Ana Mendieta

Ana Mendieta was born on November 18, 1948 and died on September 8, 1985. She was a Cuban-American artist. Mendieta’s work was comprised of performance art and “earth-body” sculptural, photographic, and video work. Her work is considered to be strongly feminist. Her work is also considered to be a bit autobiographical as well. At first her theme was violence against the female body. She later focused on spiritual and physical connections with the land.

            Mendieta is most known for her “Silueta Series.” This series exemplifies her fascination for the study of “ancient cultures, cross-cultural archetypes, and engagements with themes of gender and identity.” In these pieces she outlined the earth with her body and used leaves, twigs, blood, and other organic materials. I really like these pieces because she literally inscribed herself into nature.

Stelarc

            Stelarc is an Australian performance artist. This work mainly focuses on the capabilities of the human body. The major theme of his work is “the human body is obsolete.” His performance includes robotics and modern technology combined with his body. He practices flesh hook suspension, which is where his body would be raised solely by hooks.  He has also performed with a robotic arm and has let his body be controlled remotely by electronic muscle stimulators, which were connected to the internet.

            I really like Stelarc’s work because he pushes the limits of his body by using technology. In a way he is very similar to Marina Abramovic. She tested her body’s limits as well. However Stelarc uses technology and to me he is in a way cleverer than Abramovic when he tests the limits of his body. His flesh hook suspensions seemed really extreme to me. He literally would pierce his skin with hooks and suspend himself. I also thought it was interesting that he created a “third ear” by surgically putting it in his left arm.

James Turrell

James Turrell was born on May 6, 1943 in Los Angeles. He is an American land and earth artist who shows themes of light and space in his work. His work is meant to impact the eye, body, and mind with the force of a spiritual awakening. His work is meant to allow the audience see themselves “seeing.” Turrell stated he wants to use his eyes to penetrate space.

            One of Turrell’s pieces is called “Gather Light” 2006. He uses L.E.D. light, etched glass, and shallow space. By looking at his work I can clearly see his fascination with light. The majority of his work is with light and glass and it feels as if you are in a way looking towards the future. His work is meant to be related to his personal and inward search for mankind’s place in the universe. Knowing this, I can see it in his work. His work is simple but it makes his message just that much bolder.

Farmlab

Farmlab ended up being completely different from what I had expected. At first I was not even sure if I was in the right place until I called Farmlab and asked where they were specifically located. When I found it and walked in I was surprised that it wasn’t a museum at all. The art pieces inside could be best described as random. I was taking pictures at first however one of the people there told me I was not allowed to take pictures because the artists would need credit for their work. One of the pieces that I was actually able to take a picture of was a car filled with dirt and with plants growing inside it. I really liked the message this piece gave me. I thought of how cars are actually bad for the environment and it was just really thought provoking to see the car with plants inside it. Besides that I did not really see much else that interested me while I was there.

Vanessa Beecroft

Vanessa Beecroft was born on April 25, 1969. She is an Italian contemporary artist and currently lives in Los Angeles. Her work is mostly comprised of large-scale performance art. She usually uses live female models that are often nude. Her work can be described as close to a Renaissance painting and in between a performance and documentary. Her performances are made for specific locations and have references, which are political, historical, etc. The women in her performances were often nude and were similar to each other through details such as hair color or identical shoes. In her more recent works her models are clothed and take on a more theatrical approach in the performances.

One of Beecroft’s works that I was particularly interested in is VB61 Still Death! Darfur Still Deaf? This performance involved thirty Sudanese women and lasted three hours. Thirty Sudanese women lied facedown on a white canvas. They positioned their bodies to look as if they were dead bodies piled on top of one another. The bodies were darkened with make-up and the women’s bodies were covered with a red stroke of paint. The women stayed motionless and kept their eyes shut. This work was really thought provoking to me because Beecroft was showing the death that is going on in Darfur. I liked how she made the models look dark and then used a bold red color that emulated blood.

Earth Art Project

For my project I decided to choose land or earth art. I attempted to create a small scale version of the Spiral Jetty by using rocks. I was not able to add water because the dirt would turn into mud and the rocks would not show so I tried to make a small scale land version of the Spiral Jetty as opposed to the original which is under water.

Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy was born on July 26, 1956. He is a British sculptor, photographer, and environmentalist. He produces sculptures and land art in their original land settings. His work often includes brightly colored flowers, icicles, leaves, mud, pinecones, snow, stone, twigs and thorns. He also practices rock balancing which is an art in which the artist would take rocks and balance them on top of one another in different types of positions. For a lot of his work, Goldsworthy uses his bare hands, teeth, and found tools to create his art. For his permanent sculptures he uses machinery.

One of his works that I really found interesting was a sculpture he created out of ice. On a bright sunny morning Goldsworthy cut a slab of risen snow. He scraped away at it with a stick creating a circular design. The circular design carved in the snow was just short of breaking through meaning that if one were to touch it it would break. I really like how the majority of his work is really detailed and this piece demonstrates that. He scraped away at the ice carefully and he put in a lot of detail. I also really think it is interesting how he only creates sculptures with materials found in its original settings.

Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp was born on July 28, 1887. He was a French artist and his work was influenced by Dadaist and Surrealist movements. His early work showed post-impressionist styles. His work also showed Cubism and Fauvism He said a Symbolist painter, Odilon Redon, heavily influenced his work.

One of his first controversial works was Nude Descending a Staircase No.2. This was an abstract oil painting, which showed abstract movements. It also showed both Cubist and Futurist movements. This work was influenced by stop-motion photography. I think it’s really interesting how there have been many nude paintings however this nude abstract painting had resulted in a lot of controversy. I think it’s even more interesting that the reason it had resulted in so much controversy is because of the title. If the painting was not nude and the man was described as fully clothed then the painting would not have been such a scandal.

Marina Abramovic

Marina Abramovic was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1946. She is a performance artist and she calls herself the “grandmother of performance art.” Her work demonstrates an exploration between performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind. Her work is the epitome of the phrase “mind over matter.” She believes that once a person enters the performance state he or she could make his or her body do things that the person could never normally do. Her work is influenced by her rough childhood.

            Rhythm 0, which Abramovic created in 1974, is the piece that interests me the most. In this she shows the relationship between performer and audience. She made herself an “object” and had the public act on her. She placed 72 objects on a table, which the audience was allowed to use in any way they chose. They could choose to inflict pain or pleasure. At first the audience was careful with her. As time went on the audience started to inflict pain upon her. People tore her clothes, stuck rose thorns in her stomach and one person even aimed a gun at her head and luckily another person took it away. It really surprised me how people reacted so aggressively towards her as time went on. In her other works she tested the physical limits of her own body but in this work she tested other people’s mental limits as well.

Allan Kaprow

Allan Kaprow was born on August 23 1927. He was an American painter, assemblagist and a performance artist. Fluxus, performance art, and installation art influenced his work. In 1958, Kaprow created “Happenings.”  The style of the “Happenings” evolved overtime. At first he started it as “lightly scripted events.” The audience and performers would follow signals to participate in the art. He characterized a “Happening” as a game, adventures and activities in which participants played for the sake of playing. He said that the Happenings were “events that, put simply, happen.”

One of his works was “Eighteen Happenings in Six Parts.” This involved an audience to move together and do different activities such as play instruments, painting and etc. His work became less scripted and started to show more daily activities. Kaprow’s most famous happenings began around 1961.  He would take out students or friends to a location to perform an action. He created techniques that would draw out creative responses from the audience. I really like Kaprow’s work because he creates a combination of life and art. He basically turns daily things and events into bold art. He never recorded these “Happenings” so they would typically only be seen once. I think this made his work even stronger in the sense that it would only “happen” once.

Jamie Isenstein

Jamie Isenstein was born in Portland, Oregon in 1975 and she currently lives in New York. Her works include performance, installations, drawings, and sculptures. In many of her exhibitions, Isenstein often “becomes” inanimate objects. She actually pretends to be the object even though it may be uncomfortable and she has to stay in the same position for hours at a time whether it is standing, sitting, crouching, etc. Her most difficult performance was “Arm Chair” (2006). Isenstein had to sit perfectly still for hours for a whole month. She was only able to listen to recording of Moby Dick. She said, “when [she] emerged from the chair at the end of the day, [she] felt like [she] had sea legs, and [she] kept talking to [herself] in nineteenth-century sailor speak.”

Another one of Jamie Isenstein’s works is “Dancing Pop-Up Fishing Sculpture.” At first this sculpture just seems like a lump of patchwork fabric along with fake human limbs. Many people who view this work have no idea that there is a living person under the fabric.

Another work of Isenstein’s is “Rug Rug Rug Rug Rug” (2009). This piece consists of a bear rug, sheep rug, wolf rug, woman rug, and rug. I really like this piece because it shows the different animals killed to be made into a rug. The fact that she made herself into a rug brings to light how absurd it is to turn other animals into rugs.

Besides portraying herself as an inanimate object, Isenstein’s work also depicts her as other characters. In her “Performa 05 Biennial,” she wrote and also performed a radio program. The topic of the program was: “a recent book about plastic surgery’s effect on popular music, using Michael and Cher as examples.”

I really like Isenstein’s work because it makes her audience view the world in a different way. Her work gives importance to inanimate objects, which makes human’s lives much easier on a daily basis. I think that Isenstein’s work is really interesting because it is a hybrid of performance and sculpture. Her art is different from other artists because her art is a combination of different mediums.

Beall Center for Art and Technology

The Beall Center for Art and Technology was a lot smaller as compared to the other museums I have visited for this class. However, the pieces that were displayed were really interesting.  The sculptures are meant to represent living objects. The pieces use technology to create an illusion that the piece is alive. The art is powered by compressed air which make the pieces expand and contract. As you walk past the pieces, sensors detect you and the sculpture starts to inflate. After a while the sculpture deflates. I really liked how these pieces let the audience interact with them and actually be a part of them. The first sculpture I saw when I walked in was a sculpture of a human. It could not fully inflate because part of the sculpture was punctured.

The second sculpture I saw was a sculpture of birds. The wings slowly moved up and down and then after a while the motion died down.

The person working at the center gave us a tour of the pieces. He told us that he did not know what the last piece was. However, I really liked this piece because of how unique it looked. It was also the biggest piece in the room. I think this sculpture resembled a tunnel.

Second Life Project

For my project I decided to create avatars in Second Life. It took me a while to get used to Second Life but once I did it was easier to change the appearance of my avatar. For my first avatar I attempted to make it look like me. It was really difficult to make the features of my avatar look similar to mine.

For my second avatar I attempted to make it look like one of my friends.

I decided to make my third avatar look silly. I made him small and gave him elf ears.

I made my fourth avatar similar to someone you would see in a magazine. I gave her exotic eyes, a slim figure, nice hair and etc.

Before this project I didn’t even know that Second Life existed and that so many people use it. I like how Second Life is so detailed to the point that it is possible to create avatars that look similar to the user. I probably won’t be using Second Life after this project, however it was a good experience.

Jeffrey Shaw

Jeffrey Shaw was born in Australia in 1944. His work consists of new media, performance, sculpture, video and interactive installations. He is known for his creative “use of digital media in the fields of virtual and augmented reality, immersive visualization, navigable cinematic systems and interactive narrative.” One of Shaw’s famous works is “The Legible City.” In this piece the visitor is able to ride a stationary bicycle through a simulated city. The simulation uses the actual cities of Manhattan, Amsterdam and Karlsruhe. The architecture of the cities is replaced by texts.

I really like the idea of this piece because the visitor is basically traveling through words. The visitor is also able to control direction and speed so he/she actually feels as if he/she is traveling through the cities. The visitor is able to make decisions on where to go and what paths to choose. The Manhattan version also consists of eight separate fictional story lines. The visitor is able to choose which path to follow for a narration. I would really enjoy seeing this piece because I would be able to interact with the art hands-on. 

Scott Blake

Scott Blake was born in Tampa, Florida in 1976. Blake is known for his series of artworks in which he uses barcodes to create images. Blake used usual everyday images to create his art. He uses barcodes as a tool as well as an image. One of his works is “Every Barcode.” This is an ongoing piece, which shows every barcode possible. This animation would take 300 years to complete.

He created portraits only from barcodes and nothing else. He created more than thirty large-scale portraits of cultural icons. For cultural icons Blake used barcodes, which were connected to some aspect of their lives. For example, in his “Barcode Elvis” portrait, Blake used the barcodes from his music CD’s. His “Barcode Bruce Lee” and “Barcode Marilyn Monroe” are made from the barcodes form their movie DVDs. I think it is really clever how Blake used barcodes, which were tied to the cultural icon. 

Gracie Kendal

Kristine Schomaker is a performance artist, new media artist and painter. Her current works are “The Gracie Kendal Project” and “1000 Avatars.” Both of these projects are in the virtual world of Second Life. Schomaker first started “The Gracie Kendal Project” as a way to express herself about body image. She has weight issues and is struggling with an eating disorder. She created an avatar, Gracie Kendal, and made the avatar to be what Schomaker desires to be. Second Life has let her become more comfortable with her self-image. Her work is focused towards accepting one’s self as opposed to changing one’s self. In her other project, “1000 Avatars”, Schomaker is creating portraits of actual avatars in second life.

         I think Schomaker’s “The Gracie Kendal Project” is a positive outlet for her emotions towards her weight. She is able to use virtual art to gain self-acceptance. However, I think that Schomaker should also try to gain self-acceptance in the real world and not just through her avatar in Second Life. She lives vicariously through her avatar and has created her avatar to be what Schomaker wishes she were. I think Schomaker would benefit more from accepting herself outside of the virtual world.

Toni Dove

Toni Dove is an artist whose work consists of electronic and interactive media. She is considered to be one of the creators of interactive cinema. One of Dove’s works is “The Blessed Abyss - A Tale of Unmanageable Ecstasies.” The piece uses fifteen computer programmed slide projectors, video projection and eight tracks of prerecorded sound.

The message of this work is that society governs us. Since society governs us, society also contains our drives and passions. The installation shows that desire is laid out neatly and contained. However desire bursts out and creates excess past its containers. This piece is meant to show the excess and how humans want to break out from containment. I think the message of this work is really meaningful. Humans are contained and are not able to express themselves, as they would like to. We greatly desire to break out from the confinements of society and publicly act out on our desires and I think this piece really exemplifies that.

John Whitney

John Whitney was born on April 8, 1917 in Pasadena, California. He was an animator, composer and inventor. He is considered to be one of the fathers of computer animation. Computer animation is the process of creating images through using computer graphics. Out of the 55 years of Whitney’s filmmaking career, 40 of them were dedicated to computer work.

         One of Whitney’s works is “Arabesque.” This film runs for seven minutes and is accompanied by the music of Manoochelher Sadeghi. This work is comprised of “psychedelic” and blooming color-forms. Whitney also experimented with Islamic architecture in this film. I really liked this work because Whitney was able to create colored images and animate them to flow perfectly with the music. He also demonstrated harmonic progressions, which are the chord changes in the harmony of music, and he was able to tie it to the colorful images.

Tony Oursler

Tony Oursler was born in New York in 1957 and he completed his BA in fine arts at the California Institute for the Arts in 1979. He currently lives and works in New York City. Tony Oursler’s work is comprised of video, sculpture, installation, performance and painting.

            One of Ourlser’s works is “Valley.” This installation is virtual and presents the Internet as a flowchart. The flowchart has a guide who appears unexpectedly and comments on the meanings and possibilities of the Internet. In this installation the Internet mirrors human consciousness. The more the machine comes closer to copying human form, the more disturbing the machine becomes to humans. I really like this installation because it correctly depicts human’s relation to technology. The Internet does in a way mirror the communication between humans in the real world.

Matthew Barney

Matthew Barney was born on March 25, 1967 and is an American artist. His works are comprised of sculpture, photography, drawing and film. Barney’s early works were sculptural installations combined with performance and video.

            Barney is best known for his “CREMASTER” films. This is a series of five works, which were created out of sequence. These films feature Barney in diverse roles such as a satyr, magician, ram, Harry Houdini, Gary Gilmore and etc. These films are a combination of history, autobiography and mythology. “CREMASTER” represents “an intensely private universe in which symbols and images are densely layered and interconnected.” I think it’s clever how Barney not only used film as a medium for this work however he also used photographs, drawings, sculptures, and installations. His use of all these various mediums made this piece even stronger for his audience.

Mariko Mori

Mariko Mori is a Japanese video and photographic artist who works and lives in New York. In 2007 Mori created an exhibition called “Tom Na H-iu.” In this exhibition there was a 4.5-meter sculpture called “Tom Na H-iu” along with two other large sculptures, “Flatstone” and “Roundstone.” These works expressed the fusion of art and technology, Buddhism, and the idea of universal spiritual consciousness. In this exhibition Mori used technology and material as well as ancient rituals and symbols to create a vision of the 21^st century.

         I really like how Mariko Mori’s artwork represented contrasting ideas. She combined art and technology along with Buddhism. She created a beautiful vision of the 21^st century by combining modern technology and ancient rituals. This exemplifies that even though modern times are filled with technology, everything is still based on ancient traditions and rituals.

Nam June Paik

   

   Nam June Paik was a Korean-born American artist. He worked with different styles of media. He was a composer, performer and was the very first video artist. Paik’s work showed how performance, music, video images, and the sculptural form of objects could be used in different combinations. Most of Paik’s performances were as much visual as a musical experience. For example, in his work “Hommage a John Cage”, Paik combined a pre-recorded collage of music and sounds with “on stage” sounds created by people, a hen, a motorcycle and other objects.

   In 1963 Paik made his first video sculptures, “Exposition of Music- Electronic Television.” In this work, Paik scattered twelve television sets throughout an exhibit space. He modified the electronic components of these television sets in order to create unexpected affects. Another one of Paik’s installations is “TV Buddha.” In this work a statue of Buddha is sitting and facing its own image on a closed-circuit television.

Bruce Nauman

Bruce Nauman was born in 1941. He is considered one of the most innovative contemporary artists in America. He finds inspiration for his work in the activities, speech and materials of everyday life. Nauman works with numerous diverse mediums such as sculpture, video, film, printmaking, performance, neon and installation. He focuses on the way a process can transform or become a work of art.

One of Nauman’s works is the “One Hundred Fish Fountain.” The “One Hundred Fish Fountain is made up of ninety-seven bronze fish which spurt water through punctured holes. The water drops to a large basin below and is pumped back through tubes. This piece of artwork is very noisy. The water fills the fish noisily and it sprays out loudly until the pumps are turned off. Then the remaining water drips out. This sculpture is displayed at the Donald Young Gallery in Chicago.

Bill Viola

Bill Viola is one of today’s leading artists. He established video as a form of contemporary art. Viola has created videotapes, architectural video installations, sound environments, electronic music performances, flat panel video pieces, and works for television broadcast. His work focuses on universal human experiences such as birth, death and the unfolding of consciousness. His art represents Eastern and Western art as well as spiritual traditions such as Zen Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, and Christian mysticism. His art is shown in museums and galleries worldwide.

One of Bill Viola’s works is “Silent Mountain.” “Silent Mountain” is a 45 second clip of two actors in states of anguish. One of the themes of this artwork is force of change. Viola stated that in nature there are two extremes of change. One is the slow process of when material is transformed such as the wearing away of a mountain by wind and weather. The other is a sudden change caused by an event such as a volcanic explosion. The energy from this work focuses on the violent type of change. In “Silent Mountain” the performers are in pain in isolation. The two actors are parallel to one another in silent companionship. When they are no longer able to withstand the suffering, they burst out with a violent scream.

Joseph DeLappe

Joseph DeLappe has been working with electronic and new media since 1983. His work includes online gaming performance, electromechanical installation and real-time web-based video transmission, which have been shown across the United States and abroad. He is an artist and also an educator at the Department of Art at the University of Nevada.

In 1997 DeLappe started his “Mouse Series.” In this series DeLappe started working with Apple mice. The “Heart Mouse” was one of the first pieces made in the “Mouse Series.” During the times in which this piece was made, Apple equipment was made with a surface which was similar to human skin. It had a texture that was similar to pores. “Heart Mouse” as well as “Vagina Mouse” were pieces meant to show the hidden industrial design and show how companies design products to fit the human body.

In 2001 DeLappe began a series of protests through computer games and online communities. One of his projects was “Dead-In-Iraq.” He created this to intervene in a game, “America’s Army”, created by the Defense Department as a recruiting and marketing tool which is taxpayer funded. DeLappe enters the game with the name “dead-in-iraq”. He then drops his weapon as opposed to participating in the “mayhem” and he is eventually killed. He then hovers over his dead avatar and types the name, age, service branch and date of death of each American military casualty from the war in Iraq. In 2009 he was recorded to have inputted 4042 names and he intended to keep doing so until the end of the war.

Another one of Joseph DeLappe’s projects was his reenactment of Mahatma Ghandi’s famous 1930 Salt March. Over the course of twenty-six days, March 12 to April 6, 2008, DeLappe was able to reenact Ghandhi’s march through Second Life. The original walk was 240 miles and was made in protest of the British salt tax. DeLappe’s march took place at Eyebeam in Second Life. He walked the entire 240 miles on a treadmill, which was customized for cyberspace. His steps on the treadmill controlled the forward movement of his avatar, which was MGhandi Chakrabarti.