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Saturday, November 21, 2015

My First Art Show

My First Art Show
Last week we had an art show to display my New Media in Art class. I chose a project dear to my heart which is all of my friends that have left college and the new ones I have made this term so far. The title was Friends:Come and Gone, and it was a 20 page magazine on glossy paper, and for the art show I displayed the book as well as two framed photos from the book entitled "cigarette" and "party of one" This project was my favorite in the class, because i sent all my friends the finished result and they all loved it so I'm happy for that. A Lot of people showed up and all our classmates works were excellent. 



"Social Room"


"Cigarette"



Me at the Art Show

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

J. Robert Oppenheimer

McLuhan includes a quote by J. Robert Oppenheimer in his book , The Medium is the Massage. The quote reads, “ There are children playing in the street who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.”  McLuhan included him in this book because he was such an expert, but realized the value of being an amateur. It is the catch 22 of growing up and investing your time in something you are passionate about. You become prolific up to a point to when you can’t realize the simplicity in things that can be used to explain the things not known. 


Oppenheimer was one of the brightest Theoretical physicists of our time, and was one of the head designers of the first atom bomb that America used to destroy the town of Hiroshima. He went to schools like Harvard and Cambridge, and found he was not good at the application of physics and turned to theory. This made him the perfect guy for the Manhattan job, and he found his niche mediating the crew of 1,500 in Los Alamos, New Mexico. This site was one he visited in his youth after being diagnosed with dysentery. He felt remorse after the events and was accused of spying soon after. Although not found guilty, Oppenheimer was stripped of his security clearance for the Government and was disregarded in the society anymore, thereby leaving him a shell of the brilliant man he used to be, unable to progress the future of science to help our Nation's policies.

Monday, October 26, 2015

Soundcloud Clip

Wassup everyone! This is my latest project for New Media in Art at Lawrence University, and Halloween is right around the corner so I decided to make it a tad spoopy in feel although there aren't any dancing skeletons! Hope you enjoy !!!


Sunday, October 25, 2015

My Photo Project

For my class, we had to take a bunch of photos in the same sort of process as Robert Frank, photographer of " The Americans", where he would take a bunch of photos (sometimes 10's of thousands!) and then go back and narrow down from that. In this way he could capture more of a feel of a quick snapshot, alive in the moment. I decided to narrow down my 300 photos or so to the required 20 which I will put in a photo book for our class. Mine can be found on my Flickr account Here!!!!!!!



My book will be titled "Friends Come and Gone". After going over all of my photos on my phone and the ones I took on the camera borrowed from the Film Studies department, I noticed that I really miss my friends. I have had a lot and lost a lot. But this is a project I have wanted to do for a while and was glad I got the opportunity to show off some of my buddies. Hope you enjoy!







Miriam Beerman

Miriam Beerman

About two weeks ago, Miriam Beerman's art was on display in the Wriston Art Center at Lawrence University. Our class was supposed to watch a documentary about Miriam by Jonathan Gruber entitled "Miriam Beerman: Expressing the Chaos", but due to Football practice I was unable to attend the screening. However, Jonathan Gruber did come to our class and answer a few of our questions. Most of the questions had to do with what to pick for topic for the documentary, and how to know when to pursue a topic or subject further. Although there was not a precise answer, he said it is mainly who you know and have to get lucky, but also that you have to find something that you are passionate about to pursue for a number of years and keep working. He even said he has been working on another documentary for 18 years, which is passionate if you ask me. Other topics included working on your own projects or being hired for example by Animal Planet, and which one he preferred. He preferred working on his own, because he could have the final say instead of finishing a project and having the company that paid him to make it changing lots of parts. 
Photo of Jonathan Gruber(Google Images)

As for Miriam Beerman's artwork on display at Wriston Art Center, it was mostly all collage work with an occasional drawing. The collages are made of printed texts and other labels and scraps. Over these, Miriam would draw figures, often surreal looking as if they were from a bad dream. She would also sometimes write words in very bold brush strokes over the whole collage or parts of it. She also was very fixated on faces, and although human-like, the faces were always disfigured in some way that made them calming yet haunting. Most all of the artwork on the display was untitled, which for some reason I really enjoy.

Photo of Miriam Beerman Art Piece(https://blogs.lawrence.edu/news/tag/art-exhibition)



Thursday, October 8, 2015

Ed Vassel And Neuroaesthetics

Ed Vassel came to speak at my class in College the other 
day. 



He is a Director at NYU ArtLab and a Research Scientist 
studying the field of Neuroaesthetics. 

Neuroaesthetics relatively recent sub-discipline of empirical

aesthetics. Empirical aesthetics takes a scientific approach 

to the study of aesthetic perceptions of art and music. In a 

paper written partly by Ed Vassel entitled,The brain on art: 
intense aesthetic experience activates the default mode network", he says, 

"The nature of aesthetic experience presents an apparent
paradox. Observers have strong aesthetic reactions to very different sets of images, and are moved by particular images for very different reasons. Yet the ability to be aesthetically moved appears to be universal."



We talked on a number of things in class, but my biggest concern with the field of Neuroaesthetics arises from the point behind it. As stated in the quote above, Vassel's research shows that no matter what people will have different tastes, but that everyone can be moved by art. This is something we have known without this science since we were kids. Vassel and his colleagues used brain scans of people viewing art to see what areas of the brain affect how we are moved by a a piece of artwork. They found that it isn't necessarily one part, but sections of different parts of our brains, that when moved by a painting, cause us to feel moved. My concern lies in the point of, "So we know what parts of the brain cause this, so what?" Many other topics in the field of Neuroaesthetics have touched on these findings to be able to help artists and others learn and benefit from being able to identify what could move someone, but if so, I fear that if there is a point at all with having this knowledge, Does this limit art to what we can consider as good or bad, or right or wrong, instead of just using our eyes and feeling regardless of the quality. My thought is of a kindergartner's painting or drawing that is posted to the family fridge. The kids drawing will most likely not be technically a masterpiece, but you may feel the most moved by it if say you were the parent. Or possibly another kid walks in and sees it as something that may resemble more closely with how he views art or draws. I find it very interesting from the science aspect and for the general knowledge we can learn about our senses, but I believe they should stay exactly that, our senses that is. It is cool to learn how it works, but I prefer to just go with my gut and appreciate all art and not judge art based off of some scale to try and "move" people, it should be able to do that without any effort all by itself.

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

What is Art ? A Short Video by Colt Duncan

Wassup??!!! About 6 years ago I tried chewing tobacco or Dip for the first time. I got addicted which no one really thinks they ever will until they are. Then two years ago I started smoking cigarettes, another habit I wasn't too proud of, but I got addicted to those as well. I made this video with the theme from our class being time and space, with the thought in mind of how much time tobacco can take off of our lives and how addictive and hard to kick it is. I am happy to say that today marks 2 months without cigarettes and 1 month without dipping tobacco, and I have never felt better or more free. So I made this video below!!!! Hope you enjoy!