Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Performance Art



Performance art is an artform in which the artist combines visual art and dramatic performances. Most of the time, these performance art pieces are designed with a hidden meaning, one that might not be obvious to the audience. This could either be a comment on daily life or question the values that people hold in today’s society. There have been many performance artists throughout history, some of which comment on similar aspects. For instance, Wafaa Bilal, Mireille Astore, and Ai Weiwei. All three of these performance artists deal with political issues. Wafaa Bilal, an Iraqi-American artist, is known mostly for his piece ...and Counting. In this performance art piece, Bilal cuts his back with 5,000 red ink dots to represent the American casualties in the Iraq war and tattooed 100,000 dots for the forgotten Iraqi victims. This art piece deals with a general issue while also having a personal reasoning, being his heritage. A similar artist is Mireille Astore, known for her performance piece Tampa. This piece is similar to Bilal’s because they both use their cultural background to explain their reasoning behind the piece. In her performance, she places tall sticks in a ship-like shape that also resembles a jail cell. She stands there in silence as others watch, almost as if she is an exhibit in a zoo. This is meant to represent the ship that Afghan refugees were on when they attempted to seek asylum in Australia in 2001. Thus, this piece shows the artist political activism on the issue with refugees and our conception about the Middle East. The third artist, Ai Weiwei, performed a Study of Perspective  series in which he takes photographs of his middle finger in front of various monuments and political buildings. This shows his civil disobedience against political institutions. However, it can also represent his separation from any form of government completely. While all three of these artists performed different acts for their performance pieces, they all dealt with politics and how they view the perfect world should be. In the context of technology, only Ai Weiwei’s had as essential technological aspect, being that the artpice was the montage of pictures of the monuments. However, technology can be a big aspect of every performance art piece since an audience member can can video documentation and easily spread the artist’s work through the internet with the help of social media. When asking the question “what is to be done?”, it is all up to the artist themselves. They could comment of politics, cultures, social values, and many more. In the cases of these three artists, political institutions are questioned on the basis of if the government is actually affecting the general population in a positive manner. On the basis of what the artist can do to perform these questions, that is all up to the artist. Art could be anything, simple or complex, thus anything the artist does can be considered a form of art itself.

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Xerox project



While these may just be copies of my arms and hands xeroxed and taped to a door, it also has a hidden meaning. This could go off of the way art is almost trapped by standards. There are so many pieces of art that people question because they believe it is too simple and anybody could have made it. In this art piece, the arms could represent these pieces of art that people judge as such and the door could represent those standards. Nowadays, there could be so many possible artists if the general public didn't look down upon certain forms of art they see as "immature" or "basic". Thus, this artifice questions that concept. The arms are reaching out, almost to escape these standards and be able to show itself to the outside world. Art could be anything the artist wants it to be. Art isn't only a picture or a sculpture, it is anything that holds meaning beyond the obvious.

Friday, October 12, 2018

Grid Art


Originally, this isn't what a pictured in my head when I planned to make this grid. However, everything has a purpose so, in a way, it was meant to be like this. My first idea was to get a 30" X 30" piece of construction paper and cut out one inch squares from either a magazine or just plain colored paper. However, I wasn't able to find construction paper, so I went with what I had at my expense, notebook paper and tape. To get the 30" by 30" template, I had to measure each piece and ensure that when taped together it would make a perfect square with he dimensions I wanted. Then, once I made the template, I had to color the squares in. Instead of cutting out colored squares as I planned, I decided to use markers instead to make it more vibrant and lively. Behind the grid art, there are hidden messages that one has to look closely to make out. For instance, when one thinks about a grid piece, they think of something organized and steady. However, I challenged that idea, and by using notebook paper and markers that aren't perfectly colored in, it shows that art doesn't have to be perfect. Art shouldn't be perfect. This piece is still art but it shows plenty of signs of disorder. In fact, the colors can even represent the world around us. Typically blue represents life. In this piece, the blue dies out and moves to purple, showing that life eventually ends, but it isn't and end to everything, as it moves to something new.

Friday, October 5, 2018

Electronics Statement

The 21st century has been full of technological advances, using past technologies to invent a new product incorporating the same ideas. Possibly the biggest advancement was the invention of the iPhone in 2007. The creation the iPhone used many other products to design the perfect format. One of these are walkie-talkies. Walkie-talkies were used to communicate with other people over a large distance. However, there are many limitations when communicating with them, one of them being that there is a maximum distance that can separate the walkie-talkies in order for them to work. Another limitation includes the fact that the walkie-talkies can only be connected to a certain number of channels at a time. These aspects were used to then improve upon, bringing the iPhone into existence. Like the walkie-talkie, the iPhone is used to communicate with people over large distances, with almost none of the limitations faced by using a walkie-talkie. Unlike the walkie-talkies, you can call other people across the globe and there is no limitation on how many conversations, or “channels” the product can withstand. Another technology that had a major influence on the iPhone was the telegraph. This device was used to send a physical message to another person in a short period of time. Similarly, the iPhone can send texts, physical messages that another person can read and respond in the matter of seconds. The telegraph, however, would need much more time to send the same message. While the iPhone has used aspects from various other technologies, there are still many more technological advancements we will witness, some of which could use aspects of the iPhone. We can see this happening today, not with new products entirely, but with updates to itself. Apple is constantly working on new ways to improve the iPhone, coming up with updates and new versions every year. In the broad spectrum, another company can “revise” the iPhone and possibly invent a new way of communicating. Going into an even bigger age of technology, our next step could possibly go into the realm of holograms and virtual reality. If sending a hologram, there wouldn’t be the need for screens. The hologram could also possibly be used to give someone the feeling of being somewhere they aren't. This idea is similar to that of virtual reality. Now in virtual reality people can play games that appear to be the real world. Instead, they could be updated and be used to place them anywhere in the world. They would feel like they are traveling anywhere they want, all in their own home. Everyday people are coming up with new ways to make life simpler and more enjoyable. That, all in all, is what the purpose of technology is. Each technological advancement used another advancement to influence its invention. No technology was invented randomly, they all had a purpose and an influence. The iPhone, in this case, is a great example. Past technologies influenced its invention and in the future, the iPhone will influence a new technology to be invented.

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Combined photo extra credit



In class, we were split up into groups and were told to perform a challenge where one person starts a drawing and leaves a "hint" for the next person to continue. This would then make one whole piece or art that has different components, showing each person's artistic ability. In our group, I started on the top with the "head" of the art piece. I decided to draw something completely random and went with an octopus in space. Them, using the little piece of the sketch, the next person drew a UFO, that shows it abducting another creature. The third square then went in a completely different direction, with a car, using the beam-like lines as the exhaust for the car.