On page 141, the author describes how the freedoms involved in navigable structures "exist(s) only in relation to the established structure; it is a representation of freedom, a symbolic freedom. By relinquishing a relatively small amount of control, an interactive artist can give interactors the impression that they have much more freedom than they actually do." This is obviously reminiscent of the effects of government in 'real life.' We are 'free' to navigate through our lives, yet we face restrictions and rules at every turn, sometimes without even consciously knowing it. Furthermore, video games give the user "an immediate sense of responsiveness" even though they are "still traveling along the same restricted path." The illusion present is one pertaining to free will. Are we truly free if there are a finite number of possibilities in any given direction? Or is this the persistent illusion itself?
Installation art is different from say, a painting on a wall, because it goes beyond cognitive activity. When a viewer interacts with the piece, they create it as much as the artist him/herself did. As a physically participatory form of art, it emphasizes the interconnectivity between us and our technological advancements.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Sound Project
I based my sound project on the second floor of the Katzen parking garage. The atmosphere is eerie, as it is dark and cold, so I incorporated elements such as whispers and a faint out-of-tune acordian to up the creepiness factor. I also took into account the fact that music practice rooms are above the garage by adding a faint angelic chorus. I wanted to convey the garage as kind of a melting-pot of sounds from the external and internal worlds. There are loud and soft footsteps, engines, hums, voices, dripping water, and music, which hopefully forced one to question what is real and what is a recording.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Sounding off on Sound Art
Sound art is a rather curious concept, as it is defined as neither sound nor art. Therefore is it a combination of atypical sound and art?
We are so used to sound we sometimes don't even notice it. It is extremely rare and perhaps even impossible for there to be complete and utter silence at any one given time. Even in what seems to be "silence" is a whole world of sound, vibrating and reverberating throughout our ears and bodies. I found it quite interesting to read about the "layering of sounds," because when we turn our music on in attempts to drown out other sounds, it's interesting to think how the sound we want to hear above all is still slightly altered due to the sounds underneathe.
The recognition of space altering sound is an attractive concept to me. Sound is relative to spacial construction, as the vibrations bounce off objects in space. As an extension of Einstein's theory of relativity, the string theory states that everything, from atoms to planets and beyond, is made up of oscillating lines or "strings." Could this be why "obstacles" in space don't stop the music, but add to it and become symphonic with it?
But I digress (slightly)...
Walter Ruttman created a "sound film without images," Weekend (1929), an eleven-minute, rapid montage of speech, noises, and music that he felt exemplified the "procedure of photographing audible phenomena in a nonstylized manner, with the inclusion of their specific spatial characteristics...Every audible in the the entire world becomes material." Sound art is in fact sound and art, but the standard perspectives and ideals of both change. As Rolf Julius writes,
"In divorcing sound from image, sound takes on a life of its own, and this is what makes the concept of sound art possible."
I recently downloaded two sound files. One was a five minute track of rain and the other a five minute track of birds chirping/leaves rustling ("sunny weather music"). I went outside in the rain and played the rain track. This added a new dimension to the reality, as the rain wasn't very heavy but the track portrayed intense rain fall. The actual rain felt wetter the sprinkles felt like dollops. During the "sunny weather" track, the rain felt much lighter and I could have sworn the sky looked bluer. Much of our our perceptions are reliant upon the sounds in our immediate environment. The facinating thing about sound art is that it allows us to magnify and/or change our immediate environment, in real time.
We are so used to sound we sometimes don't even notice it. It is extremely rare and perhaps even impossible for there to be complete and utter silence at any one given time. Even in what seems to be "silence" is a whole world of sound, vibrating and reverberating throughout our ears and bodies. I found it quite interesting to read about the "layering of sounds," because when we turn our music on in attempts to drown out other sounds, it's interesting to think how the sound we want to hear above all is still slightly altered due to the sounds underneathe.
The recognition of space altering sound is an attractive concept to me. Sound is relative to spacial construction, as the vibrations bounce off objects in space. As an extension of Einstein's theory of relativity, the string theory states that everything, from atoms to planets and beyond, is made up of oscillating lines or "strings." Could this be why "obstacles" in space don't stop the music, but add to it and become symphonic with it?
But I digress (slightly)...
Walter Ruttman created a "sound film without images," Weekend (1929), an eleven-minute, rapid montage of speech, noises, and music that he felt exemplified the "procedure of photographing audible phenomena in a nonstylized manner, with the inclusion of their specific spatial characteristics...Every audible in the the entire world becomes material." Sound art is in fact sound and art, but the standard perspectives and ideals of both change. As Rolf Julius writes,
"In divorcing sound from image, sound takes on a life of its own, and this is what makes the concept of sound art possible."
I recently downloaded two sound files. One was a five minute track of rain and the other a five minute track of birds chirping/leaves rustling ("sunny weather music"). I went outside in the rain and played the rain track. This added a new dimension to the reality, as the rain wasn't very heavy but the track portrayed intense rain fall. The actual rain felt wetter the sprinkles felt like dollops. During the "sunny weather" track, the rain felt much lighter and I could have sworn the sky looked bluer. Much of our our perceptions are reliant upon the sounds in our immediate environment. The facinating thing about sound art is that it allows us to magnify and/or change our immediate environment, in real time.
Three Sphinxes
Dali, known for his mind-bending surrealist paintings, chose a semi-straightforward approach for his "Three Sphinxes of Bikini." Representing the contamination of the Micronesian island (Bikini) after 23 nuclear tests were conducted by the United States after WWII. A couple hundred locals were relocated to the United States before the tests and brought back after the "emissions had cleared", yet levels of radioactivity were still dangerously high. Dali portrays three staggered objects which all look like human heads from afar. Close up, it becomes clear the "head" in the foreground is actually a nuclear cloud; the "head" behind the first-- two intertwined trees, and the head in the background is the only actual head...or so it seems...
I attempted to depict Dali's art and the constant push and pull between man and nature through a highly stylized broccoli battle.
Sound Art
Monday, January 18, 2010
The Aesthetics of Narcissism
Rosalind Krauss’"Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism" interestingly suggested deep notions of superficiality. The most appealing to me were the comparisons between video and static art forms, and the mirror-'self' vs. the video-'self'. Since the "medium of video is narcissism," according to Krauss, which "describes a psychological condition rather than physical," couldn't the medium of all art forms be narcissism as well? If, for example, a painter is creating something, she is holding a mirror up to her psyche and manifesting it through form, color, etc. It is a slightly different angle of narcissism, but narcissism nonetheless as it portrays an interest in preserving the "self." Furthermore, we are narcissists when viewing others' art, as we are facinated as much with the painting as we are with our own interpretation of it. We assign different meanings to different pieces of art based upon our personal symbolic associations and make assumptions which usually have little or nothing to do with the intended meaning or lack thereof.
It was particularly interesting when Krauss discussed the self vs. the mirror vs. video-art. Unlike a mirror, a video collapses time, subject, and object to the point where the subject becomes the object, whereas looking in the mirror is an attempt to fuse the self and a piece of reflective glass together. As two literally separate objects, we illusionistically attempt to erase the difference between subject and object. A video of oneself is not unlike a mirror with the ability to record and rewind. Krauss points out that our misrecognition of our mirrored image spans from early cognitive development and therefore plays an essential role in the formation of our ego. This causes us to mispercieve our own image in the mirror through internal filters and whatnot, and yet we wholeheartedly believe that the image in the mirror is truely ourself. The subject's ego in video-art in a similar sense is split between the mirror image and the actual image, as the ability to catch the moment in time becomes a factor.
When the eyes look at something, an imprint of that something is made on the brain. The image imprinted on the brain is just an image, until the ego interferes and associates that something with something else. This is visual perception, and it is much like the splitting of the ego described by Krauss. The eyes act as the self--the medium between the camera and monitor. The brain's imprinted image acts as the monitor, yet the subject is not looking at something else, he is looking at himself. The imprint of the image stems back into the brain whereas his eyes see out. This effect has a sort of boomerang quality. In the appropriately titled film "Boomerang" by Richard Serra, Nancy Holt speaks and listens to her own words played back through headphones a second after she says them. Her description of her experience is metaphorical for video-art in general. Holt said, "I am surrounded by me and my mind surrounds me." She described it as experiencing a "reality removed from normal reality." Furthermore, she felt self-encapulated in a "prison of a collapsed present." As the subject in a video is positioned or "sandwiched" between a camera and a monitor, he/she is literally contained in an inescapable domain. He/she is forced to face his/herself in a constantly revolving experience. As the subject is a subject, he/she is becoming an object--part of a new world contained in a 12 inch by 12 inch screen forever (or as long as the videotape exists). "Art consists of limitation," Gilbert Chesterton once said, "the most beautiful part of every picture is the frame."
Someone with impaired vision puts glasses on to see clearer, but is this altered way of seeing the 'real' reality, or is the person's natural fuzzy perception of the external world their reality?
When a person looks, they do not always really see, due to cognitive filters and whatnot. But what is really seeing?
It was particularly interesting when Krauss discussed the self vs. the mirror vs. video-art. Unlike a mirror, a video collapses time, subject, and object to the point where the subject becomes the object, whereas looking in the mirror is an attempt to fuse the self and a piece of reflective glass together. As two literally separate objects, we illusionistically attempt to erase the difference between subject and object. A video of oneself is not unlike a mirror with the ability to record and rewind. Krauss points out that our misrecognition of our mirrored image spans from early cognitive development and therefore plays an essential role in the formation of our ego. This causes us to mispercieve our own image in the mirror through internal filters and whatnot, and yet we wholeheartedly believe that the image in the mirror is truely ourself. The subject's ego in video-art in a similar sense is split between the mirror image and the actual image, as the ability to catch the moment in time becomes a factor.
When the eyes look at something, an imprint of that something is made on the brain. The image imprinted on the brain is just an image, until the ego interferes and associates that something with something else. This is visual perception, and it is much like the splitting of the ego described by Krauss. The eyes act as the self--the medium between the camera and monitor. The brain's imprinted image acts as the monitor, yet the subject is not looking at something else, he is looking at himself. The imprint of the image stems back into the brain whereas his eyes see out. This effect has a sort of boomerang quality. In the appropriately titled film "Boomerang" by Richard Serra, Nancy Holt speaks and listens to her own words played back through headphones a second after she says them. Her description of her experience is metaphorical for video-art in general. Holt said, "I am surrounded by me and my mind surrounds me." She described it as experiencing a "reality removed from normal reality." Furthermore, she felt self-encapulated in a "prison of a collapsed present." As the subject in a video is positioned or "sandwiched" between a camera and a monitor, he/she is literally contained in an inescapable domain. He/she is forced to face his/herself in a constantly revolving experience. As the subject is a subject, he/she is becoming an object--part of a new world contained in a 12 inch by 12 inch screen forever (or as long as the videotape exists). "Art consists of limitation," Gilbert Chesterton once said, "the most beautiful part of every picture is the frame."
Someone with impaired vision puts glasses on to see clearer, but is this altered way of seeing the 'real' reality, or is the person's natural fuzzy perception of the external world their reality?
When a person looks, they do not always really see, due to cognitive filters and whatnot. But what is really seeing?
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