2-Brice Peterson: Amanda Lear

Saturday, January 31, 2009 | |

A lot of you would probably recognize Amanda Lear as the cover model for this Roxy Music album. She did get a lot of work in the 70s as a model. But her origins are a little less clear.


In the 60s, she met Salvador Dali. The official story is that she was his muse, his apprentice, a daughter figure. But there have been many rumors (supported in many ways by Lear's reluctance to offer firm details on her birth and early life), that Lear is a transsexual, and her transformation from man to woman was facilitated as a "creation" of Dali. Check out her wikipedia page. Her story is really fascinating.



She is an artist in her own right. In the late 70s, she started a music career as a disco singer who embodied the camp stylings of the genre. She also has become a fairly serious painter (her work above). When questioned about her gender, Lear always asserts she is a woman, claiming that the rumors were fabrications made by Dali as a publicity stunt (I guess he of all people should know how to attract attention), making up for her admittedly lousy yet intriguingly deep and mysterious singing voice . She also wrote a biography of Dali that I just started reading.



So, I guess I'm posting about Amanda Lear because in my eyes she is really an example of the ultimate form of hybridity in art: the created (or recreated) human being. Whether she really is Dali's "Frankenstein" or merely the result of an out of control publicity stunt, she is in many ways a fabricated being. I've been very interested in how personality and self are really our most profound creations. Lear and other image conscious celebrities (like Grace Jones, who I posted before) really got me thinking of this possibility in the first place.

3-Stephen Larrick: Hybridization (Cont.)

Monday, January 26, 2009 | |

RICHARD FISH-MAN

2-Brandon: Corpus Hypercubus

Sunday, January 25, 2009 | |


Chicago - Nadir Afonso
Math/Architecture/Art
From his collection on cities, by far my favorite. The contrast and motion it portrays that sets it apart from anything I've ever seen. I really love it.


Crucifixion - Salvador Dalí
Math and Art. It depicts Jesus on an unfolded 4 dimensional cube. It has personal significance as there is a relationship to Brown University and current faculty. Ask me if interested in more information.

2-Stephen Larrick: Hybridization

Saturday, January 24, 2009 | |

TALES OF MERE EXISTENCE
http://www.ingredientx.com/watch/tales/index.htm

TALLY HALL['S INTERNET SHOW]
http://www.tallyhall.com/media.php

CENTAUR

1-Stephen Larrick: Personal Statement

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“Should this be about me or about my art?” Steve wonders as he begins his personal statement.
The former authors the latter. To know me is to know my art.

This year, for Christmas, my sister gave to me a bag full of fruit with a note reading “for fruit baseball.” Of all the presents I received, this one was my favorite. For it had long been a fantasy of mine to smash fruit, having been lobbed towards me, with a baseball bat. Shortly after receiving this gift, my sister and I drove to a nearby field and soon, onlookers could see oranges, kiwi, tomatoes, limes, and even grapefruit exploding in the air as I swung my bat. My fantasy had come to FRUITion.

Not long ago, some friends and I carved a large circle out of particleboard (with a saw). We had originally planned for an octagon, but when it occurred to us that red/green colorblindness is the most predominant type of colorblindness and that the shape of a street sign has legal meaning, we settled for a circle. We then colored that circle green with spray paint and stenciled the word “GO” in the center in white. Our GO sign—like a STOP sign only opposite in meaning—was complete. In the dark of night, we raised it (on a wooden post) on a straightaway on a predominant road near the high school in my suburban town of Westford, MA. It has been instructing cars to GO for some time now.

Those who know me as an artist know me for my drawings and paintings—my works in acrylic, pastel, pencil, and charcoal. I do not deny that this is my art; however, these anecdotes share a glimpse of my art as well.

I am interested in exploring the absurd, especially in relation to that which is dignified (or that which is presupposed to be dignified). I want my art to be simultaneously silly and serious in its silliness. Dignified in its lack of dignity. I want it to blur the lines between these diametrically opposed notions.

brittaney--something hybrid?

Friday, January 23, 2009 | |

Here are two links of something I absolutely love: Sorry I don't know how to post it directly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNq1xhJB_cI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQkWrZw05P4

1- Audrey Fox: Personal Statement

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I would like to focus on film (or digital video) this semester, particularly as combined with elements of music, fine art, creative fiction, and photography. It is difficult to describe my aesthetic, in part because it is not completely developed, but I know that I do tend to gravitate towards art that shocks the viewer. I have always held onto the notion that art can create change. I want to provoke new patterns of thought in people, yet I realize such a goal can only be successful if art is widely available to the public eye. That said, I would like whatever I create this semester to include a component of performance artistry in the sense that it fosters an interaction between the viewer and the creative product.

My background is mostly in visual arts, yet lately I have felt restricted by the fact that a painting, for example, can only reach a limited group of individuals, both emotionally and physically. While I appreciate a painting’s subjective and abstract nature, it can be frustrating and obviously difficult to duplicate. As a result, fairly few people can be appropriately affected by it.

I also have previous experience in writing (I took playwriting last semester), a strong background in dance, and have dabbled in songwriting. I guess the bottom line is, I am open to pretty much anything in any field of art as long as it accomplishes my goal of changing the viewer and making a strong statement.

I liked this:
Blublu.org

Brittaney--Personal Statement of sorts

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Brittaney Check---
I love impromptu snowball fights. I love when we can shed all the rules and inhibitions which force us through fear to be something simply because it seems that that is what we are supposed to do. this is the second half of a blog I've written, because things like this give me a slight pain of anxiety because I know that what I write might come off to a lot of people as cliche or cheesey or just too much. and I am scared that by being what I value most, by being genuine and honest, that I am making a gamble that later, when I face an excrutiatingly awkward moment or people who really don't like me, I may wish I had not taken. Art has always been the one place where I have let myself gamble despite the whirring concerns in my head and the obligation and expectation that have crippled me in other times in my life. Above all, I hope of this class to be pushed to a place of uncomfortability, to produce something I never believed I could have a hand in producing.
I have been painting for a year and a half now, and engaging in art-like behaviors of sketching and musing since I could hold a pencil. I love impromptu snowball fights, and automatic drawing, and the beauty in which children undertake things with little or no inhibitions. However, I also find comfort in the silence and certainty of manifesting a figure with charcoal and the precision and intention with which one creates films and animations. When I began painting my senior year it was the first time since before Junior high in which I didn't calculate an assignment. I moved the gesso with my fingers across canvases taller and wider than my height following only what I like to believe was my intuition. I searched for a mark, a gesture, a shade that somehow could portray the honesty I felt I had lost in always trying to be something for someone else. And so that is what I want again, and want sounds selfish, so perhaps more precisely put, yearn and hope for. I hope I can, with the insight of those in this course, amalgamate the fearlessness and honesty of exploring and creating like a child with the precision and intention of filmmakers like Michel Gondry, Charlie Kauffman, or Jan Svankmeier.
I admit somewhat sheepishly that this class brings a rush of adreneline to my system. I have such hopes for this class and the opportunity of growth and the promise of challenge that it brings. I am somewhat terrified, and I know that I am taking this a bit seriously, but I am somewhat terrified to waste this opportunity. The worst thing I could do is remain comfortable and continue to paint exactly as I did as a Senior in High School. And so I hope this hybrid course does bring something new and unexpected, and something that will fill me with the same bubbles of laughter and appreciation for life that an impromptu snowball fight with your closest friends can bring.
I think by now I may be the last post, because I agonized over this a bit unnecessarily, and am still a bit uncertain that I've conveyed anything of importance to all of you who must read this. But I suppose that I just want to say Bring it on, because I want to rise to the occassion and learn everything that I can from my peers in this course. To say the least, I'm really excited.

Marc Englander

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I do not feel fully capable of answering, “who am I and what are my passions?” The two main reasons for this are, that in the short time I have been alive I have never truly lost something important to me, and the second reason is my passions change biannually. This is why I will not be answering this question. Rather, I will try to explain what life has been like under these circumstances, and what I have been interested in over the past 18 years.
First, my family and I are very close. My father, a man of finance since birth, has a simple, clean and orderly aesthetic. Over the past 36 years he has developed a style all to his own: a detailed assortment of blue and grey suits, matching - or slightly discolored - blue or grey ties and white shirts. Beyond his sense of fashion, every piece of lint on his desk is there for a reason. Outside of his domain, he loves art. Specifically, I believe that his favorite modern artists are: Brancusi, Mondrian, and Kelly in addition to some exceptions and extensions to more classical and impressionist pieces. In my own eyes, but probably out of envy, I share similarities to my father’s simple, clean and orderly aesthetic as well as his appreciation of painting and sculpture. Furthermore, my mother is a professional photographer, who shares the same appreciation for the “greats” of modern and contemporary art. Her personal work is so varied - in printing materials and processing - that I have no idea what her general aesthetic preference looks like. The information above is supposed to give you a general background of what I have been exposed because of the context I have been brought up in
My passions over the past 18 years have crossed the spectrum from samurai sword fighting and Japan to snowboarding, furniture design and fashion. My passion for Japan, is best explained with the following anecdote. When I was 10 years old, I had the opportunity to transform my room into a quasi-dojo space. Since then, my room has only been a desk, a chair, tatame mats and a futon, which is rolled away during the day. The tatame mats have a black border so the floor becomes a series of intersecting black lines — this is the essence of what I like about the Japanese aesthetic: simplicity of form and function. In Praise of Shadows, Jun’ichiro Tanizaki discusses the importance of darkness in creating a living space without clutter, and, though my living space does so my passions are quite scattered.


I love this video of a fashion designer combining his work with an old passion of his.  thank a look.
http://www.vimeo.com/1654340

1- Jaylin Kim: Personal Statement

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I think I’m a Pre-Med student, for now at least. While I should be taking all the so-called easy-A courses alongside the ones required to get into Med school and worry about keeping my GPA perfect, I signed up for this course in hopes that I’ll be able to gain something totally new, creative, and cool. With a family history of doctors, they all expect me to become one as well. But the truth is I’m not really interested in curing the sick, developing the cure to AID’s, Alzheimer’s and whatnot. What I’m really interested in is “beauty”: the ways to achieve it, the ways to create it, the ways to give it to somebody...
Medical school admissions probably wouldn’t like me with my kind of attitude at becoming a doctor, but I’m really not sure if I do ultimately want to become one at all. I humbly say science and math are my forte, but I’ve always been interested in visual art—from age three up until now. All this time, I think I liked visual art because I was good at it and it’s entertaining.
Using two of my talents, science and art, I want to “find beauty” as a hybrid art.
If I do become a doctor, a cosmetic surgeon, I guess that could be one way of “finding beauty” using scientific development and my artistic senses to give somebody a prettier nose, eyes, etc. In the meantime, however, I want to find different ways of maximizing someone’s beauty points, using fashion (a recently heightened interest) as art with a touch of science. Just how I would bring about this, I do not know and wish to investigate with the help of this course. Throughout the semester I want for my thinking to further deepen; hopefully I’ll finally figure out what it is that I can do using all of my talents, and maybe decide on a career path.

These are a few pieces from Eri Matsui, a fashion designer who combines science and fashion.

Andrew Seiden - Personal Statement

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The problem is that I'm not sure what my "area of interest" is-- or that I would pin it down as one thing. I suppose what I'm getting at is more of a general openness to different ideas. Unfortunately I haven't seriously sat down and created some good old fashioned 'visual art' in some time--so I am seriously looking forward to it. I took Fiction 1 last semester, and tried my hand at short story writing... which was a great experience through which I explored a whole new arena of creation and, for lack of a better expression, a new way to paint a picture for someone. In the past, I have focused on the flat stuff-- drawing and painting, and after a while I realized that I was looking for a style. In many ways, I have been establishing my drawing and painting 'style' for the past couple of years. In brief, it's a sketchy, texture-y, busy kind of style. But I am uncertain how much painting I will end up doing in this course, perhaps quite little. Anyway, I find the textures of the natural world fairly fascinating--and maybe how they interact, differ, and intertwine with the textures of manmade technology (this I think goes along with some of the architecture and mathematics posts, but is hopefully a little different), and I would definitely be interesting in incorporating that kind of mindset into a project or projects this semester. In writing this personal statement, I have just determined that a good description of my 'area' would be the more physical--textures, touch, the difference between hard and soft, clouds and concrete... stuff like that. I believe that has also come out in the creative writing I have done recently. But none of these ideas I would say 'define' me or anything like that. I'm open to anything. I am taking this class in order to peruse a selection of new interests; to see the world from different perspectives, those which--hopefully--I am somewhat incapable of at this point, or at least not yet moved to realize.


this is a cool video about a new form of skydiving (i guess) that i was watching with some friends the other day. The idea of putting on a suit that enables you to fly like this could possibly fit into the realm of hybrid art. click here

Gus Wenner

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For the last eight years i have been focused on guitar. In the beginning I learned the instrument, then I started writing songs and developing my style. In learning guitar I fell in love with music on a whole other level. Guitar provoked me to explore different genres, musicians, instruments, writers and poets. One main reason I am excited about this course is because I am looking to push guitar further than I ever have. Hopefully with the influence and collaboration of others I can find new ways to express emotion on the guitar. My mind is completely open and free as to any possibilities - perhaps I will not end up even strumming any strings for example. As I touched on in my final presentaiotn in visual arts foundation class, art and guitar are very connected. However, to use an old saying, the pearls are not connected to form the necklace. My interests range from painting to drawing to writing to just about anything. I cannot wait to push my emotions and thoughts further than ever before via working with people of different backgrounds that are able to express in ways I cannot.


Below is a short film written and directed by my favorite director, David Lynch. The film combines art, stills, film and sound clips. Lynch is a heavy influence in the art and music I create.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmMwKBMse_w

1- Brice Peterson: Personal Statement

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I used to think I had a pretty good grasp on my artistic purpose: what it was I was going after, what I thought my art was doing. But now, I'm more certain that I really know nothing. So I can't really make any assertions as to what my objectives in making art really are. I have no clue what art should really be. I do it because I like doing it, and I like experiencing the art of others. I feel like this motivation is enough for now, and if I come to any real conclusions or revelations in the long run about my art or art in general, then I'd be more than happy to have them. A poetry teacher once told me my work attempts to mythologize popular culture, and if that's true, that's a label I'll stick with for now.

Up until this point I've exercised whatever artistic muscle I have in three different areas, almost exclusively: writing, visual art, and sound. Most of my writing now centers around poetry that is almost without exception absurd and packed with references to popular culture. My writing used to be all about myth-making, however. By the age of 13 or 14 I had written a pretty substantial and complex collection of myths and histories of the distant fictional future. My visual art has been less focused. Or at least, the final products have been less focused. Overall, I enjoy making visual art for the process. Whenever I draw, I tend to make my work as hard for me as possible, or at least as meticulous as possible. This could be masochistic, but so be it. Finally, for sound. That's a new one for me. Sure I'm obsessed with music and have been so for a while, but as far as making my own sound goes, it's still pretty fresh. I'm the features director at Brown Student Radio, which means I produce a lot of NPR style pieces that tell stories. If you listen to This American Life, you know the stuff.

Problem with all this is that, in each individual area, I feel largely unsatisfied. I suppose this is where the "hybrid art" part comes in. I've been vainly searching for a way to unite these three endeavors, and I hope some experimentation in this class will open a few doors. Most recently, I've been posting to my own art blog to document my own progress. "The Orchid Club" as a project itself is something much larger than I have space to explain here, and I don't really know what all of it is about yet anyway. Here's a link. Maybe that will explain me better than I am here.

While we're at it, though, here are a few music videos to look at, of stuff I would consider "hybrid" and stuff that's sort of indicative of my taste:

Laurie Anderson- "O Superman"


Grace Jones- "Demolition Man" and "Pull up to the Bumper" from her One Man Show

1- Eva Cohen: Personal Statement

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The idea of human networks is something that I would like to explore in the context of this class. In the contemporary moment, when many people in this country and around the world engage in online social-networking, the networks of social ties (familial, affective/affectional, etc.) that connect people are made almost more evident/visually manifest and so seem to invite study. But there is also a long pre-internet history of this kind of study in the social sciences, spurred on by the sense that modern life and its attendant increases in human movement, technological interconnection, et cetera had brought about an increase in the sheer number/density of human relationships. Many sociologists have conducted experiments to test the so-called 'six degrees of separation' principle, aiming to determine whether such a small degree of social distance really separates most people on earth. How people form, maintain, and mark their ties to each other, both in the real and virtual modern worlds, has come to interest me a great deal.

Along with this, I'm interested in exploring how human social networks help perpetuate inequality/social disparity. While modern society theoretically distributes rewards (employment in the public and private sector, school admissions, et cetera) on the basis of merit, both popular and scholarly sources attest that most positions of priviledge are secured on the basis of personal/social connections. Theorists like Pierre Bourdieu, writing about the role of elite schools in consecrating a 'state nobility,' highlight how institutions seek to consolidate social ties within classes and so ensure that individuals' allegiances remain with those of their own class.

I think that a lot of interesting art could be made about this--flow charts and maps of social networks (realized as quilts, sculptures, dance?), depictions of different kinds of human social presentation, et cetera. Get at me!

Also--an interesting example of hybrid art-- Walker Art Center Artist-Designed Mini-Golf

1 - Doug Poole: Personal Statement

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Until recently, math and music have inhabited entirely separate planes of my  consciousness; math is logical, intuitive, and absolute, while music - at least some of the strange music to which I am particularly partial - is chaotic, impulsive, and open-ended.  While I consider myself a musician, I don't really know anything about music in a theoretical sense, just tid-bits of information that I've picked up over the years.  People are always talking about how music is an inherently mathematical art, but as somebody who doesn't really know about music theory, I've never fully understood this dialectic.  I think what they are usually referring to is the mathematical underpinnings of tonal relationships, cadences, and all kinds of other cool shit that's way over my head, and probably always will be.  Last semester, however, I had the opportunity to create algorithmic music, and math unexpectedly began to influence my musical understanding.  I learned that by fiddling around with numbers and equations in a neat little computer program called "MaxMSP", I could teach the computer to create its own music.  I was the author of the algorithms, but the algorithms themselves created music that was completely unexpected, and that was generated beyond the faculty of my own creative foresight.  I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this.  I guess I'm just fascinated by the way in which one can use math to generate art in unexpected ways.  While I was introduced to this concept through music, I think that it might be cool to experiment with mathematical algorithms in the field of visual art, where they can exist beyond the confines of a computer program - the possibilities just seem endless.  There's all sorts of other stuff that I'd like to talk about, but i guess I'll just leave it at that for now.


Also:
Here's a cool link to a video of a fella who seems to fit the definition of a "hybrid artist."

1-Brandon Freiberg: Personal Statement

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There exists nothing more important in this life than hope. Yet this driving factor is shrouded in the inconsistencies of society and the human consciousness. My current goal, realizing the fact that I am a very idiosyncratic person oscillating in my ideas and desires, is to explore the reality of the world and open my mind to a way of thinking with a dearth of tainted pressure and influence. To be born innocent and tolerant and accepting of everything. But more so to be born with free will and hope and curiosity. Limit is not denoted by ability, but rather the ability to depict in the mind’s eye.
My intention for media is one of film, animation, and variants of moving pictures, though I am open to anything and everything, as I feel we all ought to be. I’d like to try more “out there” projects as risk makes much of life worth living and the greatest gifts are often come upon by accident. I hope to learn a lot about myself during this project and wish my partner(s) to do the same. About goals, objectives in life, and what I’d like to do after my time here comes to a finish. To conclude I’d like to leave a quote that both means a lot to me and I feel epitomizes this prelude:

Todo niño es un artista; el problema radica en que lo siga siendo cuando crezca. (Picasso)
Every child is an artist; the problem is the continuance of this as they grow.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009 | |

leonardo