Summary on readings and viewings

Curating on the Web talks about how museums changed over time and the creation of online virtual museums and QR codes and everything museums are and provide the visitors today, which is merely a replica of the museum products themselves presented like a catalogue or brochure. On the other hand, adaweb is some kind of an online curating website that hosts the works and websites of different artists.

Now let’s explore some works done by different artists.

Trial Raid:

This work is interesting, besides its historical based concept, in the fact that it provides user generated pieces and projects them to the world in real time, and stores the works in archives for the world to see.

The work of Donna Leishman:

I like her work she produces interactive stories that are multipath depending on the user’s choice of path. Her graphic style is also unique which differentiates her from other artists as well. One remark maybe would be that sometimes I don’t understand parts of the story and some interactive elements are not especially interesting to discover.

Game, game, game, and again game:

This game is very unusual it’s very messy and bothering, I guess their point and concept has come across but I don’t like it. I like clean designs so this does not appeal to me at all, and the music is just annoying, and the graphics and elements disturbing annoying and stress me out. I understand this is a success for them because this is exactly what they want the user to feel. But as a game, I don’t like it. As a concept, it’s interesting and different but I would say… never again.

Laborers of Love (LOL):

Besides the subject of this project being some kind of a porn site, the concept is interesting to study. The user has an input, he decides what he wants to see, and he becomes the director of his own fantasy. He writes the storyline and everything he wants, and he submits his request to “LOL”. Meanwhile the “workers” make his fantasy come true by creating it through mash-ups and editing of content already present on the Internet. This is interesting as well in the fact that new jobs have been created.

Activism Art

I found an amazing website called Osocio, which is a some kind of a blog featuring subjectively the best of non-profit advertising and marketing for social causes.

I’m going to point out the top works that got my attention.

First, there is a group of activists for animal rights that did this project called “Stop Poaching Our Rhino“. They also have a YouTube Channel and a Facebook Page. They are fighting for the cause of poaching Rhino’s horns which are made of Keratin. Apparently, some people in China still believe that Rhino horns (a.k.a Keratin) can cure several illnesses, therefore it is stil harvested and rhinos are killed for that. Keratin is also found in our human hair and nails, so this group of activists are collecting hairs and nails and sending them to the embassies of the countries that have these beliefs.

Another interesting work is featured by actress Nikki Reed. It’s called the GIVE A SHIT movement. www.Give-a-Shit.org is about exploring the power of mass consciousness, by sharing what you care about, or what you “give a shit” about, while actually taking a shit! This is an unusual way of creating public awareness about any issue, by accepting people’s busy schedules today, and just taking advantage of a moment of their days to think about global issues that they care about and share it. Here is their Facebook Page.

What follows is a print ad called FIND BILLY done by Missing Children Europe organization (European Federation for Missing and Sexually Exploited Children).

The video below is a strong piece created by Emily Cooper, a graduate from the Royal College of Art in London. She made this animation for the ADVA/Devon County Council (UK) as part of an awareness campaign about domestic violence in schools in Devon County. She used oil paint on glass animation technique to produce this animation short.

 

So many strong pieces are blogged about in this website. Check it out, get inspired: http://osocio.org

Paddy Johnson: Reviewing Digital Media in the Art

Paddy Johnson came to Pratt’s Digital Arts Department to present herself and her work to us students. I had previously read some of her blog posts and reviews on her Art Fag City Blog, but I was still caught off guard by her presentation and her personality.

She is nothing like you would expect to hear while attending a lecture. Put in a few words, she frantically curses in almost all her sentences, and she told us all about how she failed as a gallery assistant after graduating from her college degree. All that to get to the point where she started blogging and how she got good at it and what makes her unique in it is her different persona and direct words. For instance, the blog post that put her in the spotlight was Gallery Goer Asks The Question: What Is This Shit?

She showed us some other blog posts that got a special attention in Art Fag City, and she also showed us how she is making money from her blog, even if it’s still not as much as she would like it to. Besides advertisements, she made over 11,000 $ raising money using Kickstarter so she could produce a record called “The Sound of Art“. She then premiered the record in New York and Toronto, with live performances: http://www.artfagcity.com/celebrating-five-years-of-art-sounds-in-new-york/

Besides her work, her presentation had a depressing impact on me for some reason, because all she talked about was her years of failed trials to work as a gallery assistant, and how she still lives like a student even now with her blog and popularity… so I’m not sure how much this part was inspiring, but I guess it would be inspiring for us to try to change that, a.k.a #OccupyWallStreet maybe?

Occupy Wall Street

Click here to see my pictures of Occupy Wall Street

We went to the Zuccoti Park in Wall Street to “visit” the OccupyWallStreet demonstration. They have been there for almost a month now, some of them sleeping there and others that come and go whenever they can. Although there are a lot of political demonstrations in my home country, Lebanon, I had never attended a public demonstration, mostly because on one hand its political parties’ affiliations, and on the other hand, because of safety issues. But attending WallStreet’s Occupation was a whole other experience even though I don’t really have another one, I know how it goes in my country. It’s true that it gets rough and problems arise at OWS, but when I went, it was a very enriching experience.

They have formed some kind of community, and although it might look disorganized from the outside, it is actually very well thought out. They have access to free food and drinks, the artists design the posters and leaflets and give them out to people for free, and they even have a library! That library is called “The People’s Library”. People donate books and they mark them with the “OWS Occupy Wall Street” tag. The purpose of the library is for anyone to take a book, enjoy it and put it back.

The OWS “community” naturally took the shape of a communistic community with no specific leader, where everyone shares everything and they all have a voice.

It is filled with a mix of artists, performers and musicians, hippies, punk, and people of all kinds of interests and cultures. It really represents “The People” or the “99%” as they call themselves. OWS is really inspiring, I don’t need to say that, the whole world said it already, since more and more countries have their own OWS now.

 

 

 

Relationship between Stephenson and Baudrillard

I think the link between Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation and Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash lies in the hyper reality created in Snow Crash called the Metaverse where all characters “live” in or switch between the real reality and the metaverse, and they get confused by which is which at some point, which represents exactly what Baudrillard is talking about. Snow Crash could represent the world we live in today metaphorically on one part taking into consideration Baudrillard’s theories, but really literally on another hand considering the use of the hyper real world that we live in online.

Trojan Horses: Activist Art and Power – Lucy R.Lippard

In her essay, Lippard tries to place activist art in relation to the art world and to political organizing. She divides her essay in 4 parts: arguments, power, sources, and examples.

She defines activist art depending on its function, since it does not follow a particular style and has no limits in its medium. “It is an art that reaches out as well as in”. It is not “oppositional” only, but “it provides alternative images, metaphors, and information formed with humor, irony, outrage, and compassion, in order to make heard and seen those voices and faces who are invisible and powerless”. It is primarily process-oriented. “It has to take into consideration not only the formal mechanisms within art itself, but also how it will reach its context and audience and why”. The process and journey behind each activist artwork is the most important part.

There is a difference between political artists and activists artists.

Political artists’ subjects and contexts reflect social issues, usually in the form of ironic criticism. They tend to be socially “concerned” and work within the context, whereas activist artists tend to be socially “involved” and work with the audience.

Critics criticize activist art by stating that “art can’t change anything, so if you care about politics you should be a politician instead of an artist”, or “It’s not art, it’s sociology”, or even “Social-change art is rendered useless when co-opted by exhibitions and sales within the mainstream art world”. But these remarks are naïve. Artists do not think that their art will change the world directly or instantly. Artists or anyone else, alone, cannot change the world, but they choose to be part of the changing world, by reflecting the trending social or political issues.

It is viewed as powerless, but in fact, it has its own power: It creates emotions. Art’s power is its ability to communicate what is seen to what is meant, and its control over the social and intellectual contexts in which it is distributed and interpreted. Again quoting Lippard, “An artist can function like a lazy gardener who cuts off the weeds as a temporary holding action. Or s/he can go under the surface to the causes.”

“Social change can happen when you tear things up by the roots, collage metaphors, or when you go back to the roots and distinguish the weeds from the blossoms and vegetables.”