Redo

Background change!

Live art

For my live art assignment, I covered the floor in records. Check it out

The Fountain

Beware of the fountain....



sidenote: It is sideways if you didn't already notice. I fixed it in QuickTime, but it's being lame and not showing up the right way on here. Just tilt your head and its just the same!

Heres the set

Proformance dancers

Artist: Martha Graham

Summary: One of the greatest dancers and choreographers to ever come out of the 20th century is Martha Graham. Born to a Presbyterian family in 1894, she was never encouraged to start a life in dance because at the time it was not a high form of art. She ended up being credited as one of the first modern dancers. Her career was a very successful one. She danced and choreographed for over seventy years. First dancer to perform at the White House, travel abroad as a cultural ambassador, and to receive the highest civilian award, the Medal of Freedom. One of her favorite quotes was, "Movement never lies."

Thoughts: I was only able to find the one video of Graham's choreographed dance. Each movement had a meaning, and the moves flowed together smoothly. She had a great understanding of other cultures dances, and you can see the influence in her work. Her use of outfits with the dance made it look very finished and polished into a fluid and interesting work.




Artist: Twyla Tharp

Summary: After Graham came artists that flourished in her ideas. Twyla Tharp studied after Graham and others sources like Merce Cunningham. She studied at Pomona College in California, and transferred to Barnard College in New York City. Although she went to school for art history she went to Paul Taylor Dance Company after graduating. Tharp is more known in the pop culture world, where she has received an Emmy and Tony and has preformed on Broadway and TV. She has created over 125 dances and choreographed Broadway shows, and five movies.

Thoughts: I didn't like her as much as Graham. The videos I watched of her dances and her dancing were not as well flowing as I prefer. It was more of a tribe/break dance feel. I personally like those types of dance, but not combined with modern dance. As for the way she danced, it didn't look that professional and well thought out.




Artist: Mark Morris

Summary: Brought up in a family that encouraged his talents, Mark Morris was given the right instructions from his parents to be able to read music and was introduced to dance and ballet. He started his career preforming with people like Lar Lubovitch, Hannah Kahn, Laura Dean, and Eliot Feld. After establishing himself he made Mark Morris Dance Group. He has choreographic for many operas and ballets including "Gloria", "Championship Wrestling", L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, ed Il Moderate, The Hard Nut, The Office, Greek to Me, The Garden, and All Fours. His work has been praised for its craftsmanship, ingenuity, and humor.

Thoughts: The fact his choreography is more influenced by ballet is more appealing to me. He too seems to be following in Grahams foot steps with his work. He has the same fluid motion as her work did. Hes ideas are more about the piece as a whole, and having a balanced plot that seems to make it more enjoyable to watch.

Flip books!

Artists of the week

Matthew Barney is a jack of all trades. He is generally a sculptor, although he does dabble in film, video, installations, photography, drawing and performance art. Oddly enough he happens to date Björk on top of all that. He is best known for The Cremaster Cycle. Best described as a series of five films that display a self-enclosed aesthetic system. Barney has received mixed reviews for most his work, from comments such as "an unabashed display of Oriental kitsch that makes Memoirs of a Geisha look like an ethnographic documentary." Jed Perl declared in review of Barney. But others consider him to be one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.

Matthew Barney's work inspires a feeling of curiosity in me when I see it. It makes me question the validity of society and the acception of stereotypes. His use of different media allows him to reach a larger audience and speak to more people. Limiting yourself to one media causes you to think one-dimensionally and causes your work to become stagnant.


Being one of the most influence film artists in his time, Viola has spent over 35 years of his life dedicated to be considered a major contemporary artist. He has gone all over the world and studied subjects from video to Zen Buddhism, all inspiring his work. His films are mostly concerned with the life of humans. He shows the human experience with different techniques of slow motion video that drag the viewer into the film. He has had his work show all over the world. National Gallery, London, Guggenheim Berlin, Guggenheim New York, California, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York are just a few of the many locations he has had an exhibit shown.



Viola produces some of the most insane videos I have ever witnessed. The video reminds me of films like The Shining and The Ring. I can only assume he had an influence on the directors of those films. I liked the way he used nose with the video, creating a different feeling then what you would normally associate with. I even felt slightly disturbed at points. His other works like and were not as interesting, but I can see how people would find it innovative.



Rist isn't as wide spread and known as Viola, but she has made a living making some beautiful art. She works in videos that normally portray the human body in a sexual way. The videos are short with lots of color and speed. She is a feminist, and it comes through in her work. A feeling of happiness seems to come out of her works. She is now teaching at UCLA after being invited by Professor Paul McCarthy.



At first I wasn't really understanding what people saw in Rist, but after watching a few videos I saw the humor and playfulness that makes her. Although, I didn't feel there was a whole lot of thought in the work. A few of the videos seemed like they were making fun of art, rather then making it.

Sketchbook entries, on the internet!

The assignment at hand was to pick three different projects, made using Flash, from a list of seven. I ended up with three very different ones. It's funny, I had actually already seen two out of the three, I had found them because of my Stumble button (Never heard of it? It's time you got addicted http://www.stumbleupon.com/)

1. Their Circular Life
This site is worth the hundred hour loading time I get to wait for it to be ready. There are 5 different locations to choose from. Once you found the one you like, you decide how to watch the day. It is divided up into 100 images per day (24 hours), so you can watch a whole day in two seconds, or slowly drag and experience the day in more detail. Once you have stopped, the sounds of the moment can be heard.

I can't even begin to understand how much work it would be to finish this project. Just placing the images in Flash would be a pain in the ass. The site does a good job of presenting the video, although it does take longer then necessary amounts of time to load. The areas chosen by the artist are all perfect for this, interesting surroundings, foot traffic (people watching!), and overall nice to see. The sound was the icing on the cake. This might have something to do with the loading speed. I don't really have anything negative to say about this video. I had fun playing with it and was very impressed with the job they did.

2. Mirco Films
Also made in Flash, these little animations are a fast watch. There are only 20 to watch, so it only takes about 5 minutes to experience all of them (each are about 5 seconds long). Not to be taken to seriously, most of these animations have a quick silly punch line.

I'm a big fan of silly random things, so this was right up my alley. Even though the animations are only a few seconds long, they all are unique and have a semi-plot. I was disappointed in the fact I was able to go through them all so fast. I'm a little bit inspired to do something like this, but longer and more detail. These would make good icons

3.

Animator vs. Animation is an accurate name for this animation. This was very obviously done in Flash also. The animator had the clever idea for never leaving Flash, but rather animating an intense battle between a stick figure and the cursor in Flash. The twist is they both can use the tools on each other. It ends up being both entertaining and educational, showing how different tools can be used.

This animation is just plan clever. Based off the 4 hours of Flash experience I have, I can only imagine how long it would take to complete it. It's well planned and thought out, showing off the animators ability. They are on a whole other level when it comes to Flash skills.