Inspiration for the final

Here are some more things for your consideration:
This is an article on the opening sequence of The Color of Money (with the video):

http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-color-of-money,39207/

And another on Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (which you should watch in its entirety because it's great) :

http://www.avclub.com/articles/do-the-right-thing,53418/

Here is the link for the red couch project:

http://www.kevinclarke.com/red_couch1.html

And here is a video for the Lone Twin town crier piece:

I have a bunch of other stuff if you are interested.  Just let me know...don't sit in silence

Some ideas for project 5

Here is the link for the Tim Hawkinson video from yesterday:
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/tim-hawkinson

and here is one that I wanted to show but was tight on time.  The artists are a collaborative duo and husband and wife, Allora and Calzadilla.  Their concept of research and play with the spaces they investigate is interesting to see:
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/allora-calzadilla

Here is Bieber and (even better) slowed down Bieber:

Christian mentioned Eno's Music for Airports yesterday.  Here is an excerpt of that for context (I have a ton of stuff like this in my record collection if any of you are interested...which you're probably not).  Anyway, this is from 1978, which should blow your mind:

This is from the music duo Matmos.  They use items, and samples of those items, to create music that references back to the original source.  "Solo buttons for Joe Meek" is probably one of their most direct pieces; it tells the life story of the surf and science fiction music producer Joe Meek, who committed suicide in the late 1960's.  Their work is almost impossible to sum up in a paragraph, but they have a lot of work out there if you are into weird, concept driven music (Germs Burn for Darby Crash is cool too...you have no idea what I'm talking about, right?).

 I could post stuff all day, but hopefully this will get you started.  Let me know if you have any questions.

A little inspiration for our next project

Here are some other things we didn't get to in class on Tuesday:

1.  Here is another encounter with Thompson video:
http://vimeo.com/27056964

2.  Here is a video about the artist William Kentridge, who is more political in nature:
http://www.pbs.org/art21/watch-now/segment-william-kentridge-in-compassion

and Kara Walker, who is super political:
http://www.pbs.org/art21/watch-now/segment-kara-walker-in-stories



The podcast on super heroes: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/178/superpowers
(the John Hodgeman piece is very good)

Or if you want to have nightmares, here is Joke Lanz from Sudden Infant:

Other ideas for Project 3

Here are some other artists you might like to consider for this project about claiming public space as your own:
Barry McGee and Margaret Kilgallen

Jeff Koons and his ridiculous (and kind of awesome) aesthetic:

Christo and Jeanne-Claude:

If you want more ideas, I have tons!  (Richard Serra, Swoon, Tino Sehgal...so much fun!)

Project 2

Today we viewed the work of South Korean artist, Do-Ho Suh.  Here is what we came up with:

Denotations:

Military artifacts, Home, Little statues, Korea, Portraits yearbook, Uniforms, Fabric 

Connotations:

Everyday person, Collective whole, Individualism, Crossing and Overlapping of lives, Different personal space in every culture, Contrast of cultures, Repetition and monotony 

How do the materials he chose show his personality? Views of society?

Using own cultural lens, Mass production, Artistic take on his compulsory experiences

Please think about how he (and other artists) are filtering their work through their own cultural identity.  They are looking critically at their past experiences and the physical reminders of these experiences.  If you can begin to think this way, it will improve not only your art work but the sense of yourself in the world.  And that rules.

To celebrate, let us watch St. Vincent kill it live:

Themes and Article Responses

To recap, here's what we found successful and troubling about the articles we have read so far:

The Cheese Monkeys:

Agree/Like:

Funny

Imagery

Audience is engine/virus

Rushed

Left to Right

Big and Small

Front and in back of

Top to bottom 

Disagree/Confusion/Problems?:

Unfocused

Confusing

Can’t imagine what we don’t know to be true

The Heresy of Zone Defense:

Agree/Like:

Description at beginning

Rules make sport better

Rules are adaptive

Pollock and Jefferson

Disagree/Confusion/Problems?:

Basketball example relates to rules?

This or that?

More examples for how rules adapted

And here are our responses to the two artists we have seen so far:

Cai Guo-Qiang

Materials:

Gunpowder/Rocks/Sharp Items from Airport/Everyday Objects (Car, Buddha)/Cardboard/People/Cloth/Matchbox/

Tracing Paper/Stuffed Tigers (FAKE)/Sketchbook

Generative Ideas:

World Politics/Father/Cultural Perception/Chinese Philosophy/

Themes:

Pain/Lack of Control/Power and Beauty of Destruction/Sex/

Janine Antoni

Materials:

Soap/Rope(Everything from friends and family)/Body(Herself)/Cows/Lard/Weaving/

Rawhide/Chocolate/Scissors/Bath Tub/Bucket

Generative Ideas:

Past experiences/Motherhood/Childhood/History/

Crime Scene/Past Art/Social Norms/Greek Myths/Relationships

Themes:

Deviation from social norms/Circle of life/Self-identity/Balance and fall/love-hate relationships/exhibition

Very good start to the class right now.  Keep paying attention and this will all matter in the end.  Now, to celebrate lets have our faces melted by Zach Hill:

Our definitions of art

So today in class we defined what art is.  Here are some of the summarized responses:

Visual Expression/Commentary-Individual

Self-Expression

Visual/Many Interpretations

Sound/Cultural Ties/Imagery of idea or thing

Controlled Expression/Context

Physical Expression

Expression of ANYTHING meaningful to the creator

We also listed a bunch of examples of art and where we have seen it.  Here are some of those responses:

Poetry/Music/Food

Photos/Behaviors/Clothes/Architecture/

Sculpture

Street Art/City Planning/Tattoos/Painting/Drawing

Smells

Ads/Web Pages/Home Décor

Hair Style/Writing/Book/Fiction/Piercings/Craft/Chalk

Sewing/Dance/Technology/Cars/Carving/Land Art/Theater

Film/Memorial 

Keep in mind how varied this list is and how it might push your notions of what art is.  

And for now, here is a live performance from one of my favorite albums of last year (Yes, I still buy records and yes, I know how easy it is steal it on-line and yes, this is what the apocalypse might sound like).