twenty lines

I really enjoyed this project. I have been trained in drawing, painting, and photography that meaning is inherent in art, that art isn't art without some kind of deeper meaning. Understandably, I was not excited for this project. Drawing 20 lines on PhotoShop felt like copping out. However, once I started, I began to feel differently about meaning as it relates to art. I tried using different thickness and hardness in the lines. I thought of words like "lost" or "beautiful" and focused on them as I drew the line. I tried to convey those concise meanings into each line. What I have learned is that meaning is inherent in art, but there are more ways to get to that kind of meaning that traditional ones.

I was impressed by my classmates' projects. A lot of us had similar kinds of lines, but everyone's was unique. I think you can tell a lot about people's personalities based on the colors and kinds of lines they drew. It was hard to pick one line out of the group that was most beautiful, most fun, or most non traditional because for the most part they were all of those things.

jodi

Jodi is a web interface that "can be seen as a formalist investigation of the intrinsic characteristics of Internet as a medium." When a viewer sees the webpage, it is just a jumble of fragmented code and what looks like a glitch. However, if they know HTML, they can enter it in to see a plan for an atom bomb, conceptually close to exploding the internet. Jodi.org gives viewers the opportunity to experience a "disconcerting" view of the internet.

This reminds me of other art that lets you see into its process. For instance, painters who leave some parts of the canvas unpainted and unprimed, or media artists working with electronics that allow you to see the plugs and cables. When this happens, the process becomes the art. Art has traditionally been known as something that should be experienced from the surface, but new media artists force you to enter into the experience of the making of that art in addition to the finished product.

three

Shortly after the capture of the ice cream sandwich wrapper, I found this a little ways down the path. At the time I was walking with my brother. He was criticizing me for collecting garbage. Then I saw this.

This object is an envelope with writing on the back and a piece of tape--still sticky--hanging off the top flap. The top section is a series of names and initials. On the bottom, in red: "Discuss... Trip to Grand Canyon" and "is it possible to lead nice happy life w/ so much suffering? do they worry about it? Springsteen says yes. others?"

I was struck by the text. That it was written on the back of an envelope, that it discussed ethical and philosophical issues. And whose names and initials were being checked off up top?

My brother and I kept walking. I'd folded the ice cream sandwich wrapper into the envelope and put it in my pocket. After a few minutes, Jeremy said that he thought it was his envelope and as it turns out it is. Maybe the reason I was drawn to it was the familiar handwriting on the envelope that I hadn't identified, but knew somehow, that it was my brother's. And it means more to me because it's his and I know it's his. 

google earth placemark to come

two

This image is a piece of found garbage. I was walking past campus center last night and the repeating pattern of the ice cream sandwiches caught my eye. And I immediately though, "Oh, Andy Warhol." It occurred to me what that said about Andy Warhol, garbage, and art as I peeled the sticky wrapper from the bricks and dug through my pockets for a place to store it. This is definitely not art--but that it seems to allude to a famous artist and his work could suggest the way in which Andy Warhol's pop art has become completely ingrained in our culture. A repeating image in and of itself is not remarkable. Rather, the image of the ice cream sandwich is probably an advertising technique. But in this context, it seems to reference cans of soup, brillo boxes, flowers, and all of the other icons that Warhol used.

There is also something disturbing about this image when separated from its original context, most specifically the fake toothmarks. They give you a clear idea of what you are supposed to do to the product wrapped inside. But without the rest of the wrapper, you can draw your own conclusions about what is being said about the product.

google earth placemark to come

one

This is a picture of iced tea in a pitcher on my windowsill. This drew my attention a few days after I'd made the tea. The sun was coming through the window in such a way that the glass reflected all different colors. I was struck by the color of the tea, the colored shadow on the windowsill, and how it is transitory, and what that means about colors in general. Generally, a person would not really notice this sort of thing unless they were looking for it, which is why I would not consider it art. The light, the glass, and the tea itself only were remarkable in combination with one another. 

google earth placemark to come

nam june paik

Nam June Paik is considered to be the first video artist in America. He participated in the Neo-Dada art movement that, like its predecessor, strove to challenge certain views of what constituted art, to tear down "art with a capital A."

I was drawn to Paik after seeing a particularly powerful piece at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The piece is called "Electronic Superhighway." It features all of the states in America outlined in neon lights with television monitors broadcasting different things in each state. The audio is largely Martin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon Johnson speeches from the sixties, a formative decade in the history of racial conflict in the US. The piece is touching; it pulls at some emotions in a precise way. I've been to see it multiple times and often observed viewers moved to tears.

Paik's use of video as a media challenges the viewer to accept new media as art. In doing so, works like "Electronic Superhighway" strike a different chord that do contemporary paintings about similar subjects.

what is the purpose of art

Art is a void inside of a mass: windows to look through, mirrors to reflect. An empty room with no sound or light and then someone punches a hole through the darkness and all of this beauty and emotion floods in and it becomes everything that matters and everything that is real and that is art.