Rauschenberg

Rauschenberg was born on October 22, 1925. He was an american artist that was part of the movement that bridged the gap between abstract expressionism and pop art.

Rauschenberg used many different techniques in his art. He used painting, found objects (including photos), and even silkscreen. Previously, silkscreen was only commercial.

IN 1955 Rauschenberg combined with Billy Klüver to create Experiments in Art and Technology. This program helped artist come together with other artists and engineers to make collaborations .

Rauschenberg even won a Grammy for his album design on the album Speaking in Tongues .

Rauschenberg Video

George Maciunas

Cool guy this George..

Founding member of Fluxus. Other founding members include Yoko Ono (I never knew!), George Brecht, and Nam June Paik.















Above is a flux box which were small boxes holding cards and other random objects. Below is George's own interpretation of his art and the reasoning behind it.










"Fluxus art

Therefore, art-amusement must be simple, amusing, upretentious,
concerned with insignificances, require no skill or countless
rehersals, have no commodity or institutional value.

The value of art-amusement must be lowered by making it unlimited,
massproduced, obtainable by all and eventually produced by all.

Fluxus art strives for the monostructural and nontheatrical
qualities of simple natural event, a game or a gag. It is the fusion
of Spikes Jones Vaudeville, gag, children's games and Duchamp."

http://www.artnotart.com/fluxus/gmaciunas-artartamusement.html ^^

I liked what that website said about Fluxus art, it seems to go along very well with the reading too. Just simple everyday things can be art too.

Fluxus was beginning to get really popular and people started changing it to their views and George didn't like that, so he became the chairman for the Fluxus movement. This way he could tell the world what Fluxus was and if people wanted to be considered Fluxus artists, they had to go by the same definition as everybody else. Real Fluxus always stayed simple.

Maciunas died in 1979, but all his hard work is still not forgotten.

Hunting and Gathering

I don't have any fancy pictures to upload or anything, I'm pretty technology illiterate.

I just have some lists of things that represent and inspire me.

-I'm pretty positive I was born in the wrong decade. I wish I was born in 1945 so I could have been alive through all the amazing music, art, and people just living. This day and age isn't as free as they used to be. I want that.

-Music is my number one inspiration. The Beatles, John Lennon in particular. Adam Derry (great folk singer), and CCR are my top three.

-I love ironic and awkward situations.. they're the situations that are most memorable.

-Imagining the unimaginable.

-Photography

-Nature

-I'm crazy about quotes and lyrics.. I always seem to find the ones that explain me better than I can explain me.

-I'm mostly into painting with acrylic paint and drawing with pencil, but charcoal and oil pastels are cool too, I'm willing to try and expand into new mediums.

-I'm more about the peacefulness I get from creating something, but I like the end result to be awesome too.

-I'm interested in all kinds of things, always curious to learn more. Especially about people and art.

A little about Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp. In Advance of the Broken Arm. 1915. Readymade: show shovel, wood and galvanized iron

Marcel Duchamp. Dulcinea. 1911. Oil on canvas

Here are a couple of Duchamp's artworks that I found to be most interesting and pleasing for me.

Also a little about Duchamp that I found interesting:

"In 1913, Duchamp shocked the cultural establishment when he turned everyday objects into works of art simply by adding his signature."

"1917 - 'That man was painting from his heart,'' Marcel Duchamp said when he saw a very different Eilshemius piece in the exhibition of the Society of Independence in New York in 1917. The work was ''Rose-Marie Calling (Supplication).'' It shows a pink and portly naked young woman who sits bolt upright on a sofa, waving to someone we don't see. As always, Eilshemius was doing his own thing, no matter what anyone thought of it, and Duchamp recognized in him a kindred spirit."

Guy Debord - "Youth Revolt!!"

Why have I never come across this artist before!? He's fantastic! (would be a lot better if he was a female though.)

"The Society of the Spectacle remains today one of the great theoretical works on modern-day capital, cultural imperialism, and the role of mediation in social relationships." - nothingness.org


Part One of Debord's "La Société du Spectacle" (The Society of Spectacle).
(warning to all under the age of 13 - this video contains nudity.)


...I'm going to try to watch all of these tonight!

Seashia Vang

Photographs:







Aww, alienation can feel so comfortable at times.

Video:

Reikon no Ongaku (The Spirit Song)


This Is Why I'm Hot - Remix (Seashia Vang Version)
(I do not own the copyrights to this song, the HOT rapper Mims does... or his record label... or the corporation that owns the record label... etc. etc.)

Communications

Shana learns: Nam June Paik

Coincidentally, this post just happens to be on the 4th aniversary of the artist's death. http://www.paikstudios.com/ Hope I did that link right because I don't really "get" certain aspects of technology.
This guy seemed really into it though. Technology that is. Um, maybe I'll add more when I see what other people are doing.....blogs.....I'm trying at least.

hunting and gathering - Shana's home made story book

I like stories, so I decided to make my first project into a picture book about me.

I like the way meaning magically appears when random images or things are put together. Human beings seem to have the instinct to derive meaning from everything and in the case of my book, I wanted that to be the point. Every picture is meaningful and important to me, so I liked what happened when I put them all together in no particular sequence. Although, it wasn't in no particular order because even though the images seemed to have nothing to do with one another, it was weird to be sitting there deciding which picture went where. I was already finding relationships between seemingly random images.

My interests are comics, all kinds of comics, super hero comics, indie comics, funny comics, cute animal comics, whatever is good; crime fiction, like American noir movies and crime novels and comics; quantum physics; paintings and stuff like that, so I chose some images and texts of my favorite examples of these interests.

The pictures here are how I made my picture/story book: 1. finding images, 2. printing them off, 3. pasting them into a hand-made paper book.....mystery revealed.

Dick Higgins

Dick Higgins: born in England 1938, died 1998 (from Short biography)

"The public person is the Dick Higgins whose biography is better known with every passing year. This is an historical Dick Higgins, one of the inventors of happenings [1958], a co-founder of Fluxus [1961], the founder of Something Else Press [1963], the critical theorist who named and clarified the concept of intermedia [1965]. Behind these was a deeper and even more complex figure than even these facts suggest. He was cut of the same cloth as the great humanists who gave voice to the intellectual and spiritual upheaval bridging medieval times and the early modern era(from Dick Higgins, dates from Short biography and Collections)."

http://www.umbc.edu/blogs/umbcnews/2003/08/albin_o_kuhn_library_gallery_p_3.htmlhttp://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/higgins/

http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/MSC/ToMsC800/MsC790/MsC790.htm

http://artistorganizedart.org/commons/

Further place to explore (and sources):
Intermedia Tribute To Dick Higgins: A Short Biography
Umbrella Mail Art: Dick Higgins, 1938 - 1998
University of Iowa Library Collections Page
Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery Presents Intermedia: The Dick Higgins Collection
If Book

posted by Cyprian Alexzander

Resources for looking at and talking about art

Of course, you all are very skilled at using Google to find information, however there are a few handy art sites, public policy sites, and arts advocacy sites that you may or may not be aware of... here are just a few. Feel free to add on to the list.

Art 21
e flux journal
Art Forum
Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy
Americans for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
Society for the Arts in Healthcare

ART WORK: A national conversation about art, labor, and economics

PS1 Gallery will host "ART WORK: A national conversation about art, labor, and economics" this Friday night, Jan. 29, 2010 from 6-8pm. PS1 is located downtown on Washington St., just off of the Ped Mall. It is across from Jimmy John's and in the basement of the building right next to Subway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtzdxseO-gs

Elaine: Hunting and Gathering

I have always been inspired by impressionism. I believe it is because I love the aspect of displaying movement, the colors, the lack of the "perfect" figure, and the emotion that you gain from viewing them. I have been lucky enough to have viewed each of these in person. I believe that my work I have done after viewing them and visting the Musée d'Orsay has improved incredibly. Here are some quotes that I enjoy. They help me when I am creating new works.

• "I found I could say things with colors that I couldn't say in any other way -- things that I had no words for." -Georgia O'Keeffe

I enjoy this quote because it truly displays how I feel about color. Color is such an effective tool in the work art. I believe color is just as important if not more important then the object being displayed.

"I dream of painting and then I paint my dream." -Vincent Van Gogh

I had a real connection with this quote. Dreams are probably one of the most fascinating things I have ever "seen". I use dreams a lot in my work. Most of the images, that I create, I have never seen before. It is in my dreams that these images come to life and become objects, characters, and people. I have recently ventured into lucid dreaming. This whole new world is the most inspiring place I have ever been and helps me to create the unimaginable.

"It is all very well to copy what one sees, but it is far better to draw what one now only sees in one's memory. That is a transformation in which imagination collaborates with memory." -Edgar Degas

This last quote is just another part about art that I enjoy. Memory and imagination combining is such a beautiful thing to watch being created.

Other things that have effected my works are my own personal experiences. From past relationships, to current situations in my life. Each of these moments have caused my art to go in different directions.

My works first began as a more timid style, focusing more on what I saw and could copy then what I felt. When I first began creating works, I only used clay. As my art progressed I started to branch out into other medias. The media I fell in love with was printmaking.

Printmaking brought a whole new world to my art. The tone I could get from the plate and the purity of the line caused me to move and stay in this media. From here I started to explore more of the purpose of my art then what I could create.

Still today I am growing as an artist, but I will always look back at the people who have changed and created new paths to help guide me in the art world.

Project 1- Hunting and Gathering

I posted a few images of some of the things that are of interest to me and these pictures have helped to inspire the work I have done as well. I have been a part of dance since I was a child and dance has inspired me throughout my life. It is my greatest passion and I love everything that has to do with dance :) It has helped me to stick to my goals. I am a big fan of photography as well and I love colorful images! I have not worked much in photography but I am hoping to try it out in the future.

The Absurd Journey for Cyprian Alexzander: Hunting And Gathering

© 2009 Cyprian Alexzander

Life is like this. Sometimes you are expected to pull the one ton Lincoln with just a tow chain and a little encouragement. This is the shotgun approach to my reality (I tried to filter some of it).

A Little Statement From The Unsure Artist:

I see the path to living pointing the life ship towards the future star. I'm not afraid of the past, I just hate Disney-pandering nostalgia of unreal youth expectations. The pot-tards wear me out. The beer besotted legions frustrate me. I want the real on the street deal. I want to feel the emotions that are out there not some hot house construction. I want to be the drug that you can trip on. I hear the music as sight, I see the visual as sound, I am touched by angels in sound and vision. May we all be touched. Sometimes I like to sleep because my dreams are more real and tangible than my reality. I'd like to awake with the world. Maybe put it through the juicer a few times first.

http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/music/moondog1.jpg

The Big Questions:

• What current event or news headline do you find yourself paying attention to lately?

The morass of intellectual property laws throttling the healthy growth of our culture and mind.

• If you had to pick an ecological or environmental issue that concerns you, what would it be?

The loss of urban ecology to demolition and instant whipped glass and steel buildings.

• What social or community-related issue engages you?

The death of music and performance venues and the kudzu vine strangling of karaoke and DJ's.

• Is there a medical or health-related issue that you find yourself thinking about?

Oh God! Somebody here want to be my new therapist? Pass the psychotropic medication. National Health single payer health or bust (my cat wants to be fed).

It isn't that I am blind, but we've recognized that the haves love to subjugate the have-nots and use the marginalized to frighten the unsatisfied into compliance of the master plan. I see all the leaves every day on the news and on the streets, but what about the root? Do we deserve to exist if we can't figure out that we need to treat each other as we would want to be treated? Has anybody spoke about that lately?

Sometimes I can't look at the big questions and right the big wrongs. Sometimes I have enough of struggle being me and overcoming my mental illness. Sometimes I must work to maintain my own self.

http://capitalistliontamer.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/cpt-beefheart.jpg

What I see about myself:

I am a pulsing nova with infrequent bursts of real creativity and many moments of just being a cohesive collection of cosmic dust and a desire to exist.

I see it all as absurd.

I don't see the boundaries between music, visual and motion art.

I am like free jazz, I improvise.

I am like good free jazz, I improvise but I develop that which freedom reveals.

I am kinetic.

I like kinetic experiences.

I am attracted to kinetic experiences, kinetic music that has movement, kinetic visuals, kinetic kinetic.

I am stationary.

I have a voice.

I really dig big things projected on walls.

I am a private person and believe do but don't trumpet.

I want to:

Transform the future

Transform myself

Channel the electricity tomorrow

Employ the good to make more good

Find the real

Experience the real

Connect the dots inside my mind and in the periphery of my vision.

Manifest my mind

Sound more selfish

Share more worlds and grow my mine

Avoid the plastic Bettys.

I don't want to:

Shine you on

Make the plastic any more shiny than it already is

Go explicitly to those places that are private to me

Overload

Overload

My thoughts on Facebook (because it bugs me and no one else gets why):

Is the mediocre middle where gray mud squishes

A Trap

A one-size all fits condo

Shadows of reality condom

Poor substitute for everything else

Fetid playground enculturing anal expulsive communications

You fit into it, where's the fun in that?

http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/00/15/7c/cf/the-blues-highway-61.jpg

Places I like to go:

Where Harry Smith went to draw upon his animations and develop his ear:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Everett_Smith
• http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/05/36/harry_smith.html
• http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=harry+smith+animation&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS341US341&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=l59fS6WDFYWSNe7p7doL&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCIQqwQwAw#
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNh12zaFtxo
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthology_of_American_Folk_Music

Where Moondog became a Viking:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moondog

Where the Captain Beefheart mind still plays:

• www.beefheart.com
• http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=1:CAPTAIN|BEEFHEART~C
• Electricity! Electricity! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYTiTcYzO0o
• Trout Mask Replica, sideways walking on the moon.

Where the time boat connects me to you and you to me and me to him and him to me and me to her and her to me:

• Wirz calls it American Music. It's something real. http://www.wirz.de/music/american.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_Delta
• http://www.deltabluesmuseum.org/high/index.asp

Where the G-force Visualizer visualizes the inside of my mind:

• http://www.soundspectrum.com/g-force/

next time I'm hand-coding the html.

Hunting and Gathering

This is some stuff that has inspired me to make art and the other pictures are examples of things I have painted in the past. Music is a main factor in me making art it make's me think differently and well frankly I just need it while I make art. The pug on the other hand just is suppose to represent how much I care about animal's and that stinkin pug is so cute I just wanted to show the class. I work mainly in painting but I paint on more things then just canvas and plan to incorporate that in this class somehow.

You Sound Funny When You Smile - Interactive Video Installation by Stefani Byrd

"Live interactive art video installation at the experimental art festival Le Flash in Atlanta, GA. Two Hmong actors engage with the audience via live video feed to them inside the building. The audience engages the heads by speaking into the provided microphones. The heads are projected 14 feet high and tower over the people outside. The heads are meant to intimidate the audience and reverse the roles of majority and minority and give the audience the feeling of being an immigrant in a foreign country. A collaborative project by Stefani Byrd and Wes Eastin made possible by a grant from the Atlanta Celebrates Photography Festival. Featuring Faith and Jeff Her." - Byrd




Stefani Byrd's artist site and youtube page:
http://stefanibyrd.com/My_Art/Home.html
http://www.youtube.com/user/SByrdArt

Project 1: Hunting and Gathering

hunt-ing (verb) – a search for something; usually related to the hunt for wild animals
gath-er-ing (verb) – to come together, assemble, or accumulate; to pick up from the ground; to collect scattered things; to draw together or towards oneself

Compile a series of images, texts, sounds, word lists, etc. that will inform your work this semester. The form/format you bring them to class in is up to, but it should be a pastiche of materials and sources that speak to you and represent entry points for further exploration throughout the semester.

Along with your hunting and gathering, briefly answer the following questions:
• What current event or news headline do you find yourself paying attention to lately?
• If you had to pick an ecological or environmental issue that concerns you, what would it be?
• What social or community-related issue engages you?
• Is there a medical or health-related issue that you find yourself thinking about?
• [are there other ideas, areas, disciplines, or fields you would like to explore?]

Consider the following:
Relationships between Self / Environment / Others (consider: actions, thoughts, habits, desires, beliefs, culture, perception, technology, objects, nature, physical structures, landscape, stuff, political systems, power, lines of communication, signs, symbols, assumptions, ritual, myth, history, time…) What engages you? What are you curious about? What fills you with wonder? What do you want to explore or know more about? What sources are you drawn to for material? (Digital media? Magazines? Photographs? Stream of consciousness writing? Politics or the nightly news? A specific place? Nature? Micro systems? Macro systems?) What is your point of view, i.e., what is your relationship to the things you are looking at/into? What might be some questions that guide your research and artmaking this semester? We are engaged in pure research—consider everything potential fodder for your creative work.

Welcome Intermedia I Students!

from Bill Ivey's book, "Arts, Inc.: How greed and neglect have destroyed our cultural rights."