Friday, December 16, 2016

lectures and exhibitions, fall 2016

Richard Lin

Artist Lecture: Janine Antoni and Stephen Petronio

Antoni and Petronio are a pair of artists who collaborated to make works such as “Honey Baby”. Antoni, prior to meeting Petronio, primarily were sculptures and photographs. Petrionio on the other hand, worked in performance art. He grew up, and as a college student, learned he wanted to become a dancer. Petrionio’s dances eventually became an expressive art.
Combining the talents of these two artists, they were able to manage interesting compositions. Antoni would make sets for Petronio’s stages, but eventually this relationship turned into one where their respective art forms would become closer meshed together.
What was interesting about this talk was how the two personalities contrasted each other. While Petronio talked a lot, Antoni was quite reserved and only talked when she had to. Additionally, the way they collaborated was explained by Petronio as a sibling relationship where they communicate every morning at least once or twice during the day. Furthermore, Petronio goes on to explain that artists are terrible at collaborating because they have their own vision for a project, and that collaboration is good for the ego, because you can explore new viewpoints by receding some of your own.

Artist Lecture: Jennifer Garza-Cuen

Garza-Cuen’s work consists of photography as a medium. She takes photographs of places and gives it new context, usually adding interesting stories behind them. Her lecture, likewise was different than most other artist lectures in that, instead of presenting work and explaining the idea behind it solely, she told about the stories behind each picture in a flowing fashion that was much like an actual storytelling.
I will admit that it was a bit difficult to hear her. Since I was not able to make the first 10 or so minutes of the lecture, I’m not certain whether it was because a mic was not set up or if they had technical difficulties with setting one up or if this was intentional. This, combined with the dark room made it me feel drowsy at times.
However, I can appreciate the uniqueness of the lecture… it offered a fresh experience. I’ve been to many lectures, and many of them are more or less similar in that they cover their work and explain the thought process behind them in a straightforward fashion. Because Garza-Cuen went through the pictures without explaining each one—rather just telling a story about them—it was made that much more interesting. It became memorable in that regard.
Two questions I would ask Garza-Cuen: her inspirations and process, and her favorite works out of the several photographs she has taken.
Two questions I would ask Antoni and Petronio are: what happens when there are conflicts in ideas, and what caused Petrionio to become more “artsy” with his performances.

Artist Exhibition: DePaul’s “Hereafter”

DePaul Vera’s “Hereafter” exhibition contained several works pertaining to the theme of gayness. In the exhibition’s description, it says, “…if there is a Heaven, but I can’t be myself up there, then maybe I don’t want Heaven. Hence the Hereafter.” This series of work depicts a multiple medium approach. While all of the works are framed and sized similarly and attached to a wall, some will use acrylic paint, or just be plain graphite. The exact materials used to create each work are typed out onto a fancy, sparkling sheet of paper which serves to make the exhibition more “fabulous”.
Within each work men depicted nude in various positions, containing up to 2 people—1 white, and 1 black. Perhaps this can additionally represent a racial theme, the mixing of races and acceptance of it. Many of these individual pieces contain sexual or sensual elements, such as kissing and being drawn in positions that can be considered sexual. This serves to question to the audience the acceptability of gays in our society. As a major trending contemporary topic these several past years, just how many of us can truly accept gay people? Is it still considered unusual, and if so, should it be?
Until society accepts gay activities without batting an eye, they may still feel excluded, and I believe that DePaul’s description of the exhibition touches on this idea. That even the best places are not the best if they don’t allow people to have the freedom to represent their own being.

Artist Exhibition: Antoni and Petronio’s “Honey Baby”

This work is a result of the collaboration between Petronio, who is a choreographer and performance artist, and Antoni, who does sculpture and photography. Honey Baby is a result of this fusion. The work takes place within what looks like a cylindrical chamber, lined with honey. A performer is housed within the chamber during the performance and gives the illusion of a baby within the womb. I recall Antoni saying that honey was used because it seemed like amniotic fluid.
            The use of honey and the gestures of the performer imitating that of a fetus in a liquid environment gives the feel of an antigravity environment, not unlike that of the baby within fluid. At periods of time, the camera would swap to a viewpoint which closely depicts the performer laced in honey. Honey Baby is composed of three parts, which get increasingly more active. The use of sound within these works also serve to enhance the imitation of a baby in utero. The sounds had a likeness to a heartbeat, but with a muffled sound, like being underwater… which is what being within the womb would probably sound like.

            This work is interesting in that it upholds both artists’ recurring themes of exploring the body, but at the same time it shows the power of collaboration between two artists. This work fluidly blends the works of two different artists into one impressive piece, and demonstrates the importance of interdisciplinary art.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Scratch testing

In this link, I have posted the project in which I will be testing out various things in Scratch. This is primarily concerned with testing the time related attributes in Scratch. I am also in the process of re familiarizing myself with it, because I have not touched Scratch or coding in general for a while.

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

451 project week 3 update

After visiting rhizome and viewing various artists, I particularly enjoyed the interactivity and choice making of "Do You Want Love or Lust" where each decision made asks relevant questions endlessly and never awards a score, parodying similar questionnaires. It was interesting, and entertaining much in the same manner as a game. At this point I may be considering to make my piece more game-like, while still retaining its art-like qualities.

As for concept, I'm now imagining a time based website, where something different will happen depending on either a real time clock or a timer that a user can set. The imagery or interactivity will change depending on the time, most likely corresponding to a proportionate amount of time in human advancement, from past to present, and then a hypothetical time afterwards.

I'm planning on programming this at first, using Scratch as the coding engine, because of its simplicity, and then work on transitioning it to a website hosted for free, with an appropriately named url. Perhaps the website could host the Scratch project, as well as form its own thing, essentially becoming 2 different projects relating to the same concept.