’s classic piece, Fountain. As one of the most well-known Dada works, Fountain is a great representation of what kind of art the Dadaists created. Duchamp’s work was simply a urinal placed on its side, begging the question what is art? Fountain was rejected in just about every gallery it was submitted to because it was such an unconventional piece just like the many paintings, sculptures, and multi-media works featured in the Dada exhibit.

The piece that stood out most in my eyes was the remake of “Moby Dick”. Each page of this book was scanned and displayed across a full wall. At first glance, the pages looked like regular text from a book. Looking at it closely, one could see that one letter, E, was used for the entire project. Looking even more closely, the letters were all handwritten in tiny print. What was most intriguing about the book was how the forms of the letters and paragraphs eventually dispersed into seemingly random, chaotic shapes and patterns. The last row of pages was absolutely abstract in form with the E’s looking as though they were swirling and exploding all over the pages, and by the end of it, there was nothing left but a few blank pages. This piece definitely captured the essence of Dada with its nonsensical form and play on words. Because it was placed so close to the entrance, it seemed to set the tone for the rest of the exhibit.

Maria Lind

Social practice is "simultaneously a medium, a method, and a genre" that seeks social and political change. Maria Lind stresses the importance of participation and collaboration in the use of social practice to "reformulate the relationship between the work and the viewer, between production and consumption, sender and receiver."

Elin Wikstrom's Returnity project with her cycle club, in which one were to pedal backwards on a bike in order to "unlearn the most commonplace skill probably learned as a child in order to see the world from an unusual perspective," was essentially the beginnings of what is now called social practice. The project was based entirely on voluntary participation as well as passerby and visitor contributors. This behavioral experiment was one in which the participants could "maneuver either individually or collectively, and raise consciousness." 

In my opinion, social practice is one of the most interesting genres of art. I am fascinated by the amount of thought and organization it takes to create a piece in this field. Teamwork, creativity, and underlying social, political, and/or artistic concerns are key to social practice. It is unique in that it doesn't necessarily require a single physical representation (image, sculpture, etc.) to understand the meaning, rather, the participation alone does the job of getting the message across. I believe this, in many ways, is more powerful than most genres of art. 

The Situationists

Guy-Ernest Debord's essay, Perspectives for Conscious Alterations in Everyday Life, focuses on the meaning of everyday life and the direction of Situationists. He criticizes sociologists and seems to suggest there has been a negative change in society since the development of industrialization and capitalism. With his vague descriptions of this issue, he appears to propose the solution lies in the hands of the situationists. 

To start, Debord convicts sociologists of having the "blindest faith" in that they recognize specialized activities everywhere and everyday life nowhere. With this, he proclaims everyday life is elsewhere, among others (not including the sociologists of course). Debord later admits though specialized activities exist, "everyday life is the measure of all things" yet "it is not everything." Most importantly, Deboard warns that "to fail to criticize everyday life today means accepting the prolongation of the present thoroughly rotten forms of culture and politics...especially in the most modern countries." And "on the other hand, a radical critique in acts of prevailing everyday life could lead to a suppression of culture and politics in the traditional sense." In other words, we are bound to society. 

After reading through his essay a few times, I was still unable to clearly understand what exactly the issue was as well as his idea for the solution. His writing is rather unclear and full of unnecessary rambling that never really gets to a solid idea. This made it difficult to interpret and rather painful, dare I say, to read. But from what I understood, Debord wanted to change the meaning of everyday life with a new type of revolutionary organization, also known as the Situationists.

Dada Readings

The Dada manifestos of Hugo Ball and Tristan Tzara depicted the meanings of Dada through written example both figuratively and literally. Both manifestos deny the sensibility of logic and sense itself, claiming these conventional ideas were wrong—the cause of war and strife—and that the system was clearly not working. With the incorporation of humor and parody, these two manifestos make an interesting statement and bring to light an entirely new view of literature.

Hugo Ball’s manifesto begins with the standard definition, rather, translations of the word, Dada, in many languages. He seemingly pokes fun at the word itself, adding the Romanian translation, "Yes, indeed, you are right, that's it. But of course, yes, definitely, right". Further into his short manifesto, Ball begins writing in random tangents, listing a series of various nonsense examples. This seems to throw off the reader in order to draw attention to the central idea of Dada; Dada is anything and everything. In other terms, Dada is whatever you want it to be.

Tristan Tzara completely counters Hugo Ball’s manifesto with the central notion that Dada means nothing. His manifesto also circulates around random and irrational ideas which also play into the meaning of Dada. Tzara’s manifesto, completely contradictory to itself, ends with the line, “Dada is life.” Going full circle from his initial claim that Dada means nothing, Tzara ingeniously designs his manifesto to be an example of Dada itself.