Cultural Event #5

I had the opportunity to go to the American Visionary Art museum when I went home for spring break. I live only half an hour North of Baltimore, so I've been to this museum before, but they had a new exhibition that I'd never seen before. The exhibition is called "Home and Beast," and it's all about artwork relating to animals and the concept of "home." There is also a permanent collection throughout the museum, some of which I've seen in the past. The thing I like so much about the Visionary Art museum is that none of the contributing artists have been formally trained in their medium. In fact, many of them are either physically or mentally handicapped, which makes the magnitude of their work all the more fascinating. I think that this is especially true for the Home & Beast exhibit. The idea of the "home" is a common theme amongst all people, artist or not, and I think this is the reason why it fits so well in the museum. Many of the exhibitions center on archetypal themes such as war, aging, the family, etc. The art seems to have more meaning when it's created by someone who wouldn't normally create art...to me, it makes it seem more special.

Cultural Event #4

On Sunday, April 22nd, I went to the Annemarie sculpture garden with my mom. When we first decided to visit the garden, I was expecting topiary structures or something but I realized pretty quickly that the whole idea of the garden was to put man-made art in a natural setting. One of my favorite parts of the garden is a gigantic walkway that winds through the woods and ends in a big platform overlooking a sculpture of a keyhole. At first I thought that the winding form of the walkway was purely artistic, and then I noticed the fact that there were holes cut in the planks so that trees could grow through. The whole bridge was made so that no trees would have to be cut down for its construction, which I think gives a whole new earth-friendly meaning to the walkway. Seeing this kind of artwork out in the open is a little bit unexpected at first, since you'd usually see this kind of art in a gallery or a museum. Keeping it in a natural setting such as the garden, though, makes it seem much more alive and dynamic. I really enjoyed seeing the garden, and hopefully I'll be able to go back with friends if they change/add to their collection.

Cultural event #3

The third cultural event I attended was the dance show. Since I was in the actual show, I attended all four showings (April 19 - 21). Although I might be kind of biased towards the show since I was in it, I still think it was a very good performance. There were a few different cultural dances like greek dance, belly dance, scottish, and irish. I think that these provided a good balance for the more popular hip-hop dances, and made the show into more of an art piece than just a bunch of people moving around onstage. A lot of time and hard work goes into the choreography of these dances; before being a part of it, I probably never would have considered the dance show to be artistic. But after seeing all of the dances in their entirety and watching how the lighting enhanced them, I can see how dance is really an art form.

Cultural event #2

I haven't blogged about cultural events in a REALLY long time, but I went to the Mandrake back in April. I liked it a lot, i think that it had a good story line and it was pretty funny at times. But the most interesting part about it was the fact that there were pretty much no female characters in the entire cast. There were women playing the parts of men in some cases, but the script was very limited when it came to female characters. Although the set was quite beautifully constructed, the one artistic element of the play that I didn't really appreciate was the use of masks. I understand that they had their place in the play, but i think that they obstructed the facial emotions of the actors too much. Overall I think it was a good performance.

final website

I finished my website! I think it's pretty good, especially the section about the artist of the month, Ecila Attiplov =)

Here it is!

here's the index page for my website, the believe and community sites are sort of done.

here it is!

diagram

here's my website flowchart.

Collage!

Here's a collage of images that I made for my website about Baltimore. This is a list of the word associations I have for some of these images, and the city in general: Believe, hypocricy, 'Boh, Hampden, Christmas, Hon, Baltimorese, Pink Flamingoes, John Waters, Art, drag queens, fabulous, the book thing, redemption, homeless, the block, debauchery, heroin, death, crime.

website

I made my first website! Hopefully my final project will end up being better than this, but hey it's a start.

B-mo'

I plan on creating a parody site based on the city of Baltimore. After perusing the official Baltimore site, I realized how boring the city must seem to people who haven't spent much time there. There is a lot of emphasis on touristy things like the inner harbor, but nothing about what Baltimore is really all about. My site will focus on topics like crime, drug use, free books, drag queens, the "Believe" campaign, christmas lights, and The Block.

http://www.ci.baltimore.md.us/
http://www.baltimore.org/
http://www.christmasstreet.com/index2.html
http://www.ci.baltimore.md.us/believe/press.html
http://www.bookthing.org/
http://www.mvcd.org/

oyl

The website entitled "Real Costs" by Michael Mandiberg is an interesting project, which acts as an interesting social and political commentary about consumerism in America. The age of the internet is all about instantaneous gratification, having the world at your beck and call whenever you please. With the advent of online-shopping, we have the capacity to comparison shop more efficiently than ever before. Since the internet is a constantly-changing entity, it provides the only possible venue for this type of art installation to work. The monetary conversion used in the program is based on the actual costs of oil at the time. Therefore, without a constantly changing program such as the internet, the effect of the real-time conversion would be lost. Also, the project is strengthened by the fact that the internet is a relatively "green" entity, in that it doesn't consume any paper products or oil to generate the massive amounts of information available on the web. The only energy consumption involved with the internet is that which is needed to connect a computer to it. However, since there are various ways of getting sustainable energy for the electricity needed to connect to the internet, it could theoretically be a totally green institution/entity/etc.
This artwork fits into Sterling's description of the internet because a project like this could only survive on such a relatively unregulated system. Although the project is very benign in practice, it is quite subversive in nature. The idea of the application is to get people to start thinking about their own oil consumption, and on a larger scale how much we as a nation tend to take for granted our fossil fuels. It seems to me that this is exactly the kind of thinking that our government would like to erradicate, keeping our CO₂ emissions far out of the minds of most Americans. I think that an even more effective use of this program would be to calculate the amount of oil that actually goes into the production of the goods in question, including the manufacturing process and transportation. This would probably be a much more extensive application, though, and somewhat unrealistic given that more than a simple calculation would be needed.

Postcard Proposal

my two postcards are going to create a relationship between edgar allen poe and Divine. The postcard on the left will show the scene from poe's The Raven, and the heart from The Tell-tale Heart will be on the armchair. In the right postcard, the image of Divine from the cover of Pink Flamingos will be shooting the heart in the other postcard. It's as if Divine is the one killing the old man in The Tell-Tale heart. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to find a decent picture of Divine, but I might have to alter the image on the other postcard because I don't know if I'll be able to get the right kind of images that I'm looking for.

Dolphin Brains

I entered a contest on worth1000 called "Animal Zombies." Considering the fact that it's my first time ever using photoshop, I don't think I did too bad. You can vote for it here! Anyway, here it is:

right now write now (William Burroughs' article)

Although Burroughs' article about cut-ups seems at first to only describe an artistic movement, you can begin to see after reading for awhile that the article itself is art. One of my favorite passages in the article is "Greek philosophers assumed logically that an object twice as heavy as another object would fall twice as fast. It did not occur to them to push the two objects off the table and see how they fall. Cut the words and see how they fall." I also appreciate Burroughs' assertion that "all writing is in fact cut-ups. A collage of words read hear overheard." This reminds me a lot of the remixing article we read earlier in the semester, as it relates to the "history of sound" used as a library for music; poetry and prose are nothing more than remixes, taking samples from the "history of words." I do have a question about this article, though. It seems to me that we have come up with words and language throughout the history of our existence in order to be able to convey emotion and thought to each other. Therefore, by randomly cutting and pasting words into new artforms, is there really any meaning to the piece besides the fact that it is a cut-up? If the words and sentences no longer mean anything, then how can the artwork as a whole mean anything?

Quick Mask

I'm going to present the quick mask tool during class. In order to demonstrate, I posted a picture of my dog Buffy wearing some rockin' shades.

S-E-X-Oh! (Cultural Event #1)

Last night, I went to see the performance S-E-X-Oh! by the Teatro Luna group. I was very impressed by it, and I liked it a lot. Teatro Luna is Chicago's only all-Latina performance group, and it was co-founded by an SMCM graduate (Coya Paz, '97). The play was about bringing women of all cultural backgrounds together by sharing stories about sex and gender that everybody can identify with. The strength behind these stories is that although they are a common thread among many women, they are hardly ever talked about. The play dealt with experiences such as abortion, lesbianism, molestation, phone sex, religion, and many more. The play reminded me a lot of The Vagina Monologues, but I actually liked S-E-X-Oh! a lot more. I'd highly recommend this play; it's showing in Bruce Davis again tonight at 8 pm, and this might be your last chance to see it!

DADA

I chose to analyze the artwork of Francis Picabia. The image to the right, L'Oeil cacodylate (The Cacodylic Eye), was produced in Paris in 1921. According to the audio description accompanying the piece, Picabia set up a canvas in his hospital room while undergoing treatment for an eye condition and had all of his visitors sign the canvas, as well as add puns, aphorisms, pictures, etc. It seems that this piece utilizes the DADAist techniques of collage and typography. One of the ideals of DADAism is to break down the barrier between art and everyday life. In my opinion, this collage is akin to taking a birthday card that has been passed around the office and putting it on display in an art museum. Picabia also utilized typography in a way, even though he didn't use conventional typographic design. The puns and aphorisms on the canvas convey a direct meaning that makes the artwork seem more alive, and makes the artist seem real. Additionally, the various handwritings and colors used give the impression that many people collaborated on this work of art (which they did), thereby upholding the "group art" aspect of DADAism.

The next piece I analyzed is entitled Réveil matin I (Alarm Clock I) and was created in 1919 for use as an illustration on the title page of the journal Dada, no. 4-5. The details this artwork describe it as a line block reproduction of an ink drawing. I think that this piece uses a form of the concept of the readymade. The mechanical clockwork depicted in Picabia's piece looks like it has been taken straight from a technical manual describing the inner workings of an alarm clock. Although this work is not a true readymade since he actually drew it, the notion that a monochrome sketch of a few gears is art is certainly resonant of DADAism.

Audio Project #2

Here is my newest audio project! The journey is through some snow-covered woods, and into a frozen lake...but in the end, it's all just a dream.

Sound credits:

Background ambient forest noise
from the freesound project
Harzmountain stream.WAV
WAV, 48000Hz, 1536kbps, 16 bit, Stereo
author - inchadney

Forest panflute music
recorded by Alice Volpitta

Walking through snow
from the freesound project
Duo snowshoe walking.wav
wav, 48000Hz, 2304kbps, 24 bit, Stereo
author - laurent

Wind
from the freesound project
Wind_Howling_NIghttime.aif
aif, 44100Hz, 2116kbps, 24 bit, Stereo
author - Dynamicell

Geese
from the freesound project
Canada geese.wav
wav, 44100Hz, 1411kbps, 16 bit, Stereo
author - genghis attenborough


Footsteps on cracking ice
recorded by Alice Volpitta

Cracking ice
http://www.therecordist.com/assets/sound/game_sfx_2005/ice_cracking_large_01.wav
746k, mono, 16-bit, 44100 Hz

Splash
http://www.planit3d.com/source/sound_files/icesplash2.wav
water splash
126k, mono, 16-bit, 22050 Hz

Underwater ambient noise
from the freesound project
ELEMENTS_WATER_01_Underwater.wav
wav, 44100Hz, 2116kbps, 24 bit, Stereo
author - suonho

Bubbles
from the freesound project
ELEMENTS_WATER_02_Phasin-bubbles.wav
wav, 44100Hz, 2116kbps, 24 bit, Stereo
author - suonho

Gong
from the freesound project
lunch_gong.wav
mp3, 44100Hz, 128kbps, Mono
author - gezortenplotz

Thunderstorm
from the freesound project
rbh thunder storm.wav
wav, 44100Hz, 1411kbps, 16 bit, Stereo
author - RHumphries

Windchimes
from the freesound project
Our Chimes.wav
wav, 48000Hz, 3072kbps, 32 bit, Stereo
author - memigh1

Birds chirping
from the freesound project
Pied Bushchat male on hill.wav
wav, 44100Hz, 1411kbps, 16 bit, Stereo
author - genghis attenborough

Janet Cardiff response

I thought that the radio interview piece did a good job at conveying the essence of Janet Cardiff's work. Cardiff's "walks" not only take you on a journey through sound and space, but make you notice and appreciate the multitude of sounds in our everyday lives. In order to create parallels between her soundscapes and the listener's own life, Cardiff is intentionally vague about some situations, sounds, or thoughts that are presented in her works. By leaving some portions of the artwork to the listener's imagination, Cardiff makes people take an active role in her pieces by relating them to their own lives. In my opinion, artwork is only great when it makes you reflect on your own life, or the world you live in, and this is exactly what Janet Cardiff's work aims to do. Instead of just projecting her stories onto her listeners, Cardiff has created pieces that require participants to take an active listening role; although the different elements of a story or soundscape are in place, it is the listener's interpretation of those sounds that give them any meaning.

The three-level spatial structure can be clearly heard throughout Cardiff's White Chapel piece. The foreground sound is usually Cardiff's voice. Although it is often the loudest sound in any given portion of the work, you can also tell that it is in the foreground because it seems to be more out of place than any other sound. Although the voice is smooth and calming, it is also somewhat jarring because it seems like somebody else's thoughts are inside of your head as you take this "journey" with her. The ambient noises of birds chirping could be considered to be the background, as they are the most natural-sounding elements of the piece. Since the birds are a constant, lower-volume sound, they seem to be unimportant and as such are just background noise. The footsteps are not quite as loud as the voice, but are more prominent than the background noises, so they contribute to the middleground noises in the piece. Another thing that makes me think that the footsteps are meant to be part of the middleground is that they are consistently moving at the same pace, and the sound of them becomes quite monotonous after just a few minutes.

To be honest, I didn't really like the White Chapel piece very much. It's not that I didn't appreciate the artistic aspects of the work, it just made me feel generally uncomfortable. Being forced to listen to the sounds that she was making, and being trapped in the world that she had created made me feel very uneasy and even somewhat claustrophobic. I'm not sure exactly how to explain it, but there was something about not being able to go where I wanted to in her world that made me want to be able to leave it that much more. There was also something off-putting about the actual sounds that Cardiff chose to use in her piece. They all sounded too clean, too perfect. Every element of the narrative sounded like it came from a pre-recorded library, and the combination of these elements created a too-perfect world that I found extremely disconcerting.

First mp3

For our first audio project, I mixed three different sounds from the online sound database The Freesound Project. The three clips I overlaid were windchimes, a thunderstorm, and some birds chirping.

Credits:
January 25, 2007
By genghis attenborough (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=205108)
Pied Bushchat male on hill.wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=28327)
By memigh1 (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=26346)
Our Chimes.wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=14274)
By RHumphries (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=1112)
rbh thunder storm.wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=2523)