Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Agustin Lara
Prof. Sleeper
Art 245
December 15, 2014
Chevalier
and Burtch
Scrolling
through some resources I was able to find and learn about two still living
artists. Outside of art class I do not
really know any artists, other than major artists like Van Gogh, DaVinci, and
so on. One of the artists I came across
was Miguel Chevalier. Miguel Chevalier is
a Mexican artist who was born on 1959 in Mexico City but has lived in France
since 1985. According to
miguel-chevalier.com he has received four art degrees, one in 1981 and the
other three in 1983. Since 1979 Chevalier has focused mainly on computers and
his digital art. He still has
exhibitions to this day whether they be solo or group exhibitions. His piece Memories and Mutations, which was
exhibited in 1999 in Beirut, was one of his video pieces. This piece is unlike any video I have
seen. The footage that is displayed
almost reminds me of an apocalyptic scenario because there are not any
people. Apart from no people being in
any of the footage the buildings look old and abandoned. Of course these probably were not his
intentions yet it makes it a fun viewing experience. What I found interesting
while I was looking through his gallery was that his video works involved more
than one projector’s and for this particular work he used a transparent screen. That being the case these techniques makes
his works very unique. He is collaging
his videos together by simply overlapping them while playing them. He likes to
use nature and cities as references for his pieces. Scrolling through the small
gallery that was posted I did not see many nature works if any however I did
see a tremendous amount of city pieces that were amazing. The name Memories and
Mutations is an interesting name to give this piece, at least to me, because I
honestly do not quite understand the mutations part of it, I can see the
memories part because it is footage that he has taken over the years. Unfortunately I was not able to make contact
with the artist. Since he is an older
artist I do not expect to hear back from him, however it would be very insightful
to get knowledge from an artist that has been making art for multiple decades. He is also the founder/coordinator of an
experimental digital media studio in Paris.
Another
fellow artist that I came upon is Allison Burtch. “Burtch is a philosopher and educator
who creates politically coherent works in a variety of media”
(eyebeam.org). I can honestly say that I
have never heard of an artist that was a philosopher as well, so this was
unique. Along with being a philosopher she has a master’s degree in telecommunications.
Before becoming an artist she was the editor of the Occupy Wall Street Journal. Along with doing art she is also a
teacher at the School for Poetic Computation.
Her piece the Log Jammer is so simple yet it has a great deal of
meaning. We as a society are surrounded
by technology everywhere we go, on her blog Allison claims that subway stations
as well as Canadian national parks are implementing Wi-Fi into their
establishments. The subway of course we
can all see makes sense but why would a national park need Wi-Fi? Before I read
more on this piece I thought that it was just a simple sculpture that was just
a figurative symbol and nothing more. Not only is her Log Jammer a sculpture but
it is also a fully functional cell phone jammer. “American phones operate on
two different spectrums – GSM-850 and GSM-1900. This ‘cellphone jammer’ creates
noise at a specific radio wavelength so that cell transmissions can’t go
through”(allisonburtch.net). Not only does she describe it, she also has a video
in her blog showing us how it works, http://blog.allisonburtch.net/post/84339825928/inversely-testing-a-circuit-with-a-software. Not only can you see how it works but you
also .get to see the components that are inside the log. It is nice to see an artist acknowledge the
fact that we are completely overwhelmed by technology and sometimes we need a
break and what better way than to stop our cell phones from working. I still have not heard back from this artist
either. I do hope to hear from her if
possible it would be amazing to get to talk to a new artist about her
experiences and what did and did not work for her throughout her career and
what helped her get to where she is today.
The
first clear difference that arises between these two artists is that one,
Chevalier, is an old school artist, while the other, Burtch, is a modern
artist. Chevalier mainly works with
digital art and his videos for the majority of his pieces, while Burtch uses
all kinds of media in order to make a artwork.
For example her Log Jammer is literally a log, which she probably found
in the woods. In another one of her
pieces the sculpture is also made of wood and metal. Not only that but
chevalier has been an artist for the majority of his life, and having
exhibitions from 1987 all the way until now being 2014. Burtch is an up and coming artist who started
in recently in 2013 if I am not mistaken, so she is a very new artist. However
to even be recognized in the art world is a great accomplishment, or so I have
heard. Another big difference is that
some of Burtch’s works have to do with politics, considering her background
with the occupy wall street journal; it makes sense to shed some light on
unspoken information. However that is
not anything new. We have seen political artist come and go and frankly I do
not pay much attention to them. I like
to see pieces that speak out and make impacts like her log jammer. Between these two artist I would say that
Burtch is my favorite simply because her piece was something I had never seen
before and Chevalier’s videos don’t compel me to want more yet I would like to
further my knowledge on both of these artists.
Works
Cited
"Allison Burtch |
Eyebeam.org." Allison Burtch | Eyebeam.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 16
Dec.
2014.
"Burtchblog." Burtchblog.
N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2014. <http://blog.allisonburtch.net/>.
"News ." Accueil.
N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2014. <http://www.miguel-
chevalier.com/en/index.html>.
Sunday, December 14, 2014
.jpg)
Agustin Lara
Prof. Sleeper
December 4, 2014
Art 101
Reminiscence
This was
the third gallery opening that I have ever been to and I can definitely say
this was one of the most personal galleries I have ever seen. Of course all art is personal for the artist
however the meaning behind Bahareh’s paintings was very deep. When we were first shown the pieces we
learned that Bahareh is from Iran and has lived through the revolution that is
taking place against the government.
That being said these paintings just aren’t paintings anymore they
symbolize her home and what it’s like, which I respect. Many people are very closed minded when it
comes to situations like these and it is very ignorant of them. Aside from being beautiful pieces they
symbolize the dark and the light, or good and bad of Iran. Another interesting fact was the medium that
was used was tar and acrylic paint on wood panels. Tar is very abundant in Iran and acrylic is
of course a very common medium to use in art but I have never seen it mixed
with a substance like tar, not only mixed but work as beautifully as it did. It
I didn’t know that tar was being used I would’ve assumed that it was just paint
on the panel. I also noticed that for almost every dark there was a light, a
positive and negative, the balance was very nice I know art can sometimes go
“out of the lines’ so to speak but seeing this piece in a pattern was very nice
and I believe that the impact it made wouldn’t have been as great as if it were
scattered throughout the gallery. The
tapestry piece or Pardis was a very well done painting. It resembles a mirror almost as if it wants
you to look within yourself and find your true meaning. I love the strong contrasts that were made
within this piece. They are very sharp and
clear yet the work in a way that pushes the center of the work forward onto you
instead of just sucking it into the work as most contrasting pieces do.
The only
thing that I can critique, but very slightly, was the color palette. I would have liked to see just a bit more
color throughout the pieces. I
understand their concepts completely and why they were done the way they were,
speaking about the wood pallets, there was a lot of monotone going on there
which made it repetitive and left me wanting to see more, which is good
thing. The tapestry piece had flowers
and what I believe were leaves around the center which gave it a nice pop
because we finally got a sense of color, not only that but the green that was
used was very subtle, so it wasn’t like the green just jumped out and drew your
eyes attention directly to them instead of making you follow them all around
the piece and captivating your divided attention. All that aside these pieces
were very well done every stroke was done with meaning and passion and it
really shows in the artist and the artwork. I would love to be able to see
future galleries with this much meaning being held within them, it was a unique
experience that stood out strongly amongst the other galleries I have seen.
Agustin Lara
Prof. Sleeper
Art 245
December 14, 2014
The
Yes Men
The
American government is fueled by power and greed, as well as money, especially
money. Whatever can bring in a source of
income for the government is a positive thing and if it doesn’t bring any
income they pay no mind to it. It is
actually a very sad system once you clearly look at it. We all wish we could do something to change
that, even the littlest thing that would allow us to be heard, without having
to start riots or having to organize large groups of people in order to make
yourself heard. Here’s where the Yes Men
come in. the Yes Men are an activist
group who pretend to be members of large corrupt organizations in order to get
messages across to the American public.
Yes in some instances these pranks/hoaxes can go a bit far yet they
spark something greater. In their film
we get to see them mock major organizations such as Dow Chemical Company, Exxon
Mobil, Halliburton, and HUD.
What
intrigued me about these men was that they made people realize that the things
they were claiming they were doing, as they were hoaxing, could actually
happen. Not only that but the role that the media plays in situations like this
is ridiculous, they made the Yes Men seem evil, calling their actions cruel,
yet the people that were truly affected had different points of view. For this
I want to use the Bhopal and New Orleans incidents as examples. When they claimed to be Dow representatives
they claimed that the company was going to compensate those affected from the
Union Carbide disaster. The people of
Bhopal truly believed that thy were finally going to receive the help they
desperately needed after twenty years, however their excitement lasted a mere
two hours. In New Orleans they claimed
to be HUD representatives who were going to re-open public housing so the lower
class people would have homes again and almost instantly they were
uncovered. Both these incidents were
major occurrences, which truly fooled people yet instead of being enraged they
were happy. They knew that both
companies that were being imitated could actually do the things they were
claiming to do. These were all
possibilities and achievable goals. The only thing that kept them from doing it
was the fact that they would be losing money instead of making it. Sure we all know that money runs this country
yet it has never been put into perspective quite like this. I would like to recall a conversation between
one of the Yes Men and an audience member of the Dow conference. The audience member said that everything
costs lives, but as long as you’re making money it is acceptable. My jaw literally dropped. The free market is taking over the world and
will never be taken down because they have all the power. This documentary shed light on the dark parts
of the government and makes me wish that I could do something for the people
being affected by the governments actions and decisions.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)