New Media Artist Blog # 3: Wooden Mirror

Wooden Mirror Video

Daniel Rozin is a new media artist whose work focuses on interaction. His digital based installations and sculptures revolve around the idea of changing and responding to the environment in which they are placed. In several of his works the idea of a mirror image is explored in which the viewer becomes the subject. In the wooden mirror for example 830 pieces of wood, 830 servo motors, control electronics, a video camera, and a computer all work together to create an image of the curious onlooker. This use of innovative technology allows Rozin to mimic the qualities of a mirror onto a piece of wood. Rozin experiments with this same idea using a variety of other materials even garbage. Daniel Rozin's installations break the barrier of digital and physical as well as technology and art. Rozin is successful in creating a new way of interacting with art. 

Scrapbook Entry #1-Cells

When looking into a microscope at a slide of an object or a chemical it often feels like you are looking into another world or even another dimension. The images are so abstracted and strange that it is hard to believe that the object you are observing is actually made up of what you are seeing. Everyday objects such as plants and water take on new forms and characteristics. The abstract quality and organic shapes and lines formed when the image is viewed through the microscope render an artistic quality. The shapes mimic movement and pattern similar to those made by a brushstroke or an artist's composition. We do not usually think of a magnified image of the cells in a leaf as art, however I feel that it very much possesses the same aesthetic qualifications that make something art and deserves our attention. 

More microscope slide images. 

New Media Artist Blog 2: Hektor

The device known as Hektor is the collaborative invention of engineer Uli Franke and Jurg Lehni. Hektor is  a portable spray-paint output device for laptop computers. Hektor's software is based on the system known as Scriptographer, a scripting plug in for Adobe Illustrator created by Jurg Lehni. Franke and Lehni point out that the aim of Hektor is to make a statement about the plasticity of design and the variations technology offers for artists. In particular how design can be manipulated by experimenting with new tools that provide an extremely distinctive aesthetic. Hektor represents a tool that moves past the limitations of the clean cut computer design offering technology that acts more like a human arm than the rigidity of a computer software system. For example, the contraption sometimes shakes and wobbles while in action and often drips paint, adding a unique organic quality that is aesthetically pleasing to the viewer. 

Hektor web link.

The Purpose of Art

The purpose of art is an arguable topic both between artists and critics of art. But does art necessarily have to have a purpose? Is anything and everything art or are there distinct qualifications? In my opinion, I do not believe that art has to have a purpose, but rather it is the expression of someone or something through something else. A work of art can be meaningless garbage to one person and have a world of meaning to another. Art should make you think, make you question the world you live in, make you see something in a different light or from someone else's perspective, make the ordinary extraordinary. Art should transform you. Art should make you feel.  

Context is also an important aspect of art. An object can be everyday in its normal context, however it may take on new meaning when placed somewhere it is usually not found. For example, Waldemar Januszczak writes in his essay, What Is Art For?, about Carsten Holler's slide installation at the Tate Modern Museum in London, England. In a playground or at an amusement park these slides would just be another really cool slide, however in the context of the Tate Modern these slides take on the idea of art. Januszczak explains, "At Tate Modern, an entirely different context, the slides affect a different audience in a different way. When a businessman pops out of his City office at lunchtime and has a go on Holler's slide, he is connecting with feelings of pleasure and dis-engagement that are alien to him in his usual daily context. Slides are generally for children. Not this one: this one is aimed specifically at the child within." 

The definition of art is also one not determined by the creator. "Art can be made by any of us. It need not result in museum- quality work; it can be only an elaboration of an ordinary object" (Rosier, What is Art?). Art is a means of expression, no matter by whom. In conclusion, art is in the eye of the beholder, its purpose can be one thing for one person and hold a completely different meaning for someone else. Art is what you make it. 

ART 21 Film Review

In our last class we watched a film that featured the work and process of a variety of twenty-first century artists. Art21 placed the viewer directly into the lives of these artists, capturing the immense passion and overwhelming amount of thinking behind each of their installations. The film acts as a modern documentary offering a series of interviews that allow the audience to understand the reasons why each featured artist chose to explore art and the importance of art in their lives. 

The first artist the film introduced us to was Vija Clemins. Clemins works are extremely detail oriented and realistic in nature. Clemins explains how it is her ninth time painting the painting she is currently working on. Clemins describes her process as building the painting over time. Clemins also explains that the her drive to paint her series on rocks was because she desired to make them herself. The next artist Elizabeth Murray centers her work around the use of shapes and intense color. Murray explains that her method is to just let the cards fall where they may and go from there. In her interview Murray describes her process of becoming an artist and how her professors told her she would never succeed in art. Next, the film focuses on Ann Hamilton, an artist whose work deals with textile art and installation. Hamilton explains how her work represents the social metaphor that connects thread of sewing as the thread of writing. Hamilton also does a series of pinhole photography using her mouth as the 

viewfinder. The shape of the mouth strangely reflects the shape of an eye, with the subject taking the role of the pupil. Bruce Nauman is the next artist featured in the film. He's work is primarily installation based pieces including sculpture and film. Nauman's process is that he focuses on something that at first appears to be functional, but at closer examination you can't figure out quite what it's function may be. Nauman explains that with art you have to approach it so that you can't watch anything in order to be aware of everything. Matthew Barney, the last artist we viewed, is a combination videographer, sculptor, and performance artist. His work is edgy and at times disturbing and violent, however it all works together to tell a central story. Barney's work points out that there is no place for fear in art. That you just have to trust your intuition and go for no matter what anyone else says. 

Each of these artists push the boundaries of art in their own way. Each artist explores the questions "What is art?" and "What is art for?" I agree with Waldemar Januszczak in that the sole purpose of art is to transform the viewer, to change something inside them, to make them think. Bart Rosier writes in his article, What is art?, that an artists role is to try to express what we all feel. I think that each of the artists featured in art21 are successful in fulfilling the meaning of art. 

Class Discussion: Interpreting Images

During our last class discussion we each reviewed a series of several images. The instructions were to  analyze each of the images based on what they communicate to the viewer, as well as how each image communicates this based on content, color, language, and more. In my group our images ranged from street signs, to fingerprints, to no-smoking signs. We discovered that many of the images were universally recognizable. For example, in the image of the red circle with the white rectangle through the middle, most people understand that this means danger or stop because of the commanding red color. The last two images we concluded were icon images that are simplified representations that symbolize something, but are not actually made from those things. Where as the middle two images of the fingerprint and the footprints in the sand are images made from the actual object that it represents such as our fingers or bare feet. 

New Media Artist Blog#1: Wolfgang Staehle

In 1999, German sculptor Wolfgang Staehle installed a digital camera in an office located on the upper level of a high-rise building in the West Chelsea area of New York City. The lens of the camera was strategically pointed at the Empire State building, capturing a continuous stream of images from sunrise to sunset. The images were then transmitted over the Internet to an exhibition at the ZKM Center for Art and Media. The installation was titled Empire 24/7. Staehle drew inspiration from Andy Warhol's 1964 film that focuses solely on the Empire State Building for eight hours.

Both Staehle and Warhol use still images to create a feeling of static. This in turn forces the viewer to take the time to concentrate on the detail of the structure and the manipulating effects of light. Staehle explained that his work aims to emphasize "instant images for instant consumption." In my opinion, Staehle's work is successful at commenting on the fast-paced nature of today's society as a result of technological advances. Staehle's use of instant images mirrors society's need for instant gratification, whether it be instant information or fast food. The way in which these constant images were presented and continuously updated creates an effect that mimics a window looking out onto the Empire State building even though the exhibition was located miles away in Karlsruhe, Germany. Therefore the installation acts as a commentary of how the world is completely interconnected through technology.

In 2001, one of Staehle's later works captured the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center as they were happening, forever preserving history in art.

I was drawn to Wolfgang Staehle's work because I feel that unlike other new media art Staehle's exhibition, Empire 24/7, and his later works are successful in that they are truthfully works of art. I believe that art must serve a purpose and compel the viewer to question the world around them. Art makes us think. Art does not have to be a beautiful painting or photograph, but rather art is a reflection of ourselves and Staehle fully reflects our world.

google earth placemark