Welcome to Week Six. Just a reminder, you do not need to apologize for late posts. I totally understand and expect delays. Just post late in a current week, like some of you are doing--thank you. Also, please remember to write in first person--"I", "me"--not we or us. Own your words and your questions. What I am enjoying about Week 5's posts are the questions you are posing to yourselves and the class. Am loving that.
A few comments about some Week Five posts. Then off to this week. Some posted about performance and its possibilities in the classroom. I listened to artist Nick Cave a few semesters ago at a TASA conference at TTU. He does lots of performative work. Look him up. Lots of posts about your initial reactions to Schneemann. Might possibly be normative in our culture where that might be a common knee-jerk reaction. I'm wondering if and how it might be connected to consumerism? Some posted are inspired by Chu Yun. Check out the Cathedral of Junk in Austin,TX. You can see it right now in Yard Art and Humanmade Places: Extraordinary Expressions of Home (by Jill Nokes with Pat Jasper, 2007, University of Texas-Austin Press). (I used this book a few years ago when the theme of a class was neighborhoods and activisms.)
Some of our artists come out of particular gender and historic/herstoric narratives--that run counter to what and how we have been taught--about art, about teaching, about learning. What is appropriate and what is acceptable, etc. Last fall in an online research class, a student posted about a student he had in his art class from France who had been taught differently about genders and bodies. The student couldn't believe how conservative gender norms are in Texas. As we read and critique these artists, keep in mind that they do keep making art. Something I wish I did more of. A few posted and questioned how "schooling" not learning is socially constructed to be a very narrow corridor of acceptable practices in US schools. Where our efforts are merely reactive and not proactive.
Though we seem to have lots of pornographies in our culture, erotic art forms are more difficult to find. When I say erotic, I mean more toward what audio Lorde referred to as the body having erotic potential and power--not at all sexual. Might want to check out that essay of hers--it's short and online. posed a question that everybody ignored last week about a possible semester project. Please start considering that. Consider something basic and simpler--documenting via your phone, you thinking about yourself or your project--can be a project. I am not looking for ten page papers on theory. A series of self-portraits--you will see this in the next book. I took my undergrad class last semester to the Ranching Heritage Museum to to some plein air painting--trading card size and postcard size. Just to sit and think or paint. Many just sat and looked and thought. I love the metallic and glitter watercolors some used. You could create a 5 minute Ted Talk on your phone about your ideas--and that's your project. You can document yourself. Dialog with yourself and develop a short video on your phone. Notice I am pushing perform--and document. Let's keep it simpler. Simpler.
In a few weeks we finish this quick eco trip (where we are looking at the different methods artists use) and venture on to political graphic identity narratives from women using testimony and witnessing as a strategy/method to make his/herstories known--a much different approach to research than what we are reading.
How about this for our project ideas? Keep in mind that you will create your own blog page where you will house your project--hopefully on Blogger.com. You can make it private and it's free. It's very easy to create and design. You may want to begin to play around with it. Or you can use an existing website you may have. We will visit each site and comment on them. I do not want to be the sole keeper of ideas. I am not grading your ideas. I will make comments and hopefully learn from you. I hope you can grasp that pedagogical shift from overlord to co-teacher, co-collaborator. You are already are doing it. You are teaching me. I am just hoping that you take some personal risks and do something that really resonates with you. It can be research you are currently working on. Don't follow us. Lead us. If you do something really personal, you can make it really private so that even I don't see it.
Keep in mind how Weintraub writes about these artists. Use her as a model. She, like you, writes about the several methods the artists are using. You might use autobiography, video, performance, sustainability, and industrial ecology as your methods to creating your research. That's what we need to develop and demonstrate to each other. For example, if you create a performance--and it can be one minute--document it with your phone and upload it to youtube for free or another space if you need privacy and write about the experience--telling us how you planned, what you did, etc. Small steps. Anyone hearing this and getting it?
Also keep in mind when thinking about possible lessons or projects, for example, that traditional mindsets foretell what's good for what grade level. I could say that environmental issues are better for high school populations. Not true. All of these ideas are for all populations and all people in my opinion--as Marc posted. I don't think we have ever been taught to consider any of these issues for class or or own lives. We are taught to stick to still lifes, pinch pots, etc. There is an artist in New Orleans, Dr. Bob, who makes art out of beer caps. His studio is like Andy Warhol's was--a factory. Great work--and so different. How do we change our own mindsets on what is possible and appropriate and what is not? That could make for a great personal journey.
In Week Five, some of you posted about sanitation workers. A theme of dirty work was mentioned in a few posts. Think of this, I am my garbage. What might a week's worth of my garbage say about me? Or a month? A project? Taking a ride with sanitation--a project possibility? Many of us know nothing about this stuff and have to reacquaint ourselves with real people doing real things. Dumpster diving. Defending our art classes that are not taken seriously. Collaborations?
And now Week Six. I am enjoying the global perspectives in the book, based on social and land considerations. I hope you are noticing the multiple methods artists use to examine topics. Keep in mind that interview, autobiographical writing, and biography are also ways to create research and document. Weintraub is creating critical writing about these artists that is historical and biographical as well. So, keep in mind that we are always working in multiples.
Note about thinking about projects one more time. Rather than make something, which you may do, how about documenting how you are thinking about something--or planning. You could use your phone to video yourself thinking and/or planning. And post that process as a project. What I'm saying is that documenting yourself as a performative journal, so to speak, would be a great project. Perform...record with phone; upload to youtube. Think about that. You are still creating and documenting that with phone/video. These could be performative lessons. You describe or perform it and viewers take what they want. I think we can post privately on Youtube. Think about that than something more traditional, but it's up to you. You can do anything for this class.
A few comments about some Week Five posts. Then off to this week. Some posted about performance and its possibilities in the classroom. I listened to artist Nick Cave a few semesters ago at a TASA conference at TTU. He does lots of performative work. Look him up. Lots of posts about your initial reactions to Schneemann. Might possibly be normative in our culture where that might be a common knee-jerk reaction. I'm wondering if and how it might be connected to consumerism? Some posted are inspired by Chu Yun. Check out the Cathedral of Junk in Austin,TX. You can see it right now in Yard Art and Humanmade Places: Extraordinary Expressions of Home (by Jill Nokes with Pat Jasper, 2007, University of Texas-Austin Press). (I used this book a few years ago when the theme of a class was neighborhoods and activisms.)
Some of our artists come out of particular gender and historic/herstoric narratives--that run counter to what and how we have been taught--about art, about teaching, about learning. What is appropriate and what is acceptable, etc. Last fall in an online research class, a student posted about a student he had in his art class from France who had been taught differently about genders and bodies. The student couldn't believe how conservative gender norms are in Texas. As we read and critique these artists, keep in mind that they do keep making art. Something I wish I did more of. A few posted and questioned how "schooling" not learning is socially constructed to be a very narrow corridor of acceptable practices in US schools. Where our efforts are merely reactive and not proactive.
Though we seem to have lots of pornographies in our culture, erotic art forms are more difficult to find. When I say erotic, I mean more toward what audio Lorde referred to as the body having erotic potential and power--not at all sexual. Might want to check out that essay of hers--it's short and online. posed a question that everybody ignored last week about a possible semester project. Please start considering that. Consider something basic and simpler--documenting via your phone, you thinking about yourself or your project--can be a project. I am not looking for ten page papers on theory. A series of self-portraits--you will see this in the next book. I took my undergrad class last semester to the Ranching Heritage Museum to to some plein air painting--trading card size and postcard size. Just to sit and think or paint. Many just sat and looked and thought. I love the metallic and glitter watercolors some used. You could create a 5 minute Ted Talk on your phone about your ideas--and that's your project. You can document yourself. Dialog with yourself and develop a short video on your phone. Notice I am pushing perform--and document. Let's keep it simpler. Simpler.
In a few weeks we finish this quick eco trip (where we are looking at the different methods artists use) and venture on to political graphic identity narratives from women using testimony and witnessing as a strategy/method to make his/herstories known--a much different approach to research than what we are reading.
How about this for our project ideas? Keep in mind that you will create your own blog page where you will house your project--hopefully on Blogger.com. You can make it private and it's free. It's very easy to create and design. You may want to begin to play around with it. Or you can use an existing website you may have. We will visit each site and comment on them. I do not want to be the sole keeper of ideas. I am not grading your ideas. I will make comments and hopefully learn from you. I hope you can grasp that pedagogical shift from overlord to co-teacher, co-collaborator. You are already are doing it. You are teaching me. I am just hoping that you take some personal risks and do something that really resonates with you. It can be research you are currently working on. Don't follow us. Lead us. If you do something really personal, you can make it really private so that even I don't see it.
Keep in mind how Weintraub writes about these artists. Use her as a model. She, like you, writes about the several methods the artists are using. You might use autobiography, video, performance, sustainability, and industrial ecology as your methods to creating your research. That's what we need to develop and demonstrate to each other. For example, if you create a performance--and it can be one minute--document it with your phone and upload it to youtube for free or another space if you need privacy and write about the experience--telling us how you planned, what you did, etc. Small steps. Anyone hearing this and getting it?
Also keep in mind when thinking about possible lessons or projects, for example, that traditional mindsets foretell what's good for what grade level. I could say that environmental issues are better for high school populations. Not true. All of these ideas are for all populations and all people in my opinion--as Marc posted. I don't think we have ever been taught to consider any of these issues for class or or own lives. We are taught to stick to still lifes, pinch pots, etc. There is an artist in New Orleans, Dr. Bob, who makes art out of beer caps. His studio is like Andy Warhol's was--a factory. Great work--and so different. How do we change our own mindsets on what is possible and appropriate and what is not? That could make for a great personal journey.
In Week Five, some of you posted about sanitation workers. A theme of dirty work was mentioned in a few posts. Think of this, I am my garbage. What might a week's worth of my garbage say about me? Or a month? A project? Taking a ride with sanitation--a project possibility? Many of us know nothing about this stuff and have to reacquaint ourselves with real people doing real things. Dumpster diving. Defending our art classes that are not taken seriously. Collaborations?
And now Week Six. I am enjoying the global perspectives in the book, based on social and land considerations. I hope you are noticing the multiple methods artists use to examine topics. Keep in mind that interview, autobiographical writing, and biography are also ways to create research and document. Weintraub is creating critical writing about these artists that is historical and biographical as well. So, keep in mind that we are always working in multiples.
Note about thinking about projects one more time. Rather than make something, which you may do, how about documenting how you are thinking about something--or planning. You could use your phone to video yourself thinking and/or planning. And post that process as a project. What I'm saying is that documenting yourself as a performative journal, so to speak, would be a great project. Perform...record with phone; upload to youtube. Think about that. You are still creating and documenting that with phone/video. These could be performative lessons. You describe or perform it and viewers take what they want. I think we can post privately on Youtube. Think about that than something more traditional, but it's up to you. You can do anything for this class.
1. Fernado Garcia-Day
ReplyDeletemethods: bio/generative/social practice/installation/public/conservation/preservation/social and human ecology/sustainability
Pastoralism. Those connected to agriculture plummeted in Spain. I see the same in West Texas. Shepherds vs. tourists. Shepherd's School. Collaborates with others. He photo documents. "In support of rural life." What resonates with you? What connections can you see to teaching? Schools? Communities? What issues do you have locally?
2. Bright Ogochukwu Eke
methods: performance/social practice/public/social and urban ecology/industrial ecology
Eke turns a lament into art. Acid rain. He noticed his own skin irritations. Who am i? Lower case i--very powerful. Who is the Other? I collect cold sink water in a water can as I wait for hot water--rather than waste it down the pipe. Because I use biodegradable dish detergent, I pour my dish water in my backyard and water things. I stared thinking about all of the water I waste. It's like the styrofoam plates. Your reactions to Eke's multi-layered endeavors?
3. Nicole Fournier
methods: performance/bio/generative/social practice/public/social and urban and industrial ecologies
Live Dining Project. Foraging. Polycultures. Kiwi Box Projects. Yourself in relation to her work?
David:
DeleteThis week’s readings really got me thinking again, both in ways I do and do not like. Somehow in my evolution, I became a very judgmental artist. I am a Formalist and a Conceptualist. Work has to appeal to either or both of these sensibilities, preferably both. I have really opened up to the importance of personal motivations for making art, even when the formal and conceptual elements disappoint me. I have found ways to “like” art I previously did not after understanding the motivation to make it, but am still susceptible to the old duality that determines much of what I like. I am realizing that I am a product of the cultural context I grew up in, diverse though it my have been, and that it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to not respond to the current state of our nation and world in “nice” ways. In other words, the motivations of artists might trump personal formal and conceptual expectations. And this makes some of the anthropocentric and ecocentric artists’ work more important than I might have previously thought.
As I read about Garcia-Dory, I was fretting over the temptation to embrace Neo Pastoralism as a way to retreat from an unsettling decline in civility, honesty, and willingness to consider other points of view in the world. Internally, I know I should appreciate the simpler lifestyle he seeks to explain, but then the pragmatic David thinks, “if 100 graduates never produced even one new shepherd, is this even worth considering?” A 100% failure rate seems at odds with some stated goals, but then I realized that Garcia-Dory wasn’t as interested in creating shepherds as dignifying the work and connecting people to the reality of it. Maybe I am oversimplifying, but I wonder if being “good shepherds” could also be a metaphor for taking care of the land and the Earth as best we can, whether we herd sheep or not?
Bright O. Eke’s concerns about water are extremely potent. I have seen the documentary “Bottled Life: Nestle's Business with Water” (Documentary Film 2012) about Nestle’s efforts to provide “safe” bottled water to impoverished third world nations . It just infuriated me! Nestle profits on safe water as a commodity and the product is contained in materials derived from what has made so much water non-potable. I can’t see this approach leading to anything but the disaster that Eke seeks to bring attention to. I no longer purchase any Nestle products.
Nicole Fournier’s Live Dining concept energized me. I have always known that the designation of “weeds” was anthropocentric in the first place. But what an amazing idea – to add edible weeds to polyculture to maximize food opportunities with the least impact on the Earth’s resources. I disdain the use of herbicides, and my wife and I encourage the dandelions that proliferate in our oft-neglected lawn (which I haven’t watered for 20 years). We eat them and allow other weeds to flourish as a source of food for animals and insects. We never considered yanking those weeds out, but there are some ugly ones here in Colorado that the State Agriculture Department will actually issue citations for if you don’t mitigate them on your property (Russian thistle is a prime offender). But the weeds that just are an eyesore still get yanked out, especially if their thorns hurt family members. Even Fournier did not embrace all weeds, especially noxious ones. I felt semi-redeemed when I read that.
Fernando Garcia-Dory
DeleteStudying Garcia’s work and reading about natural lifestyles which human has had for thousands of years and the problems which exist for this kind of life such as changing common lands to national parks and the “laws banned shepherds managing national resources” like regenerating grasses to control burns remind me what is happening right now in different areas of my home country. In the center of my country, Iran, there is a village that is provided for tourists to get there and experience a rural lifestyle and nomadic life for a few days. Tourists from all around the world go there and they can live in a rural house which has different animals such as goats, cows, and chickens. They also can go to live in the nomadic tents and live with nomadic people. However, just villages in the neighborhood of this place are almost dying. While they are provided a place for tourists to come and experience this kind of life, there are farms and gardens that are abandoned. The young generation of the villages left their birthplaces and went to the big cities while the old people are the only inhabitants of these villages. So, they cannot take care of the farms and gardens. I am thinking what will happen if some eco artists use these kinds of places as a school to teach people how to live as a shepherd as a farmer even only for a week. Instead of providing only one place to come and experience this life as a tourist, they can come and live as a real rural people and help the old generation to relief their gardens. Instead of thinking of income from tourists, Isn’t better to launch a program in support of rural life, to think of the environment and prevent of desertification?
Bright Ugochukwu Eke
DeleteI think water on the earth is like blood in our body. If the blood gets poison the body gets sick or will die. Plotted water is like plotted blood in the body of the earth; it will Poison any creature on the earth. I like what Weintraub mentions that “water has a complex personality.” What Ugochukwu demonstrates on his works is the tragedy which is happening right now in the world. We, human, scratch the main problems and postponed any effort to find the useful and practical solutions instead provide some easy ones that create new problems. The acid rain which is the result of factories and spilling oil pollutes the water. Therefore, they put uncontaminated water in the plastic containers. Paradoxically, the water containers are made from the oil the basic reason for the pollution and they themselves, the containers, pollute the environment. The time of biodegradation of the plastic container is also a new environmental problem. A vicious circle which gets worse and worse. I like his installation of the different colors of plastic bags full of waters. It is like the acid rain and plastic rain simultaneously.
Fernando Garcia-Dory
DeleteI appreciated David's interpretation of Garcia-Dory's work as producing "good shepherds" more generally, as opposed to focusing on the fact that few of those who attended the program are actually pursuing shepherding. Indeed, I am a firm believer in the importance of human interaction with the environment being low-impact -- in the sense that applying "practical adaptations to specific environmental conditions" is more efficient. However, I think that as an artwork the psychological implications for the audience (i.e. those who learn about the work via its documentation) are more indicative of the value of making this issue more visible due to the components of the project and how they were carried out in real life.
To me, by asserting the value of experiencing an authentic connection to environmental processes that sustain life and are ethical (instead of superficial connections, such as the type of pastoral tourism described) is powerful even as a notion that can motivate a change in thinking. I think there is a tendency to believe that being at the mercy of a chaotic wilderness entails a life of scarcity or suffering, but as Raha mentioned, humans persisted this way for thousands of years and made virtually no detrimental impact on the environment! In this way, if the work was simply about the direct input of education for individual shepherds and the expectation that they would carry on these processes, then people could say, "Well, that's great that they're doing that, I'm glad someone is...but it's not for me!" So since the work does not insinuate the application of a direct solution, as a viewer (someone experiencing the work second hand) I feel more inclined to examine areas of my life where I could take measures to increase my own accountability with my relationship to the environment.
Bright Ugochukwu Eke
DeleteI found this artist to be really fascinating and incredibly inspiring in terms of how he navigated his art practice from observation, to inquiry, to research/contemplation, thereby arriving at the application of a meaningful commentary in his work. The things that led him to his medium - water, as something that, for human beings, is universal in its necessity for sustaining life, coupled with its detriments when in the form of acid rain, I found to be rather profound. The paradox Raha and David mentioned about the plastic water bags turning water into a for-profit commodity that actually perpetuated the problem was extremely disconcerting. However, Eke's transformation of the bags into useful art was extremely clever. I think the execution was very effective too, in that as Weintraub mentions, the designs were intended to be purely functional.
Lastly, I really like the questions Eke's poses on his blog, "Who am i? Who is the Other? Where is the meeting point?" I found this to be a good use of deliberate the conveyance of a meaningful aspect of these issues: The pursuit of individual freedom (comfort) at the cost of the collective good.
Nicole Fournier
DeleteI thought this artist really hit the mark in achieving a balance between art as commentary/reflexivity and usefulness as direct application of an effective solution. To me, this work really challenged the illusion that production generates, wherein consumers are made to believe that the availability of food affords them increased independence/choice. In the same way, certain vegetation (weeds) is considered a nuisance to the order that a society imposes upon nature, and thus are seen as non-foods.
When I was thinking about the implications of cultural regimes that evaluate vegetation in a hierarchical manner, I remembered that there is a similar assessment towards cuts of meat that are deemed undesirable or even inedible in the U.S., like sweetbreads, chitterlings, pigs'/chicken feet, oxtail, brains, facial meat etc. There are also animals in general that are considered unsavory like squirrel, possum, rats, pigeons, raccoon. I find it interesting that societies uphold cultural connotations with certain food sources even when previous suspicions have been debunked.
In Fournier's "Kiwi Box Live Dining" I liked the idea of using polyculture to provide food sources. By enhancing communities' relationship with nature through the dissemination of knowledge and its application, the work renewed a sense of awe while empowering individuals.
Bright Ugochukwu Eke
DeleteI always enjoy the simplicity of material and technique to create an artwork. Thus, I really liked Bright Eke’s piece. I think his use of very simple and mundane object into wonderful and aesthetically rich installations is impressive. I found his work, acid rain, fascinating and impactful.
Moreover, for me the use of ordinary objects like empty bottles, in itself is virtuous. It’s an act of recycling or not consuming.
Although this is merely my personal preference, I appreciate the works that are done with simple techniques more than a very broad and complicated use of materials, technological tools, etc.
Sylvia,
DeleteI really liked what you said about Eke’s medium for creating the Acid Rain. You said water is something vital for humans and its importance is universal. This is a great observation and a point, which made me to like Eke’s work even more. I think Eke’s work is tangible and understandable at a universal level and by a broad group of people. This is imperative because the environmental issues are also a universal matter, and not related to a particular culture or nation. Therefore, finding a universal language is crucial for eco-artists. Eke’s work, as you suggested, accomplishes to build a robust and understandable dialogue with its audience, and his use of water as the medium of the work plays a critical role in this regard.
Sylvia, you make an excellent point about the psychological implications for the audience in Garcia-Dory's work from learning about the actual work and how it is carried out in real life. So many of our urban fellows have little or no understanding of where their food even comes from or the "dirty" jobs that stand between them and food, clothing, and other needs. I think these eco-artists are re-educating on at least a cerebral level, but Garcia-Dory gives some of them the visceral experience, which I think imprints on them much more deeply (whether or not they adopt the work as their life).
DeletePost marker.
DeleteGarcia-Dory,
DeleteWhat a wonderful way to preserve a dying occupation, I believe the lifestyle of a shepherd is a lot like the lifestyle of a priest. It is a call to action that isn't popular and goes against the grain in the pop culture we live in today. Sheep herding is a preservation to nature as the priesthood is a preservation to Catholicism, just got this vibe by reading the short passage on Garcia-Dory.
Eke,
Using nonbiodegradable material as a medium for art is an excellent example of what should be taught in a classroom setting. Amazing how it took the right individual to get a skin irritation and sparked a wealth of art with a purpose. "Water is a precious natural medium/resource with a universal language." (Weintraub pg. 161). Wouldn't it be nice for all humans to see water with a holistic approach.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI agree with Raha's statement, "I think water on the earth is like blood in our body. If the blood gets poison the body gets sick or will die." I cringe when I see people loosely wasting water or disrespecting the life water brings to nature and to us as humans. Is this a western way of thinking? Am I too westernized?
Delete4. Amy Franceschini
ReplyDeletemethods: bio/generative/social practice/installation/design/
conservation/industrial ecology/sustainability
DYI. Domestic energies. Local and renewable. Lunchbox Laboratories. Algae.
5. Gelitin
methods: sculpture/performance/bio/generative/installation/public/
deep and human ecologies
A fundamental tenet of deep ecology --re-imagining self as indistinguishable. Klunk Garden and Hase Rabbit. Sacrificial guts; rotting corpse; to degrade. Villagers were involved. 20 years. Animals fed by the decay. Death and deterioration are a part of life. How did this impact you?
6. Andy Goldsworthy
methods: sculpture/photo/public
Anthropomorphic-Soul of a tree; Ecocentric-snowball. Studio=outside; medium=nature; tools=nature. IS it me or can anyone else see the revolutionary model Goldsworthy demonstrates for us. Photography key. It's making me fall in awe and love with the earth. You? I said this before but, I often will take a class to a park to create one of three things: an urban video park piece; a temporary art piece photoed; or plein air watercolor painting. Mixed results but we were out of the classroom. I love the idea of temporary. It seems everything in life and on earth is. Yet we focus on archival and forever ideas. Your takes?
David:
DeleteAmy Franceschini’s work to make art out of environmental scientist Jonathan Meuser’s theories about generating power through photosynthesis in algae was really altruistic. Using “framing” psychology to label the art as a “kit” made it approachable and non-threatening, though I would never associate the gas with a fusion atomic bomb. Hydrogen as a safe fuel won’t be ecologically viable if humans use fossil fuels to crack water into hydrogen and oxygen. The algae kits do it naturally with benefits to the environment w/o the risks. Using the DIY Algae/Hydrogen Bioreactor Kit model has no corporate advantages, but could really improve the environment and allow for intelligent applications of energy as needed in our modern world.
Weintraub again echoes the philosopher James Carse when noting that Franceschini attempts to “reverse the perceived separation between humans and nature” (p. 175) Carse would add that nature doesn’t listen to us or need us as, later, Andy Gracie and Tue Greenfort reveal in their works’ philosophies. The Gelitin collective’s faux-Zen Gardens were funny but formally trivial (there I go again). I thought it was more immature than satirical. Posteriors are funny when you’re pre-pubescent, but after that they are not. But when it came to Hare (Rabbit) the satire/parody gave way to deep irony, much to my surprise, the way they got buy-in from the locals was inspired. And the deterioration/decay of the “corpse” was completely ecologically beneficial. While exposing viewers to the realities of death and decay as positives in nature. That a rather large and silly rabbit sculpture could do this effectively belies the subtlety of Gelitin’s concept.
Andy Goldsworthy has been hammered into the minds of all youngsters in the last couple of decades. Again, my anthropocentric leanings make me appreciate the earlier aesthetic he worked with. If you are going to use natural materials and processes in your art, what would the value of replicating what’s already out there be? I like leaves arranged in gradient colors, rocks impossibly stacked and balanced, spiral icicles. Big dirty snowballs melting may be beautiful from an ecocentric aesthetic, but can we fully understand such an aesthetic? If it is Nature’s aesthetic, then we can only understand it insofar as we understand the complexities of nature, and our tenuous connection to it. Later artists that we read this week, and I, dispute that we understand Nature. Anthropocentrically, we think we thoroughly do, though, while we see ourselves apart from it.
But I could not help but note that Goldsworthy's studio, materials, process, and tools could all be described as "Earth."
Amy Franceschini
DeleteWhat she encourages people to harvest energy from environmental recourses such as sun, wind and water, nonpolluting energy. She believes art is a catalyst for change. Imagine a world without oil and polluted energy. There aren’t any products that threat environments. Pure water and air with green lands can be like heaven but it was the situation of the earth before oil coming. However, human life dramatically changed by using petroleum. On the one hand, it seems scientists can solve this problem by creating a solution. On the other hand, there are some solutions but people need to get familiar with them since there are few groups that support the solutions. Like her idea is the work of art that can work as catalyst. Art even can provide a situation to support scientific research and projects and encourage people to learn and get inclined to follow them. She provides the framework of the result of what would be the result of pure energy to satisfy people with outcome. Artist act as an activist who make big changes in society.
Gelitin
His work klunk garden that implies being in nature instead of outside. It indicates human is part of the earth but our lifestyle separates us from what we are part of. I am eating the food that comes from the earth drinking water which comes from the earth but live as I am out of it. I create trash and pollute it without caring it is part of me as I am part of it. His sculpture, Hase, that illustrate death and deterioration, I think, can be about the death of the earth itself. However, in this instance after the death of stuffed rabbit, there are some mushrooms and other plants grew up. But the way the human is consuming the earth doesn’t let any kind of life coming.
Amy Franceschini
DeleteIt seemed like this work made excellent use of design theory through the strategic implementation of properties to make the device approachable, which was based on critical thinking/analysis. Some of the considerations Weintraub mentioned were a reduced scale, the use of familiar objects, and using the word "kit" in the title. I found these choices to be really encouraging to the goal of introducing important technology that may seem too foreign and/or overwhelming for people to want to embrace.
Irony: My wife and I took our Prius in for servicing (we bought our first Prius 2 months after 9-1) and inquired when an all-electric Toyota would be manufactured. The salesman mentioned that there would be hydrogen-fuel-cell cars "thanks to the oil and gas industry." I was immediately reminded of Franceschini's algae hydrogen generator. But we have always gone to the most capitalist solutions to problems. Why?
DeletePost marker.
DeleteFournier,
DeleteFournier reminds me of my grandmother, I enjoyed reading this part on polyculture. My grandmother would sit in the middle of all her flowers and her garden and pray, eat and enjoy her time in her space. The only difference is Fournier's concept is a dining experience to be enjoyed by many, a peaceful place setting for comradery. I'm sure I would feel the same experience if I ate from inside of my garden, eating the veggies and herbs from my garden just feels cleaner, tastes crisper and fresher. Watching my girls circle around me as I pick from my garden and letting them pick their share makes the experience of a garden brings that much more of enlightment and inner peace to myself.
Franceschini,
We should all rally behind Franceschini and her trail of futurefarmers. I spent every weekend and all my summers on a farm with my grandparents and those were the best days of my childhood. I found interesting that she would say "I believe a farm is a state of being rather than a physical place. I t is a road to cultivating my consciousness and others." (Weintraub pg. 183). I believe she is right, a farm is a state of being and can dwell and prosper within us all.
7. Andy Gracie
ReplyDeletemethods: performance/bio/generative/photo/installation/design/ecosystem
Collaborates with biology and engineering. His machines demo to us what we still don't know. How comfortable are you in not knowing?
8. Tue Greenfort
methods: sculpture/installation/social and human ecology/sustainability
Two degrees. Water bottle. From bombast to restraint. Your take on the simplicity of the design of installation?
9. Terike Haapojo
methods: video/bio/digital/installation/deep ecology
Death and decay on her own body (bacteria and parasites). Video 8 X 9" canvas. She documents that we are not autonomous. Her community series of five animals? What is Haapojo reminding us/you?
DeleteTue Greenfort
I really enjoy Greenfort’s work. His work “Exceeding 2 Degrees” is the process that helps audiences to experience the notion of climate change. People might heard it from various sources but when they experience it during a process of energy use and climate change that combines art and science, can make them to think about the real catastrophe which is happening in the earth. His second work PET-Flascheis a sculpture by which he uncover the reality behind what being justified about recycling water bottles. It shows us do not trust any thing encourage us toward consuming culture. The good point about his work not only is the material and concept he has chosen in his work but the strategy and style of his work. He even considered the relevance of the topic and the location in which the artwork is going to take place.
Trike haapoja
DeleteCommunity shows our body communication with some invisible creatures in the earth after our death. How they help our body to return to the earth. Her works make me to think of the way I make a dialogue with my environment, non human world. She thinks about not image but what is happening between the audience and image content, the interaction between the process and subjectivity of the spectators. She invites the audience to watch and listen the process they usually can not see and listen in this way. Connecting technology and environment to show the reality which is happening in our world.
Terike Haapojo in her piece of five animals reminds us that the human is not the center of the world! The human even is not the center of the earth and in the hierarchy to other animals. We are equal to our surrounding, and we will be a part of the earth after we die. Haapojo challenges the border that we imagine ourselves and the environment in which we are placed.
DeleteI think her message is very powerful and it is presented by means of a sophisticated use of technology and science. Eliminating the line between us and earth, I think, is a necessary reminder in our modern world, in which humans overestimated their importance and power of reason over the earth and animals. The human needs to remember that it is a very small part of a bigger system and it existence relies on such system.
Raha in your post you mentioned “the interaction between the process and subjectivity of the spectators.” There is a very interesting point here: the process. I think this is true. In the Community the process is very important. maybe is the most critical elements in this piece. Such process also reflects the dynamism of life on the earth and the fact that we are also a part of a bigger process.
DeleteI also agree with Niloofar's interpretation of Haapojo reminding us that the human is not the center of the world. Though I laugh when my wife sayid, "I know it's hard being the center of the world" shortly after we were married. I had been a single father for many years, and that sense of responsibility had overtaken me into developing a belief that I had to control as many variables as I could. But as one of my friends who works for Water For People said, "we're not that much." She had seen humans in every walk of life and every level of need. Helping them was very altruistic, but she had put things into perspective very well. Basic human behaviors were pretty much the same wherever she went. Only when overpopulated societies warp these basic behaviors did she see deviations from simpler and wise eco-practices. Then the "process" of living became detrimental to many life forms.
DeletePost marker.
DeleteGracie,
DeleteI do believe plants respond to noise stimulation or vibration. I don't believe this takes away from a naturistic standpoint, in fact this is just one way of observing nature without human interference. There's not much I can say about this section, sounds a bit over my head I must admit.
Haapojia,
Haapojia states identifying ourselves not as individuals but as bodies of ecosystems. Stumbling across other information on Haapojia that I found interesting, putting rights of nature from a judicial standpoint.
https://creativeecologies.ucsc.edu/demos-haapoja/
I am reposting this from last week... If you are not sure, just say that. Or talk about some ideas you have. We are here to support each other. No shame--I'm just curious if anyone has started thinking about it. Spring break is in two weeks.
ReplyDeleteAnd the last post/prompt that I posted about earlier. I would like for you to begin to think about ideas, reactions, thoughts, or thinking about what a project might look like for you this semester--for right now ideas for a work-in-thinking/progress. What's resonating with you? Challenging you? Enticing you? Calling out to you? Yelling at you? Grounding you?
Public notes to us--what you are thinking about to the class. You need to know what others in your class are thinking and writing. Not just me. Class members will have suggestions and positive praise for you/us. A project could be a manifesto to yourself. But for now, can you post your initial ideas, thoughts, concerns or questions. Feel free here to post back to each other--I expect you to. Don't wait for Ed's response that that is a great idea. It will be because it is you and where you are at. I'm hoping we might add to people's initial ideas. Add to your thinking. Add more questions. I not only think that that would be helpful but unconditionally valuable. Your thoughts.... If you have no idea--that's a great place to be and to begin.
Better questions to ask this week? Omissions? Additional insights or questions?
ReplyDeleteLate Post, Week 4: “What are you taking away from these short essays of eco pioneers? Is the work and vocabulary engaging? Challenging”
ReplyDelete8. Frans Krajcberg
I really like the section in which the writer is exploring Frans Krajcberg’s work. She gives a historical explanation of landscape painting and how such kind of painting had been about representing a landscape to be perceived and felt by the audience. She contrasts this to Krajcberg’s work, because he uses his media not for representing a land scape but to make a connection between the materiality of a land scape and his works.
While, I think the writer is making an interesting point, I am not completely agreed with the historical background she provides for painting. She says the landscape painters didn’t used to think of the materiality of their media and use them to make a connection to nature. I don’t think this is a wrong statement, but it is not accurate enough. Even in the past, many painters used paint not just to represent the nature but as a material connected to earth. When I look at Constable’s oil sketch, sometimes it seems to me that he uses paint and texture of paints in a way as he uses soil and natural materials in his paintings. Although, such qualities are not very obvious or clear in traditional landscape painting, I think one can still find Krajcberg’s approach to material in the works that have been created before.
Moreover, there are several non-Western cultures that seem to have the same approach. I remember I watched a documentary about Native American sculpture made from natural materials or materials that resembles such objects. And the materiality of their object was a crucial element in their works that constructs particular concepts or spiritual experience.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteLate Post, Week 4
ReplyDeleteMario Merz
Mario Merz’s use of mathematical concepts such as infinity and harmony and incorporating them into his artistic practice is fantastic. I think his works are philosophical and engage the condition of human life within our unknown universe: Human is as small part of an infinite harmonic world, thus, keeping the harmony is key for our existence. This is very poetic, philosophical and also contains significant ethical messages. Indeed, the idea of balance and harmony is an old idea in ethics discussed by many thinkers. However, bringing this idea into eco-art is novel.
Post marker.
ReplyDelete