Reflection: The Way Things Go

In any Rube Goldberg type set up, someone has calculated exactly what needs to happen in order for the next thing in a sequence to happen. You know what to expect. One event causes another and if it doesn’t, there is something inherently wrong with it. Maybe it’s okay for there to be something wrong. Well, not necessarily “okay,” but maybe it works anyway. My favorite thing I’ve learned this semester is that once we know the rules, we can break them. Especially with regards to patterns, sometimes the best way to show pattern is to break it. This draws the viewer attention and makes them think, which is after all, the goal of art.

Reflection: David Blaine Ted Talk

I think that a large part of art is defying the expectations that are set for you. Whether these expectations come from family, or society, or the art community; amazing art happens when you push just outside of those expectations. That’s what magician David Blaine did. Blaine might self identify as a magician, but in my opinion, the way he thinks about his work really is art. He describes his process as creating images that make people stop and think. I think that is the very definition of art.

The first time that Blaine attempted his great feat, he failed because people expected more of him than he knew he was capable of. He knew he wasn’t prepared and that the conditioned imposed by others where simply impractical. However, when he made his final attempt, the expectations were just beyond his reach and so he was able to push through. The expectations we set should be higher than what we know we are capable of, but not too high that we jump and fall completely.

The research and determination behind Blaine’s attempt at holding his breath longer than anyone ever has reminds me of the way that I create art. I feel like a lot of the time, artists just jump right in to the water and start holding (sorry for the silly metaphor, I couldn’t resist). As incredibly passionate and creative people, artists will often act first, think later. I’ve felt a little alienated in the art word because I have so much trouble approaching things with a free creativity. I like thinking things through, solving problems, and figuring it out. I spend so much time thinking and I’m not sure if it always works out. However, it worked for Blaine.

Reflection: Beyond Time

Listening to this podcast, the story that struck me the most was about the artist in Dublin, Dan McDermott. He was introduced as an artist, but they didn’t talk at all about his work, or at least that’s what I thought at first. David McDermott is a weird guy. His voice is off putting and he seems like the kind of person that you might cross the street to avoid. However, he did have some interesting ideas about the way the world could work.

McDermott lives his life through the practice of “time experimentation.” He believes that anyone can chose their period in history and he has chosen to live in the past, without any modern amenities. The lengths that McDermott goes to in order to achieve this breach on psychotic. His practices make his life harder and weirder and because of that – more interesting.

McDermott’s life is meant to be experienced. Whether he means to or not, the way he acts draws an audience. His choices and actions are strange and so they are marked by the outside world. As a society we see time as very linear: past, present, then future. McDermott has thrown away this view and we as viewers find that fascinating.

Reflection: Memento

This film required my full attention. I realized this after I tried for a week to start the movie and each time failed. I tried watching it while I was doing other work, or while I was with a friend, or even just while I had other things on my mind, and each time, I got frustrated. Finally, I sat down and made myself really watch Memento. I’m glad I did. I’m so intrigued by the complexity of everything. I spent the first half hour thoroughly confused. Then I thought I knew what was going on, only to have everything turned around on my in the last bit of the film. It was definitely an experience.

The part I most enjoyed were the visual cues that helped me understand the sequence. The black and white scenes were a good transition when the story jumped back in time. I think without those, it wouldn’t have been clear to the audience that the story was being picked up at a different time. I also really liked the feeling of anticipation as I could feel the scenes catching up to where the last one had started. Often, the scenes would start in a place that seems totally out of place or confusing, but later, you get to find out what brought the events there.

This method of confusing the audience is really interesting. As a graphic designer, I think a lot about how to make a message clear to an audience. However, making intentional choices to confuse the audience in order to keep them thinking is a really cool approach. I think as I approach this final project for the semester, I want to break out of my comfort zone a little and try and confuse my audience, rather than doing everything to explicitly tell them exactly what I want them to hear.

The experience of critique was something I don’t think I was entirely prepared for. I went into the first day confident in my project, but nervous about how my presentation would go. I was definitely taken aback by how quickly everything went (I know it seems silly, considering the entire process took three days). We’ve been working on this project pretty much from the beginning of the semester and it seemed like just a few minutes couldn’t possibly give it justice. I noticed the strengths and weaknesses of my classmates presentational skills and that definitely had an impact on the way I saw their work. I definitely realized how important it is to be able to talk about your work.

Hearing Alex and Joe talk about each project was very helpful. With so many people presenting, it was easy to pick up on common critiques that were given. I definitely plan to take the critique to heart and work to improve my coming projects. Here are some of the critiques that appeared consistently…

• Stay consistent, find an overarching theme to your photos and stick with it
• Be intentional about how you order your photos for presentation
• EDIT EDIT EDIT
• Pay attention to how your photos work together, some photos that don’t work alone work as part of a collection
• Careful with your post production, don’t be too “photoshoppy” (I need to super careful with this one)

I don’t feel the need to make any changes to my photos, but I would like to add that I put a lot of effort into my actual blog post and I would love to have you all take another closer look at it. I feel like my presentation didn’t do it justice.

Reflection: Dan Phillips Ted Talk

Dan Phillips builds houses for a world that isn’t afraid of waste. It’s incredible the things you can do when you don’t have a preconceived notion of how things are supposed to look. He makes a very compelling argument that we should change the way we look at the materials in our lives.

Phillips’ incorporation of the gestalt principles into his mission is really interesting. He talks about continuity and how people like to see what they have always seen. This leads to a lot of waste. He uses an example of a broken window pane. Our response to a broken window pane is to replace it and through the cracked one away. Phillips says, why not break all the windows? I think it’s really interesting that we can change the flow of continuity. If it’s possible to do this in the physical world, I want to explore the control I have over the gestalt principles within my own work.

The idea of a spectrum from apollonian to dionysian is really captivating. Phillips says that apollonian perspective requires perfection and that this perfection produces a lot of waste. I know I’ve thrown away pieces of paper because they weren’t pretty enough. On a large scale, this perspective creates a lot of waste. Phillips suggests a dionysian approach to creating instead. This is much more natural. It encompasses the organic nature of human beings and allows for a much more productive creative process.

Phillips also proposes that the vanity of human beings causes our compulsion to force environmental resources to accommodate our ideals. I agree with Phillips that more beautiful and organic work can be produced when we work with what we have, rather than forcing our materials into what we want them to be.

While I was shooting on South Congress, I found that my common theme was getting really close to my subjects. Uncomfortably close. I was on the ground a lot of the time, underneath the legs of chairs and sticking my camera in a flower. I really liked the way that getting close to objects helped me view aspects of the composition as shapes and values, rather than literal objects. With this perspective, I was able to see the principles of Gestalt working all around me.

Reflection: The Medium is the Massage

When I first opened the link to the audio for The Medium is the Massage, I was beyond confused. I had no idea what I was listening to and for the most part, it made me wonder what on earth I’m doing studying art. The media we have explored for this class is unlike any other content that I have been asked to read or listen to for any of my other classes. However, if I interpreted the content correctly, I think that may be the point of The Medium is the Massage. It’s not about what you’re saying, but how you say it. After trying very hard to understand what I was listening to and looking at, I plugged the title into google and found a more comprehensive analysis of what the creators are trying to say. It just so happens that my preferred medium is a little more straightforward than the medium utilized by the creators of this particular project. However, I do strongly agree that the medium that we choose to portray our message has a lot of significance in how art can be interpreted. I’m very interested in our role as visual artists and our ability to manipulate information to change our relationship with that information. We have the power to change how others see what we see. Not to be too cheesy, but with great power comes great responsibility. We have to be very conscious of the decisions we make regarding our manipulation of elements of design and intentional about the medium we use in order to portray our messages most effectively.

Reflection: Dan Brackage, Stellar