Joseph Beuys

Joseph Bueys used a lot of different materials to create his artwork such as food, fabric, animal fat, honey and bees wax. He studied sculpture at Düsseldorf Academy of Art and graduated in 1952. He used war as an inspiration for his art work to respond to the current events going on around him. Eventually, he met up with video artist Nam June Paik and joined a performance group called Fluxus. The group performed concerts and it were these that Beuys used as inspiration for his performance and installation art. 

He planned a project in Baltimore called the Tree Partnership Project. A project to plant 500 trees. He focused on energy conservation and global awareness in Carol Park, Patterson Park, UMBC, and Wymen Park Dell. This was an ongoing project first started by a sculpture called 7000 Oaks.

He did a titled project 30 Oaks which is a concert of performance artists and local Baltimore musicians. This art work was only meant to be performed at this space. He wanted to create a strong human relation with the forest and greenery around the performers. There was singers, dancers, sculptures, artists and dreamers participating in this project. 

One performance art included > How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare. In this performance Beuys sat in a corner of a gallery and held a dead rat in his arms for the duration of the time. He carried the dead bunny around like it was very special to him. He spoke to it and treated it gently. Holding a dead hare was trying to create a radical statement on society. Sometimes people need to let go of the idea of something or someone being there all the time. Sometimes you have to give up things that you don't want too. But carrying around it's memory is just a lie to yourself that what you desire is coming back. In my life, the hardest thing to do is let go. That is what I take from this piece without reading a prior description explaining Bueys' true motives.

In his piece Infiltration Homogen für Konzertflügel (Homogenous Infiltration for Grand Piano), 1966 Beuys covered a piano in felt fabric to hide the musical instruments true purpose and sound. He used a thick covering to show that the object has been taken away it's original use. This is no longer a piano, but a wrapped object that underneath could only appear to be one. I believe Beuys was following Marcell Duchamp's Dada ideas for the de-contextualizatoin of this object.  

http://feltworks.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/joseph-beuys-felt-metaphors/

http://www.walkerart.org/archive/2/A84369EE5A576E446161.htm

Marcel Duchamp - Rotary Glass Plates, 1920

Marcel Duchamp created Rotary Glass Plates in 1920 as part of the DaDa movement. He used ready made objects and transformed them into a working machine. This machine consisted of five glass pieces attached to a horizontal spinning metal pole. The pole cuts through the center of the glass and the glass sheets increase in size from front to back. On each piece of glass the front has curved black lines on the sides in a spiral design. When the machine moves fast, the glass spins with the metal pole. Images of a moving spiral can be seen when the glass plates spin fast. This kind of creates a stroboscopic effect much like the work of (  ), the dream machine. Each piece of glass was mathematically configured as well as the base pieces of wood and spinning metal pole. The lines on the sides of each glass are carefully measured and sized with equal distances from each other.according to the Yale Art University website "eCatalogue" "Rotary Glass Plates was the first actual machine that Duchamp made in his quest for a new world that would no longer separate art from idea." 

this sculpture was innovative, interesting, and functional. It creates an optical illusion of black and white full spirals.

Orlan

Orlan was a bit of a nutcase. She loved the female body and learning the limitations of what she could alter on her own face. She performed plastic surgeries live to be taped and photographed. She wore awkward bright color clothing when she was being operated on. The surgeons themselves also wore ridiculous attire during this process. It was an act. She expiremented with black and white self portrait photography. She was the model for 80 percent of her work. She optimized on transformation of the human body and digital face modification. What if you could be someone not yourself? She implanted bumps on the sides of her forehead to create the look of horns. She wears bright colors and is a strong feminist . 

In one piece she held in front of her a image of a naked body that covered her torso. Her head was held over the top. To the wood, someone could insert a coin and receive a kiss. The coin would drop down a pathway into a holder at the bottom of her torso.

She was bold, influential and downright out of her mind. Also, without a fear of needles or pain, clearly because she performed every surgery fully awake.

One of the most shocking images from Orlan's website is in her plastic surgery triptych series. In this series three images are placed next to each other horizontally in which the two images on the right and left are the same rectangle size and there is a photo in the center, with a smaller width but a different image. On the duplicated photo is an image of her face looking to the right, laying on her back holding a devils staff. The staff she is holding cuts through a sculpture of a human skull.  The photos are in color with four mini, white, outlined square boxes in each corner. The central photo is black and white. It looks to be a glamour shot of her face in bandages after the completion of a plastic surgery. The photo has an odd subject matter and is shocking because it is not the most pleasant thing to look at. It has a dark tone and the amber and red coloring give the photo an uncomfortable feeling. Also, it is important to note the face in each different photograph is highly over exposed

In this piece Orlan is dressed like a Biblical "Mary" from the Bible. Now, I don't know anything really about the Bible- so chances are it's not really Marry that she looks like. I could just be making that up, however, Orlan is dressed in long colored fabrics with a head piece and cape that remind me of something I would see in a children's Bible story class. Except there is nothing Biblical about this photo. She is clearly standing on a thick metal pole used for holding up a car in the center of a garage. How classy? In fact, she is even more out of place because her dress style makes me think she needs to be in a marble atrium or something. Anyway, she is standing in a pedestal in the center of a garage. A dirty place meant for holding the outdoor machines like lawn mowers and garden tools. It's also a very cold place at night. This is an interesting piece because she is suspended in the air above the concrete floor like she is a goddess. There is also smoke coming up from ... whatever that pole is, which makes it odd like she is some sort of genie.  

Xerox project \ phase 1

For this project I decided to use the one thing in school that is most important to me right now. I absolutely love this longboard, I call it Sheila. I wanted to take a Marcel Duchamp approach and cover and object to leave the viewer wondering what is under it. It appears to be a longboard, but what if it is not? Anyway I wrapped the board with seran wrap first, and decided my approach to covering the wheels. I decided against wrapping the wheels because red is my favorite color, and I wanted that to show through. I printed out scanned photos of my face. I wanted my photos to make it appear as if I was trapped inside my longboard. I covered the center photo with seran wrap and did not paste photos over that area for this effect. I then, cut and pasted photos to cover the rest of the board. If you look carefully you will notice that the hands and some other parts intertwine over each other. I added subtle red, blue, and yellow coloring over the top of my photos to add a splatter effect.

My plan for this project is to take photos of it day by day after using it. I will document how the board unfolds back to its original state.

Overall I really enjoyed this project and I had a fun time making and coming up with the idea.

So far this is phase 1 of my board 

AWESOME

http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/29/a-day-with-deadmau5-leds-super-mario-and-techno/

shpongle series : horse

^^part of the shpongle series. Lately two of my friends and i sit around his apartment and paint and listen to shpongle. I started making a bunch of colored backgrounds and needed to add to them. I recently found and interest in horses and decided to paint my first horse! Not bad for a first try I'd say :)

flip book

flip book scanned pages :) This I spent a lot of time on. I changed the scene multiple times. It starts off as two mushrooms that grow into a a fork and a knife. the knife and fork mutate, and the knife cuts out President Bush's eye. Then a sea monster comes and eats everything up, and after that happens two guys are in the air flying and a tree appears. with each page a new rainbow colored piece of wood ladder is added to it. after that, the tree goes away and becomes this. alternating black and white vortex. 

beat poem

Ugh, I don't get this court crap
HE WROTE A POEM!
In a time where dada was the main form of expression. De-contextualizing a normal sculpture and creating it into something new that has a different use! A poem that may be obscene yes, but too obscene? What happened to freedom of speech and creativity? You don't need to agree with what is said, it's just a form of art. Fear to air a poem is just dumb. Language is just language, and words are just words they are dead! they can be given any sort of meaning. Especially poetry- has even more of a tendency to use words for different meanings.
-will finish later

revolutionary computers

It's insane to think where technology started to where it is now, as I type on my mac book pro 13" and look at the revolutionary ENIAC that could only make 357 multiplication operations per second! Crazy! To think that the ENIAC weighed 30 tons absolutely blows my mind. I can't even fathom how large 30 tons is. Its really cool to see how important the vacuum tube was to the creating of the computer in this machine,  using 17,478  thousand of them. I can't imagine how much upkeep was used for this computer.
to think that from 1964 to 1970- the size of the computer went from gigantic (ENIAC)

 to normal sized (Data point 2200) .

Looking at all the computers the evolution is interesting.
it starts from this giant machine < to a single user computer with a full working GUI
Xerox really missed the boat with this invention.
To think that they came up with one of the first computers and decided that the idea was not going to make it in the world was pretty stubborn and downright dumb. If only they had stayed with producing the PARC Alto, the company would be truly a force to reckon with in today behind Apple and PC. It's amazing to think that one idea that seemed so trivial to Xerox at the time is now the idea that is revolutionizing the way we live our lives- with computers. Looking at this timeline definitely makes me appreciate using my mac, that I've broken 3 times now? a lot more then before.
Computer evolution is almost as cool as human evolution ;)

IBM really seems like it took the forefront for a lot of the early computers. The company seemed to always have its two cents into the design and aspect of future computers. It seems to be less of a competitor today which kinda makes me sad because i feel like IBM computers strive for quality where as PCs are about quantity and Apple is about design. My brother used an IBM laptop for the longest time, and it was always heavy duty, sturdy and never failed.

to think that from the ENIAC came the Roadrunner - although larger it could process "- more than a quadrillion floating point operations per second." THATS CRAZY! it goes to show how IBM is focusing on it's processing speed as most important during this time :)

watson

The thought of Ken Jennings Vs a computer in Jeopardy is pretty hysterical. I remember watching Ken Jennings play his 70 games with my dad on monday and wednesday nights before dinner and that guy knows everything! Watson is a really cool invention. It shows how far humans have come with technology. The advancement has come so far since the first computer was made not so long ago. And to think that now a computer is answering trivia questions faster then a human can? What is this world coming too? I feel like this is going to be the next generation. I don't know how I feel about having a computer as a doctors assistant, but sadly it looks as if technology is going in that direction. When it comes down to it, what would you trust with your life? A human? or a computer for answers? Kind of a tough question I'd say.

We are advancing in technology so fast that computers are going to aid doctors now? What? What happened to searching through text books for the answers to questions, or going first hand to a morgue to see human anatomy? Now everything is going to be catalogued and based on a computer?  WEIRD

I mean, yeah this already happens - but to think, a computer error i feel would be far more significant then a human error. If we soley based our lives on technology, which- we pretty much are being ruled by now. My friend the other day said there was a thousand people waiting in line in front of him at the opening of the new apple iPad 2. If technology has this much of a hold on us now, what is it going to be like in the future? Who knows. But, anyway- I feel like a computer error would be much more significant then a human error. A human learns by observational learning, operant learning, vocal, through touch, and many more ways than a computer has the ability too. A human has a quality added into its learning that a computer does not have. A personal touch. Computers are just programmed to act, feel, and think like humans, but we must keep in mind they are not!! Computers are just machines! Machines with parts and pieces and metal and junk! In the grand scheme of things, machines don't mean anything to the bear bones of society. Machines just help the human adapt to its living space. Computers have zero emotion, zero feeling! I feel like we need to invest our time into other things than machines- coz all in all we are just going to die and have nothing much to say for other then a bunch of cool metal buildings and what not that are just going to get blown up anyways.

anyways ranting
back to what i was saying >.> if a computer has a mathematical error - it will mess up the whole cycle.. I don't know i feel like i would be more willing to trust a human then a computer- even though humans just have the same error capabilities.

the watson thing is over all really interesting, and pretty scary to think that a computer could beat ken jennings in jeopardy O.O

what is the world coming too...

horror project finally done.

Stock photos.
Photo manipulation.
Threshold.
Print.
Trace.
Pen and ink.
Scan.
Illustrate > Pen tool.
Print.
Final.

a good like 30 hours probably using the pen tool on this.
Really proud of this