Friday, February 26, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
CRITIQUE
Two weeks ago I had a critique but I forgot to post something on here. Wups. Anyway, the critique went well I guess. Not many people had anything to say. It also went very quickly. I presented my idea and the response from Paul was that what I wanted to do may be too ambitious, he also suggested that I make my piece something interactive to draw the attention of the viewer. After the critique and listening to everybody's ideas, I realized that what I originally wanted to do isn't something I am totally interested or invested in. I was listening to Kerry talk about her stained glass project last Friday and she is so excited and invested in her work that I was a little bit disappointed and jealous that I did not feel the same way about my own work. I decided to go in a different direction in my work and I'm going to present the idea this Friday. I hope all goes well and people like the idea. I did tell a couple of people my idea already and many seemed to like it. So we'll see!
I'm going to post my new idea right now and then I'll post a response to it next on Friday, so here it is: I did a project in Design II this semester that was really interesting to me. We had to pick a person and follow them on Twitter. We had to create a template to display the person's "Tweets" as flyers. The template had to be a system that could be recreated by anybody if given the instructions. We then had to install the flyers where we thought was necessary to reflect the type of person we chose to represent. I am really interested in how internet communication/socialization websites can be represented in a pre-internet fashion. Even Facebook for example. Facebook is pretty much an autobiography of a person. They write down their likes/dislikes, and everything else imaginable. I was thinking of taking 4-5 different people and creating an autobiography of each of them by copying exactly what they have written on their Facebook pages, but creating a separate book for each of them. I would design 5 different books for 5 different people and would display them on a bookshelf with other autobiography books (borrowed from the library) to display in the gallery. So it would be an exploration of how to visually represent something on paper that is strictly internet based.
If anybody wants to comment on my idea on here, then go ahead!
I'm going to post my new idea right now and then I'll post a response to it next on Friday, so here it is: I did a project in Design II this semester that was really interesting to me. We had to pick a person and follow them on Twitter. We had to create a template to display the person's "Tweets" as flyers. The template had to be a system that could be recreated by anybody if given the instructions. We then had to install the flyers where we thought was necessary to reflect the type of person we chose to represent. I am really interested in how internet communication/socialization websites can be represented in a pre-internet fashion. Even Facebook for example. Facebook is pretty much an autobiography of a person. They write down their likes/dislikes, and everything else imaginable. I was thinking of taking 4-5 different people and creating an autobiography of each of them by copying exactly what they have written on their Facebook pages, but creating a separate book for each of them. I would design 5 different books for 5 different people and would display them on a bookshelf with other autobiography books (borrowed from the library) to display in the gallery. So it would be an exploration of how to visually represent something on paper that is strictly internet based.
If anybody wants to comment on my idea on here, then go ahead!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Annotated Bibliography
Gall, John. “The Nabokov Collection.” Design Observer. November 9, 2009.
This is a brief article articulating the structure of a project that was given to designer John Gall. His project was to redesign Vladimir Nabokov’s twenty one book covers. Each cover that was created consisted of a photograph of a specimen box that was filled with paper, ephemera, and insect pins. Each photograph was created to evoke the content of each book. This article and the slideshow images that are incorporated in the article are an example of how design can be suggestive of a book’s content rather than a forthright depiction of a book’s content.
Baldessari, John. “Systems John Baldessari.” Art 21. This is an excerpt from an Art 21 book that describes and discusses the work of John Baldessari. The article is a discussion of Baldessari’s process of design,and how he creates his work. This article relates to my research of how intentionally omitted information in a design can activate a viewer. Baldessari eliminates much of the information in his paintings or photos, forcing the viewer to fill in the purposefully incomplete story.
Lawrence, Rinder. “Felix Gonzalez-Torres.” Queer Cultural Center. This article describes the work in the MATRIX exhibition of the late Felix Gonzalez-Torres. More specifically, this article discusses his photograph turned public work, called “Untitled 1991.” The photograph of an empty but slept in bed was made into a billboard for all to experience. This article relates to my research because it helps portray how suggestive and metaphorical design differs from straightforward design concepts. This is an example of how simple icon, index, and symbol do not activate the viewer as much as other design concepts can.
Mau, Bruce. “Panama Museum of Biodiversity.” Bruce Mau Design. This is a brief excerpt from Bruce Mau’s design website. It is a description of creating the world’s first museum of biodiversity and what kind of conceptual model was used for the design. The article communicates why the museum was built the way it was, and what affect the design has on the visitor. This article relates to my thesis research because it describes how Mau intentionally omitted certain aspects of the museum that traditional museums usually uphold to activate the visitor’s experience.
Gall, John. “The Nabokov Collection.” Design Observer. November 9, 2009.
Baldessari, John. “Systems John Baldessari.” Art 21.
Lawrence, Rinder. “Felix Gonzalez-Torres.” Queer Cultural Center.
Mau, Bruce. “Panama Museum of Biodiversity.” Bruce Mau Design.
REVISED THESIS PROPOSAL
Gossip has always been such an interesting social concept. An individual tells someone else’s story to another person, and usually intentionally leaves out portions of the story to activate the listener to feel a certain way. The storyteller may include specific but minor details to help keep the story interesting. The listener than makes his or her own conceptual leaps on why they feel the subject in the story said what she said, or did what she did. Similarly to gossip, I am interested in the ways in which visual work can activate the viewer to fill what is intentionally omitted, by drawing the viewer’s attention to minor details, or absences in the design. By providing a purposefully incomplete story to the viewer, it is interesting to see the conceptual bounds they endure to fill in the information that is not provided.
The work of John Baldessari is a good example because “he upends the commonly held expectations of how an image is supposed to function (Baldessari, 8).” In many of Baldessari’s works, he eliminates much of the information in the painting or photo, forcing the viewer to fill in what is missing. In some instances he places colorful dots over the faces of his subjects or he will completely remove a portion of the subject (a leg or arm) and replace it with a flat color but still maintaining the structure of the segment he removed. This ambiguous space that he creates forces the viewer to fill in what he or she thinks is missing. A lot of the time Baldessari will combine the subject with the background and foreground so it is difficult to distinguish one from the other.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres created a public work using his photograph of a bed that was slept in, with two indentations in the pillows where the head of a person would have been laying. The photograph, called Untitled 1991, was reproduced as a billboard for all the public to see. Designer Daniella Spinat writes about this work, “Anybody would probably recognize the image on this billboard as familiar. It shows hopefulness and sadness, presence and absence, at once. The potential simultaneity of the two opposites, the intimacy and emptiness, private and public, is self-reflexive. Like a giant mirror, the image suggests that each viewer fill in the space with their own bodies.” What is so great about Torres’ work is that it is suggestive in a way that the viewer can make up his or her own story to the image. Due to the absence in the photograph, we are able to fill in the space with our own perception of what should be laying in that bed. The image provokes many emotions in the viewer, but more importantly from a design standpoint it asks the simple question of, “What should be in that space?” This question activates the viewer in a way that straight forward design concepts cannot. Straightforward design concepts may consist of icon, symbol, or index; however this is only one way of categorizing how signs communicate, and much more can be done to activate the viewer.
The work of Paul Sahre is metaphorical and suggestive to the viewer. For example, Sahre designed the cover for the Ernest Hemingway novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” The image on the cover is of pine needles and pine cones. The limited amount of information provided to the viewer forces him or her to fill in what is missing. For those who have read the novel, the book begins and ends with the same scene. At the end of the novel, character Robert Jordan is lying in wait on the forest floor to die in glory. A quote from the novel, “He was waiting until the officer reached the sunlit place where the first trees of the pine forest joined the green slope of the meadow. He could feel his heart beating against the pine needle floor of the forest. (43.402)” In this case, the subject Robert Jordan is missing leaving the pine needles as the only indicative piece of information. This image references the viewpoint and experience of the character, rather than depicting the actions of the story.
Bruce Mau designed the Panama Museum of Biodiversity. His design is suggestive in the way that “Instead of pushing information, the museum allows visitors to be pulled into understanding as they follow a thematic path (Mau).” By purposefully designing the museum to be abstract, this gives the visitor an inverted experience. The museum design intentionally omits things that other more traditionally designed museums do not, such as mere illustrations in the exhibits, so that the viewer has a more activated experience.
Designer John Gall was presented with a project to redesign all twenty one of Vladimir Nabokov’s book covers. Gall states, “Nabokov was a passionate butterfly collector, a theme that has cropped up on some of his past covers. My idea was also a play on this concept. Each cover consists of a photograph of a specimen box, the kind used by collectors like Nabokov to display insects. Each box would be filled with paper, ephemera, and insect pins, selected to somehow evoke the book's content (Gall, 2009).” Gall chose a number of talented designers to each create each of the boxes. Invitation to a Beheading designed by Helen Yentus and Jason Booher has a little chair in front of the invite which is hauntingly suggestive to the book’s content. In contrast, the Penguins Classics book cover is an image of a large knife on a wooden chopping block which depicts the forthright actions of the story rather than the experience of the character, making the design direct rather than metaphorical or suggestive.
As an approach, I could create a series of visual works, (taking multiple forms) that intentionally and purposefully provides an incomplete story to the viewer so that he or she has to pay attention to the minor details and absences in the work and then may fill in the information about what they think is going on in the story. I could then have each person write down what they think the content of the story is, and how they would tell it to another person. The series would then become an example of gossip.
The work of John Baldessari is a good example because “he upends the commonly held expectations of how an image is supposed to function (Baldessari, 8).” In many of Baldessari’s works, he eliminates much of the information in the painting or photo, forcing the viewer to fill in what is missing. In some instances he places colorful dots over the faces of his subjects or he will completely remove a portion of the subject (a leg or arm) and replace it with a flat color but still maintaining the structure of the segment he removed. This ambiguous space that he creates forces the viewer to fill in what he or she thinks is missing. A lot of the time Baldessari will combine the subject with the background and foreground so it is difficult to distinguish one from the other.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres created a public work using his photograph of a bed that was slept in, with two indentations in the pillows where the head of a person would have been laying. The photograph, called Untitled 1991, was reproduced as a billboard for all the public to see. Designer Daniella Spinat writes about this work, “Anybody would probably recognize the image on this billboard as familiar. It shows hopefulness and sadness, presence and absence, at once. The potential simultaneity of the two opposites, the intimacy and emptiness, private and public, is self-reflexive. Like a giant mirror, the image suggests that each viewer fill in the space with their own bodies.” What is so great about Torres’ work is that it is suggestive in a way that the viewer can make up his or her own story to the image. Due to the absence in the photograph, we are able to fill in the space with our own perception of what should be laying in that bed. The image provokes many emotions in the viewer, but more importantly from a design standpoint it asks the simple question of, “What should be in that space?” This question activates the viewer in a way that straight forward design concepts cannot. Straightforward design concepts may consist of icon, symbol, or index; however this is only one way of categorizing how signs communicate, and much more can be done to activate the viewer.
The work of Paul Sahre is metaphorical and suggestive to the viewer. For example, Sahre designed the cover for the Ernest Hemingway novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” The image on the cover is of pine needles and pine cones. The limited amount of information provided to the viewer forces him or her to fill in what is missing. For those who have read the novel, the book begins and ends with the same scene. At the end of the novel, character Robert Jordan is lying in wait on the forest floor to die in glory. A quote from the novel, “He was waiting until the officer reached the sunlit place where the first trees of the pine forest joined the green slope of the meadow. He could feel his heart beating against the pine needle floor of the forest. (43.402)” In this case, the subject Robert Jordan is missing leaving the pine needles as the only indicative piece of information. This image references the viewpoint and experience of the character, rather than depicting the actions of the story.
Bruce Mau designed the Panama Museum of Biodiversity. His design is suggestive in the way that “Instead of pushing information, the museum allows visitors to be pulled into understanding as they follow a thematic path (Mau).” By purposefully designing the museum to be abstract, this gives the visitor an inverted experience. The museum design intentionally omits things that other more traditionally designed museums do not, such as mere illustrations in the exhibits, so that the viewer has a more activated experience.
Designer John Gall was presented with a project to redesign all twenty one of Vladimir Nabokov’s book covers. Gall states, “Nabokov was a passionate butterfly collector, a theme that has cropped up on some of his past covers. My idea was also a play on this concept. Each cover consists of a photograph of a specimen box, the kind used by collectors like Nabokov to display insects. Each box would be filled with paper, ephemera, and insect pins, selected to somehow evoke the book's content (Gall, 2009).” Gall chose a number of talented designers to each create each of the boxes. Invitation to a Beheading designed by Helen Yentus and Jason Booher has a little chair in front of the invite which is hauntingly suggestive to the book’s content. In contrast, the Penguins Classics book cover is an image of a large knife on a wooden chopping block which depicts the forthright actions of the story rather than the experience of the character, making the design direct rather than metaphorical or suggestive.
As an approach, I could create a series of visual works, (taking multiple forms) that intentionally and purposefully provides an incomplete story to the viewer so that he or she has to pay attention to the minor details and absences in the work and then may fill in the information about what they think is going on in the story. I could then have each person write down what they think the content of the story is, and how they would tell it to another person. The series would then become an example of gossip.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Kara Walker Exhibit (Oh, and Mark Bradford)
I chose to see the Mark Bradford and Kara Walker Exhibit at the Sikkema Jenkins & Co. gallery. Kara Walker has such a distinct form of art that the MINUTE I walked into the gallery and saw the paper cut out sculpture, I knew it was her work. I guess I am a little biased when it comes to Walker’s work because I have always enjoyed it and have done many projects at Mason Gross that were influenced by her work. The history and violence that her work embodies gets me to react and invest in her art more so than Bradford’s. I didn’t pay much attention to Bradford’s work because I was so entranced by Walker. I have seen an interview with Kara Walker where she talks about how she creates her work and the process in which she goes through. The knowledge I have about her work makes me appreciate it even more. Although her work seems to be political and racial (which it is) it also includes humor. The wood paper cut outs were great because they were a refreshing step away from her usual black silhouettes. I do however feel that they offer the viewer the same thing that the silhouettes do. Her work is like a chilling childhood storybook. She is original and inspiring. The video was also interesting because I have never seen Kara Walker produce a video, so the experience while watching it was of pure wonderment.
MFA Thesis Show
By far, my favorite works at the MFA show were the large scaled photographs in the first room. The photographs with the woman smoking with the trail of cigarettes leading down her chest is absolutely breathtaking. The pictures was beautifully taken but the content is a tad disturbing. More thought provoking actually. Anti-smoking propaganda? Most likely. It would make an excellent series for a PSA. Having those photographs at such a large scale makes the experience almost awkward which I absolutely loved.
Besides those photographs, I was disappointed in the show. I felt that a lot of the work had an unfinished feel to it, which to me comes off as laziness or lacking talent. (Example: work by Gabe Grodin, the 8”x10” Untitled) Especially the works on the back wall which looked like scribbles in a notebook that were transferred to canvas.
I am fond of Project Space: James Hyde in the left room of the gallery. It was interesting how he used photographs of textured paint and then overlapped those photographs with actual painting. I also enjoyed Eileen Behnke and her oil painting “The Things You Do for Love” Her painting style reminds me of Lucian Freud and I love how she deals with flesh.
The exhibition space itself was set up great. The addition of the partial walls in the main gallery space was a great idea. It gave more hanging room for the artists. But I still feel that many of the artists did not deserve that wall space. Just my opinion though.
Besides those photographs, I was disappointed in the show. I felt that a lot of the work had an unfinished feel to it, which to me comes off as laziness or lacking talent. (Example: work by Gabe Grodin, the 8”x10” Untitled) Especially the works on the back wall which looked like scribbles in a notebook that were transferred to canvas.
I am fond of Project Space: James Hyde in the left room of the gallery. It was interesting how he used photographs of textured paint and then overlapped those photographs with actual painting. I also enjoyed Eileen Behnke and her oil painting “The Things You Do for Love” Her painting style reminds me of Lucian Freud and I love how she deals with flesh.
The exhibition space itself was set up great. The addition of the partial walls in the main gallery space was a great idea. It gave more hanging room for the artists. But I still feel that many of the artists did not deserve that wall space. Just my opinion though.
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