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>.
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