Who the _______ is Jackson Pollock video

I did not enjoy this video at all really. The documentary i thought was supposed to be on jackson however it was about an old lady that has a little too much pride. She turns down an offer of 9 MILLION dollars. Now i am not one to say that i think that the world revolves around money but society says that money is pivotal for surviving in western culture. I want to travel and take pictures for the rest of my life. With 9 million i could have with no repercussions at all. I would have worked, but not for money just to have something to do when i get bored. And all that is just my dream which would have only cost a fraction of he total amount. think of how many dreams around me could have been fulfilled.

The painting and the principle itself is one that I find funny. The art world says "not a jackson pollock" old lady says"of course it is a pollock" art world responds with "she doesnt know anything," she responds with "you cant tell me what i know" and it goes from there.

The old lady has a point and just as valid as one the the art world has, and the final verdict is no one knows. and that is okay by me. Everyone wants to go on all these rants about why they know what they do and in reality its all false they lied from the beginning saying that they knew something. My solution would be to take the painting and lay it down in Pollocks studio to see if paint splatters match the floor, but what do i know?

The only enlightening feature of the movie showed me something that i did not want to see. The politics of art. Once an artist gets huge and their work becomes a collectors item thats when the politics enter the equation. People lie cheat and steal their way to acquire money or value. Funny because upon becoming an art major i was looking forward to leaving that lifestyle behind. I'm not saying that i will make it big, i am saying now that I dont really want to.

Those are my thoughts on the film

Project notes. final

I have a few options, for my photography final we had to recreate a piece of art history. I am not using the piece that I shot for that final but i thought about choosing something else. Maybe something a little more modern, or just choose something not really related to art at all and just showing a picture of the original along with my creation of it. I plan on changing a few things within the piece to call its my own.

The other idea i have is, i just stumble across a LiteBrite and I dont quite know what i would like to do with it but i would like to make some sort of mixed media piece out of it.

Charles Ray

Is the toy firetruck really that big?, Why does he take the mannequin to the next level of realism, is it neccesary?

I find it funny that the author of the book seems to not like the fact that Charles gets so much attention, sensing a bit of jealousy/hostility. Another thing that I find intriguing about this blurb is that the author is using complicated sentence structure and higher level vocabulary words, whilst talking about a simple "kind of " guy. Ray seems like a very open fellow with nothing to hide. I admire that he uses himself as a model in a number of his works, not my style but respectable. The way his mind works is what sticks out the most to me, he takes things that are mostly obsurd/mundane and puts a spin on it. He makes tabletop objects move with his mind. What I mean is that he uses his knowledge to build machines to move the objects therefore fulfilling the statement just in a different way. The life-size toy firetruck is awesome, enough said. The mannequin is a recreation of charles' body, therefore almost serving as a self-portrait. However, he uses this object to symbolize the union of commerce and art, he does something that is taboo in our society and succeeds. Let us think for a moment, what if we hit a dark ages time, and records are lost, computers destroyed and cities burn. A couple thousand years later some new civilization finds our shopping malls, they assume that it is like a castle or hotel something like that and mannequins are sculpture pieces, are they going to assume that everyone was bald and lifeless looking with no reproductive parts. He is brave.

Overall I like the ideas that he is portraying and feel like he is taking on a daunting task by taking our society and turning it over on itself.

Guest Speaker: Sonja

Sonja is an interesting person who has experienced many new places and stories throughout her life. Seeming to live from one artist residency to another, she has made her way across a good portion of the globe. That part of her inspired me greatly, to travel for life creating artwork, yeah I am a fan. She showed two videos during the lecture, sorry, but I didn't really pull much from those. The map made out of sand was awesome and I completely respect the time it took to create something like that, but the video of her walking through amsterdam with the camera pointing at the ground the entire time. It's basically like a book that has a decent intro, and you could pull some rising action but then, once you see it is not going anywhere, you discard the book and never pick it back up. The pieces of hers that I really enjoyed were the snow walking circles. I recognized them from the McCol Centre, the discipline used to create something like that is quite respectable. Sonja is very creative and has a pretty abstract mind as far as I can tell. I would like to adopt some of her thinking into my artwork, but not all of it.

Faculty show speakers.

Today we went to the Faculty show. I didn't really enjoy or understand the two pieces that were talked about, even after they were explained. The machine (I forget the artist's name) just didn't do anything for me nor did i take anything away with me from examining it. You once asked me in class about my first project "Do you think that people will get all of that from this image?" and after the artist explained her piece I ask, Do you think that I am supposed to get any of this content from this work?

War photographer,

James Nachtway

"I have been a witness and these pictures are my testimony. The events that I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated." = awesome

I, being a photo major, Thoroughly enjoyed viewing his work. It sucks that we could not get the video on him. His pictures and his willingness to photo these subjects is incredible. He definately inspired me to new ideas about what photography can be.

Class notes: Guerilla Girls+ Guillermo Gomez-Pena

October 14: today we talked about our art & activism project(all thoughts on matter are in the project notes blog.) We also watched a video to get an example of an artist that uses politics in his artwork. Guillermo is a mexican-american that basically sets up a vocally interactive booth where himself and his assistants sit with props acting out different situations that are supposed to make the viewers slightly to extremely offended. He wants to get a reaction and evoke emotions. He brings to light ideas about race and class in our society that most people would like to not think of. I am a fan of what he is trying to accomplish, his concept. But what I don't particularly enjoy is his form, the installation pieces are not my interest, viewing or creating.

Project 3 notes Group project

At first I wasn't thrilled about the idea about a group project. Set meeting times, assigned responsibilities that you have to trust that the other person will do, et cetera. After my group was assigned I was pleased with the members in it and they basically promoted me to unspoken leader. Which is fine I enjoy delegation. Our group; Marlon, Jerau, Ben, Angelique, and myself, had a great time overall. We joked and laughed out way to an idea that is practical in everyones life within our culture. Bitching and Moaning is what we came up with. We met up a couple times, one day to work on the project and another to film us giving it out. We became friends used our seperate skills as artists and as people and put them together into a final project. Angelique was our film star Ben took pictures, Jerau found quotes and starred, Marlon did the template for the brochure, and I wrote the text. Nobody complained about their job and everyone completed it without fault. Typically I am not a political person so when the idea of a political project came up I wasn't too excited, but we worked with it and succeeded I believe.

Project 2 final notes

For my final product from the consumption project I ended up with a video showing that everyday I am consumed by others that don't know that I have a handicap(being deaf in one ear) and those that I do tell don't remember long enough for it to matter. I used video to convey my idea. The video used a boring mundane image of pretty much nothing for the left side of my face to show the side that I cannot hear out of. The other part of the video used music and active images to show how even though I am half-deaf I don't it interfere with my life nor do I get angry at those that don't understand.

I felt that the video came out rather well. I used a mixture of pictures and video with another image on top of the whole layer. I used final cut express to edit my video.

Final thoughts include; that I had fun with this project.

(I tried to upload the video but it wouldn't do it, i think that the file size is too large.)

Text notes Thomas Kinkade and Venessa Beecroft

Kinkade- This guy has made it and its awesome to see, but from some of the quotes in the readings he seems to be really into himself. with expressions like "I own the hearts of the people" and, "I represent the forefront of an entirely new trend" okay i can get behind some of these statements but really, I mean I have never heard of the guy until now much less do I feel like he owns me nor my family. His work is amazing, yes, I agree with that and it is recognizable but, is his form so great that his content doesn't have to stand out as much. Example, if you had one of these paintings in your house would this be something that maybe once a month you would stop at and see something new/interpretive of a current situation. Maybe but doubtful, I know the work is sentimental and thats what he was going for because that is what sells. So I say good job he has made it but don't forget that there are other artist out there just as good/better at what he does.

Beecroft- This artist is very daring to say the least. She sees a problem with society and how women are viewed and does something extreme to exploit it. She shows areas of her life within her artwork, she went through anerexia so she wanted to show what that struggle looked like so others may be deterred from making the same mistakes. She ensourages us to think about how we treat and view ourselves/others. Some of her lessons can be applied to either sex even though she chooses to mainly use women as models. Even though her style of art is not one that I would use, live nude models, she gets her point across effectively and with power.

Rough project 2 notes part 2

One thing that I am consumed with on a day to day basis is only having one ear. I have no sound direction either so everything sounds as if it is on my right side. I dont know what kind of media to use yet but will post once i think of it.

Rough project notes project 2

For the project of consumption I have had a couple of ideas drifting around.

1. How we all say we want peace but when we watch violence/sex in a movie we just want more and can never get enough
2. Americans are obsessed with becoming better in every way shape and form, either by moral ways or unmoral ways
3. How many people have a mask that they wear, intentionally or unintentionally, and refuse to be real because they honestly dont know how.
4. People go through their lives consumed with the mundane/everyday happenings/conversations. ex. "hey how are you?"" Good how are you?" "Good, well see you later." is there really nothing else to talk about
5. Many people are very negative and most of these people are focused on how much their life sucks, when in reality its pretty good, education, job, friends, family, food, shelter, the list goes on. The get so consumed with themselves that they forget about a friend whose father has just died or something similar to that effect.
   

As far as materials I dont know yet. thinking about a series of photos for mundane idea, using mundane photos to get the message across.

Thought about a wood cutting just to try it out.

Thought about a video but i have no equipment for it so that would be hard.

Using a mask/ something similar to a face for the mask idea. cover one side with what people show vs. who they are.

that is it so far. Have a good day

Text Notes Nan Goldin

Nan and her friends lived through and belonged to the glam rock era. This era was associated with sex, drugs, sex, AIDS, suicide and many other negative ways of living. Goldin had her camera with her at all times to document her life. she was showing the real while most photographers seemed to be looking into a way to document what life should be or shooting images that didn't pertain to life at all. Her photos are controversial in the 70's and still today. It is hard to look at her images and keep a straight face. Her pictures are her diary, you know the place where all the dirty secrets come out.
Nan and her friends were a close knit group and therefore she could photograph without people trying to elude her. She showed everything from bathroom scenes to sex scenes in her work. Goldin turned the ametuer act of a snapshot into art. Mainly because her snapshots were so unbelievable, but every one of them is a fact. Goldin never realized that her shots would someday become famous.

I was intrigued about what she shot and how she did it. Mainly because of how taboo her pictures are. Our society doesn't normally accept images of this caliber. I am a fan of most things that go against the flow of modern day society not in a lost anarchist point of biew but just from a perspective of showing what people really do and never talk about i.e. sex, abusive relationships, death, et cetra.

Rough project notes

For the project. I am either going to create an installation under the idea of does a man make the memories or do memories make the man. Materials include: Mannequin, Matt board tv or digital images, possibly drawings, photographs and paintings will be included in this idea.

another thought was to try to make a digital project to coincide to my digital media project. Doubt i will do this one because there would be alot of criteria to meet.

The last Idea i had was a fisheye photograph of my room.