art vending machine

Interesting newsfeed I came upon in Time.

So this guy in Germany came up with the idea of vending machines that would vend art pieces for really cheap and supposedly, this is getting popular throughout Europe. He says the idea of these vending machines is to target places where art is scarce like public buildings (which is funny because a lot of people in class chose architecture itself as public art for the visual essay theme), bars (can't really see how people would want to buy art in a bar but ok), etc. The guy is quoted as saying, "We wanted to get art into places that don't have anything to do with art so that it would become a part of everyday life." My theme for this project was everyday art so I definitely read this differently than most people would have because my argument for the project was that art is everywhere and most certainly found in everyday objects, like benches. Art is already a part of my everyday life but of course, I wouldn't have realized that without this project and maybe I would have been super duper excited about these vending machines so I can make art a part of everyday life by paying $2.78 for art in a box.

a learning experience

A learning experience is what I will call my presentation yesterday. In other words, FAILURE. Just kidding. Well half kidding. I walked out of English feeling so horrible but now that I've had a day to reflect, I'll be calm and cool about my "learning experience". So now I will rant I mean reflect on everything about this project and more.

So first thing first. I blame the government. Just kidding. That was just to catch your attention. But I really think I've been conditioned to strictly follow directions, exactly as they're written, word-for-word. I'm talking about annual DSTP's (Delaware State Testing Program, yes I'm from Delaware or as students like to call it the Delaware Student Torture Program), the SAT's, AP's and the list goes on and on. I've been disciplined to read the directions and re-read and re-read until I fully understand what I'm asked to do, stay on topic, and always include part of the question in my answer to get full credit. So coming from this disciplined educational background, I struggled with the vagueness of this project. I think I read the visual essay assignment sheet about a hundred times. Art itself is so vague and have I told you, vague is not my thing? I got so caught up trying to make sure I followed everything on that assignment sheet that I let myself be confused. I focused so much on the structure trying to come up with a clear theme, a beginning, middle, and an end that I ended up choosing a boring and unoriginal theme and ultimately forcing my photos to make sense. If I could re-do this project, I would definitely let myself not be confined to words written on a sheet of paper and really think outside the box, embracing the vague directions as a potential for creativity. Whew. Ok.

Another thing. Speaking for 5 minutes to an audience feels like an eternity if you don't know what you're talking about. It's not that I spoke complete nonsense but my theme was functional art and you really can't make a story about functional art. My images had no chronological timeline so I arranged them in a way that made sense to me. The sequence of my images beginning with illustrating the function of a bench to illustrating the details that make everyday objects public art to ending with combining the two elements and revisiting the first image to tie it all together made sense in my head but I definitely struggled to reiterate the same message aloud yesterday eloquently and clearly.

I actually did learn a lot from this project which mostly consists of a long list of don't do's but hey, learning is learning. I can now understand why people say college really broadens your horizons because college is not like high school. The math problems don't work out to a rational number and apparently, vagueness is the new black on campus. Life itself isn't black or white and I know this wasn't one of the key learning points listed in some thick book located somewhere in the English department that I was supposed to learn from this project but when life gives you lemons, don't just make lemonade but take from it what you need and don't be afraid to explore other options that might result in something better.

public art scarce on campus?

I attempted to take pictures of public art today but I got lost instead and climbed through a hole in the fence behind Woody's dining hall and ended up with 18 awful pictures of lamps, benches, and trees. Let me tell you, that was not fun.

So I initially thought I would be staying on campus but I think that's what most of us are doing and there's only so much public art on campus, no? I know we made that huge list of what public art can be but I think public art is pretty scarce on campus. There's only so many fountains, statues, or paintings for some of us...

Anyways, I think I'm going to venture off campus or at least try to, we'll see. I hope I see a plethora of public art because I'm not seeing it here on campus. All I see are red bricks and squirrels -_-

controversial public art

I found an interesting article about controversial public art here about a statue in Washington. It's controversial because the statue is a nude woman located in the middle of a park next to a newly built library. Location certainly matters when discussing public art.

the art of david fincher

I came across this video titled the "Art of David Flincher". Flincher is the mastermind behind the Social Network and other critically acclaimed films such as the Fight Club and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button to name a few. The video is just a montage of his prominent films but these scenes effectively show that David Flincher is in fact an artist. So enjoy!

the social network

I usually try to blog about something we read in class or at least a topic that was discussed instead of random things about art but I think I'm allowed a random art blog post because one, we didn't have class this week and two, we all wrote 5 pages analyzing art so yeah.

This isn't totally random but we have talked about the different mediums of art including painting, photography, and the topic of this entry- film. I know some people won't consider recent movies exactly "art" but I went to the premiere of the Social Network Thursday night and yeah, it was art. It wasn't art in a necessarily visual way but the whole movie was so intense and if I think about why, it's partly due to the storyline but what the spectator is most impacted by at every moment during the film is what you see and hear directly in front of you. I'm not going to write a movie review but the cast, the script, the music- it all combined to create art that I fully enjoyed and appreciated. Let's show some support for our Hollywood friends who produce works of art because it's one medium of art we can all enjoy while sitting down with a box of popcorn.