Contemporary Issues in Graphic Design

• November 29, 2016
• assistant Professor of Graphic Design
• www.racheleriley.com
• method and design research
• creates many mood boards on Graphic Design
• mood boards
• meshes things up
• gathering of images
• related to a given topic often by a client
• "Graphic design is the most humanist of the professions because it necessarily involves words, pictures depiction of human beings and their values. If we just recognize, as a community, that we shape what people feel about each other, I'd hope we can create a new kind of discourse."
• Images of old and new are important part of how the world changes
• Graphic Design is always something present 
• not always pure of clarity
• Visual Hierarchy- 
• influences the order in which the human eye perceives what it sees
• important
• The reach of Graphic design is microscopic

The Lovers, The Dreamers, and Me

• November 17, 2016
• Jen Delos Reyes
• Played songs related to work:
• Dreams-Fleetwork Mac
• Wouldn't It Be Nice- Beach Boys
• Modern Girl-Sleater Kinney
• You Can Have It All- Yo La Tengo
• Sent emails to friends all over the world
• shows connection and unity
• Open Engagement
• Art After Aestheti difference
• open call for submissions
• networks of all artists
• delivers artwork
• very relaxed environment
• Group work is important
• "Together we may find some of the things we are looking for."
• Something special happens in groups of people working together
• group conscience is found in singing
• you loose yourself and become a compound made of the sum

SOFA Chicago exhibition: Abmeyer + Wood Fine Art

• Abmeyer + Wood Fine Art
• Many artists are in this exhibit
• I focused mainly on Christopher David White
• Although his work appears to be made with wood material
• He mainly uses:
• cermaic
• acrylic
• oil
• wax
• polymer clay
• plastic
• metal leaf 
• May of his works provoke thoughts of 
• a greater sense of being 
• transcendental thought
• Ideas of reality

Within Arm's Reach

The Great Motivator

Tipping Point

Microcosm

Pushing Up Daises

  

SOFA Chicago exhibition: Youyuusya GlaSeate

Hang (a), Hang, Hang (b)

• Shared between:
• Satoshi Nishizaki
• Kenjiro Kitade
• Mikiko Tomita
• Satsoshi Nishizaki
• works in glass
• very relevant for SOFA this year
• creates form like that to human form or birds
• Kenjiro Kitade
• works in the ceramics
• often creates statutes of unsettling baby looking figures 
•  Mikiko Tomita
• also works in ceramics
• creates unnamed ornamental orbs
• Overall this exhibit was bizarre but very interesting
  

  

  Seated

  

  Unnamed

SOFA Chicago exhibition booth: Ben Young

•  This is the exhibition booth for the self-taught artist, Ben Young
• SOFA at the Navy Pier had some emphasis on glass work:
• with this being a booth near the entrance and having so much content 
• Each piece displayed was handcrafted from his drawings, layer by layer
• Ocean's are prevalent in his work 
• born in Australia and is currently living in the Bay of Plenty on a North Island of New Zealand
• he is a surfer and boat builder
• wanted to capture the perfection and raw power of the sea
• Often times puts man-made elements with bodies of water or the beauty of nature

Ocean Range

Infinity (top) and Entwined (bottom)

The Watchtower

Reflected Sway Pair

SEGMENT: El Anatsui in 'Change'

• El Anatsui
• imagines wooden carvings

• grouped together they look like a family
• each characteristic is shown in the carving and accents he family
• Wanted to show how wood has been used by humans
• created something out of wood to contemplate; not to use
• Destruction makes the way for new ideas and new approach
• Has a historical reference to his artwork
• bottle caps often to liquor bottles
• How did they get there?
• Was a link factor between continents in shipping them around
• Gets help from students willing to put some time in between classes to create art
• He gets more hands
• They get experience + money
• Little basic training required
• End process shows flexibility and freedom

Film Viewing: SEGMENT: Ai Weiwei in 'Change'

• Ai Weiwei
• taken into custody April 3, 2011
• was unable to attend his own art revealing of animal circling
• Ai Weiwei believes that art should be for everyone
• public art is the best form of art

•  the interviewers called Ai Weiwei:
• Laoshi- Chinese for 'teacher'
• Always was aware that they were learning something new and that it's not just some menial task
• Provided a lot of freedom and didn't simply impose his art theories on people
• Ai Weiwei upsets the government and creates noise to:
• not be quiet about ideas
• grew up knowing art was:
• controversial
• powerful
• Coming back to China after being so long in New York had him come in with new ideas
• Put himself in as public view as possible
• by showing what he was he had nothing to hide

Contemporary Issues in Art Education

• Jennifer Bergmark
• Nov. 14, 2016
• Clinical Assistant Professor of Art Education
• Responsive Art Education Practices in Urban Communities
• Pedagogical practices
• Challenge curriculum to prepare students to address the challenges of living in an increasingly globalized multicultural society
• Community based Art Education
• community center, outside of the schools or involved partnerships between outside organizations and schools
• allows children and participants to experience success
• facilitates self-motivation and inventive learning
• provides access to art instruction to students without art as a part of the regular school day
• gives them a place in the community
• provides for ethic develpment
• Visual Art classes provides:
• Painting
• Jewlery
• Drawing 
• Ceramics
• Digitical photography
• General Youth art classes
• Cartooning
• Stained Glass
• The Gallery
• Local artists
• Outsider artists
• Student artists
• Contemporary artists

Film Viewing: Art 21

• Diana Thater
  Life is time based
  • Moving through space
  • Complexities of our relationships to space
  • Temple to the Hindu Monkey god
  • Created her own idea of the Temple
• By tinting the space, it makes a volume for people to consider as space
• Though you lose yourself in the space you also become aware of your form occupying that space to become hyper conscious

• Liz Larner
  • I idea between many of her clay tables is that they are broken/rupture
  • Poetic and geologic
  • Subductive-when forms overlap each other
  • Cesura-a break in one poem
  • Sculpture is the most physical of art forms while still retaining the poetic form
  • An artist is expected to do different things
  • The form is thought of as a character that can be brought out by the color
  
  
• Tala Madani
  • An idea of a painting is not always verbal
  • Ideology about smile about peace
  • Paints in an easy uncontrolled way
  • Relationship between adults and kids
  • Not knowing who the aggressor is
    • In Western society stories the children tend to kill parents
    • In Eastern society stories the parents kill their kids
  • Salvation is to behave like children
  • True oppression is good behavior

  
  
• Edgar Arceneaux
  • Art is distinctive from other fields it is unruly
  • It is not inherently good neither is inherently bad
  • Job is to answer new questions
  • Religion, science and philosophy
  • Drawing is a technique and methodology
  • How do we think and make connections between things
  • Why do we consider car crashes random?
  • We already live in a random place
  • If you see a car crash as random you’d first have to believe that other things around you are not random

Contemporary Issues in New Media

Robotic Painting Machine

• Nov. 7, 2016
• Ben Grosser
• Assistant professor of New Media
• Software
• stuff we engage with all day long
• involve social and political situations
• How are they changing how we thing?
• Interactive Robotic Painting Machine 
• listens to the environment and makes a picture based on what's making noise
• Facebook Demetricmator
• stops all quantitative metrics on facebook users
• Stops all subconscience pressure to compare
• relaxes self imposed rules
• Ask the questions of why we are obsessed with #
• Tracing You (2015)
• computar surveillance system
• some say it's:
• creepy
• cool
• Most of the people were upset with how it could NOT find them
• not at how easy it WOULD find them
• Shows how expecting of being serveiled we are
• Music Obfoscator
• evades normal music algorithm so that a person can use it without the normal web detector finding out

Six Sterling artworks from the Art Institute of Chicago

• The Spy Reinhard Gehlen
• The artist is Zhitomirsky, political artist
• The subject of this piece was a West German Intelligence Spy
• Previously a Nazi General and leader of Hitler's secret service
• The spy somehow prevented the publication of his photo in the newspapers
• It is very interesting that the artist chose to use photographs of material evidence for a trial of captured spies because he could never get enough pictures of the man's face
• He explains this as an X-ray snapshot of a spy
• From the silhouette we can see that figure is leaning a little to the left, has his hands in his pockets with his collar turned up. 
• This is the iconic covert pose of a spy
• The yellow background is in contrast with the dark grey silhouette that makes up the figure of the spy
• This color contrast makes this piece stand out

• Tetsunao Insect Cage Incense burner
• Made with gold, silver, bronze and shakudo (an alloy of gold and copper)
• The metal work to the insects, especially their legs is very fine
• Choosing to do something as intercut as a bug cage shows the metalist's skill in craftmanship
• The shakudo is a hallmark of most Japanese metalwork in the Meiji period
• The theme of the cage is set in the season of autumn
• it is visible in the gourds, flowers and grasses

• For Sunday's Dinner
• Oil painting by: William M. Harnett
• Amazingly realistic, and looks 3 dimensional
• The texture, color and form are excellent.
•  The most prominent and interesting detail in my eyes are the textures of the bumps on the chicken's flesh and the soft fluffy look of the feathers still unplucked
• Pale plucked textured chicken is in contrast with the dark flat shiny door
• This piece of artwork recalls one's memory from a time when chicken wasn't simply bought at the store in a large plastic container
• The hinges on the door are slightly brighter than the blackness of the door and frame the chicken
• It is a very simple picture in the elements it harbors but I personally could look forever at it because of it's masterful skill

• The Bronco Buster-Frederic Remington
• Cast by: Henry Bonnard Bronze Co.
• Made from Bronze and brown patina 
• Frederic Remington thought of himself as very horse orientated
• considered horses to be a symbol of freedom on the frontier
• I find this interesting because although it was a symbol of freedom for man it was not so for the horses
• Man's innovation hasn't been freedom for all
• Someone's almost always is liable to get hurt
• The struggle between man and beast was a good demonstration of the wild west
• always fighting to keep on top of the food chain

• View of Cotopaxi
• Frederic Edwin Church
• The subject is the Ecuadorian volcano Cotopaxi
• Church painted this piece as symbolic of God overseeing the garden of eden
• The volcano is the creating and destroying force
• The lush jungle is the garden of eden, able to be easily destroyed by the volcano
• Hierarchical placement is used to emphasize this ideology
• Aerial perspective is excellently 
• Brush work is masterful, strokes make the far away leaves look realistic

• Young Woman Sewing
• By: Pierre Auguste Renoir
• Oil on canvas
• Painted on his first visit to an estate in Normandy
• Made a series of paintings related to this based on this woman and her children
• Fuzzy paint strokes allow for a depth in the assortment of colors possible to use
• The background has many different colors
• The lightness coming from the right upper corner is reflected on the woman it the bottom left
• It is interesting to me that the flowers seem to have more contrast in dark and lights than the lady
• Most of my attention is drawn to the flowers because of this

My Wish: To use the world to turn the world inside out

• Speaker- JR a semi-anonymus French artist
• My Wish: To use the world to turn the world inside out
• You can’t save the world
• But you can change the world
• Politics, business and technology can change the world
• Sometimes not in a way that’s very empowering to the people
• JR was slightly changing the world by
• Graffiti art:
• leaving a mark on the city
• The streets were his canvas
• JR found a camera
• Started documenting
• Created his own gallery on the street
• JR’s own photograph was used as propaganda
• to show his friends as monsters
• The power of paper and glue
• Getting across an idea
• A bridge between the anonymous women and media was created by one of JR’s projects
• Vinyl used in JR’s artwork actually aided the houses in keeping the rain out of the houses in Kibera
• People's creativity makes them come into the project
• “I wish for you to stand up and for what you care about by participating in a global art project, and together we’ll turn the world...INSIDE OUT.”
• Insideoutproject.net
• The people’s art projects
• Acting together creates change
• The whole thing is so much more than the sum of the parts
• It all starts depending on the parts

Steven Johnson: Where good ideas come from

• Where good ideas come from
• Many people would go to a coffee house
• Space would be shared
• Ideas would be shared
• What are the environments and space where ideas and innovations are formed
• What is the space of creativity
• History of first cities
• Even the Biological patterns of coral reefs in the ocean floor could be looked at
• Looking for is shared patterns and behaviors
• Certain patterns that we can take to become more creative and innovative
• An idea is a new network of neurons firing off in your brain
• How do we get these?
• Innovation happens by:
• Mashing things together that happened to be around at the time
• Talking to people we run into
• Sharing ideas
• Stitching things together
• Create something new
• Most of the statues and symbols for creating new ideas are a single entity
• A lone figure away from other people
• Really they should be a group of people
• Chaotic environments
• With unpredictable collisions
• People are unreliable when they self report on where they had their good ideas
• Most of the important ideas come from conference between multiple entities
• Many times when discovering errors
• LIquid network
• Different backgrounds, environments bouncing off eachother
• Many important ideas have very long incubation periods
• The Slow hunch
• There are no sudden moments of clarity
• FLASH
• STROKE
• EPIPHANY
• LIGHTBULB
• Feel that there’s a problem
• No proper tools to deal with it
• Hunches can connect with other hunches and speed the process
• Connecting vs Protecting
• Often times we hide our hunches and ideas
• Hiding them shields them from progress
• GPS was born by a congregation of experimenters with technology fiddling around with a radio
• Chance favors the connected mind

Contemporary Issues in Sculpture

Tim Noble and Susan Webster's work

• October 24, 2016
• Stephen Cartwright
• Steve@Cartwright.com
• Associate Director of the School of Art and Design
• Associate Professor of Sculpture
• Sculpture-3 dimensional art object
• Sculpture artists like material items
• Sometimes the piece of art is hard to interpret
• or how it translates from a pile of junk to something much more complex
• Figure
• Sculpturists in ancient Greece would take gods from stories and put them into the real world
• Old art is sometimes modernized
• Same materials are used
• Same technique is used
• The modernization is that it is executed more intelligently
• Ultimately better
• Tim Noble and Susan Webster create figure from little aspects that can be changed to make a normal picture
• Antony Gormley thinks of the body in a geometric way 
• Space



Strings

• making things from a 2 dimensional plain act in the actual world
• Tomas Saraceno changes the perspective of sculpture
• Strings is actually multitude of black strings in a large white space
• Anish Kapoor- The Earth (1991) black spot is actually a hole in the ground when it really looks like black paint on the ground 
• Nina Katchadourian
• Directed cars to certain locations to be arranged by color
• Geometry



Gnaw

• Brancusi-Column of the Infinite
• Janine Antoni-Gnaw 1992:
• Consulted women's body issues
• Actually formed the shape by gnawing on the 
• Tara Donovan used friction and gravity to keep a mass of pens together in a cube shape
• Take objects and rearrange them to make a person think about them 

Contemporary Issues in Jewelry

• October 17th, 2016
• Professor Billie Thiede
• Jewelry is a craft
• Jewelry is not a fine art
• Making in crafts are routed in function
• Fine arts aren't routed in function
• A jeweler and a machinist work along the same lines
• They both use:
• filing
• peircing
• sinking
• A metalist is a prop master
• Come up with ideas
• drawn by hand or computer
• Some projects take more time than others 
• Depending on:
• difficulty of project
• outside factors