Reading Response to Ryan Griffis – For an art against the cartography of everyday life

http://www.re-public.gr/en/?p=176

This article is full of depth and interesting ideas that I had not considered about locative media . The relationships it has to documentary and social relations is unique. The idea of a new usage for a specific media is always exciting , and I would have to say always paired with the fear of possibilities that it  would work against the public, i.e. Data mining. It is good to hear of the Avante Garde using this media to tell us about ourselves, the idea of this media telling us about everyday life is wonderful and I think it directly relates to the idea of art for the everyday life. Information about ourselves being shared is so powerful and the idea that the technology helping everyone relate to each other is also so important. It is also something to be cautious about , anyone that believes technology is wonderful and will save all our problems is naïve. This is a time of technological pursuit, and this train will not slow for anything, so I have to say that the ideology is wrapped up in the technology.  The best we can do as artists  is use this technology to teach us about ourselves and  hope for the art of everyday be used to grow, rather than to control.

Urban Intervention

“Support our Troops ” was my intervention

I originally hoped to put it up high on the Granville bridge cement foundation , but when  I went to put the sticker up it was far more dirty then I was able to clean. The Sticker wouldn’t last long with all the dust there , so I picked a place that was a little lower to the ground. This ended up being my shortfall because with 4 hours the top sticker had been ripped down , to say nothing more than “support our troops.” This was not the message that I hoped to convey to the public. It didn’t take long for other people to change the already manipulated intervention to something they found more appropriate. The Finished project ended up saying ” support our poops” which I found very entertaining. When one puts art into the public sphere, the art is also controlled by the public.

Final Site

"Support our troops"

Proposed site for intervention

Reading Response to; DARK MATTERActivist Art and the counter-public sphere by Gregory Scholette

Here is a link to the article

http://www.neme.org/330/dark-matter

The paper is interesting and enjoyed reading it. The paper outlines quite of few works that would not be in modern galleries of today and introduces select Avante- garde artists that are causing the reader to question what art is. In this description of the quiet or shadowed art, Gregory Scholette introduces the idea of “Dark Matter.” He relates this cosmological term to the art world, “Like its astronomical cousin, creative dark matter also makes up the bulk of the artistic activity produced in our post-industrial society”(Scholette)

The description of the art residing in the dark matter is well explained, I think such a term is very extreme for the mass amount of art being produced every day. People know that there is art all around them, from the elementary school to graphiti on the school walls. I think it comes down to what each individual thinks of what art is. Is the creative work of five year old, artwork? You could call this dark matter or Art. The Definitions  are not clear and change from person to person. The Hierarchy of the value between fine art and art is in question.

The art world is only so big and can be only so big, in the past we have wanted to know what the most influential art has been. It has to be this way, I for one can only retain so much information. I don’t need to know about other artists other than the ones that really made breakthroughs. The artist that had pictures hanging in Picasso’s favorite place to drink espresso has no value to me.  I think with the established art world of today, curators are trying to see what the most significant work of the moment is. When we look at art history, great works usually do not become famous until after the artists death. The art world should notice this trend of delay and maybe try to make some of the dark matter grey.

The intervention Tactics of some the Avante-garde performers offer an interesting way to question the ethics of the modern world.  Shoplifting! really ? I guess the idea of work questions our ethics about taking from a individual, or stealing from a giant corporation.  I am glad to learn about this dark art force, although I can say it is not  something that I am interested in doing ,I appreciate there commitment.

With articles like this we can see the discussion of  what is good art, is still in question. I believe that this discourse is as old as the first cave painting.  With the world changing so quickly and with the communication of the web, the subjective age old question can become something that each individual can decide for themselves. The dark matter of creative acts is being recognized, maybe not by the established art world, but by people in contact with art in there daily lives.  I look forward to a time when the idea of dark matter is broken up into terms that can be more understood. When we look back in the future we will be able to see what the art was that caused the breakthroughs and hopefully be able to recognize that the dark matter was necessary for those breakthroughs.

Referenced Article:

Scholette,Gregory “Dark Matter  Activist Art and the counter-public sphere”

http://www.neme.org/330/dark-matter : NeMe website, Feb 02 , 2006

The Panorama

This is the first try to make a panorama

This is the second try I did using the photomerge function in photoshop

This is the third try to create a seemless panorama this one used the automate function in photoshop

This is the final that I chose to submit, a little different than typical panorama

Reading Response to “Trouble at the Interface, or the Identity Crisis of Interactive Art” by Erkki Huhtamo

Here is a link to the article;

http://193.171.60.44/dspace/bitstream/10002/299/1/Huhtamo.pdf

The article “Trouble at the Interface, or the Identity Crisis of Interactive Art”is interesting article as it outlines many different works of interactivity. The main purpose is to outline the boundaries of what is “interactive art.“ To be interactive would seem that a work has to be interacted in the outside world, outside of  the human consciousness. The artwork would need a viewer to actually perform some function to cause the artwork to become artwork. Erkki Huhtamo writes about interactive art, “The active role of the spectator, turned into a ‘user’ or an ‘interactor’, was essential.” (Huhtamo,1). At the heart of the discussion was the issue of the work done by Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen called  “Listening Post.“  The work sounded amazing and interesting but didn’t fall into the category of interactive art. The artwork had many similarities with other interactive pieces as it used computer generated text and sound. As far as I understand I would have to agree with Huhtamo and say that this does not fall within the boundaries of interactive art.

The words of the title “interactive art” seem to say it all, it is a  very descriptive title for works of art. Compared to art in the past with less articulated titles like expressionism or Impressionism, Interactive Act is  a very straightforward name. If the genre of interactive art is going to take on non-interactive art with similarities to interactive art such as, computer generated installations or Computer generated sound installations, then it would be good to change the name of the genre.

Changing of the genre should be up to artists making the work. This is a discussion for the artist that make the interactive art . How do they feel ? do they want there art to be mixed with non-interactive art?  A question that this naming of interactive art brings up, is this name ”interactive art” just  for the specific venues like “Ars Electronica” and “Siggraph” ? If it is then these shows should change their name to something that incorporates all of what is being shown within their doors. They could call it Interactive Art and Computer Generated installations.

In a time where classification of names, a time of interactivity with computers, the names that are being created for somewhat new concepts and genres should be accurate. A name like Interactive Art should be clear enough for people to understand , I don’t think we need to grey the lines of this genre. Art has always had so much trouble fitting within specific classifications.

Huhtamo,Erkki. Trouble at the Interface or the Identity Crisis of Interactive Art.revision of essay first published in Framework,The Finnish Art review  2/2004 taken from the REFRESH! site  with  kind permission of FRAME.

Blog Birth

Auric Dancer

It has happened, the birth of my abilities to blog.You are now interacting with my first WordPress document. Can you imagine my excitement ? This is what my  technological soul looks like, and it is dancing as long as you are interacting.