Online exhibition

Link to my online exhibition: http://theboveegallery.weebly.com/index.html

World Travel: Visual Journal

 

Generally when I think of the pole regions of the planet I think of the lack of color that exists in these environments and how dull and gray that they are. This is an image of the Aurora Borealis (or Northern Lights) which is a natural phenomenon that occurs over the Arctic and Antarctic regions of the planet. I wanted to show that image because color is so often associated with different countries and cultures and there is hardly any color there. It must be an amazing site to witness these natural light displays in such colorless places.  I believe that most countries are associated with some sort of color because it makes them seem welcoming and inviting.  The Asian and Indian cultures are usually depicted with a lot of red in the environment even though most of it is from the man made environment and religious imagery.  The United Kingdom is often associated with the color green because it is full of really lush fields and rolling hills.  Africa is often depicted as a very earthy continent and it makes you think of the color brown because that is the color of the soil and a lot of the foliage. It is strange though because when I think of the United States a lot of different colors come to mind and none too specific. I believe it must be the fact that we have so many different cultures living in one country and they can all be represented differently. I think that this project was really successful because it seemed almost seamless in its presentation and I’m very curious to see how she creates the extension of it for her next project. 

Perception vs. Reality

Philip K. Dick

When I think of perception vs. reality I always immediately think of movies like the Matrix and Total Recall because they focus on the idea of alternate realities that coexist and are altered by influences from outside sources.  I think it would be impossible to talk about perception and reality without making a reference to the famous science fiction writer Philip K. Dick who is the grandfather of such thought. Philip K. Dick is known for conceptualizing and inventing the idea of virtual reality in the 1960’s and 70’s, long before the invention of conventional personal computers, video games, and the internet.  Many of his books have focused on this concept and have been made into films by some very highly respected film directors; check them out if you haven’t seen them, they are sublime.  His book titled “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” was made into a film by Ridley Scott titled “Blade Runner”, his book “Second Variety” is the film titled “Screamers” by director Christian Duguay, the book “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” is a film titled “Total Recall” by Paul Verhoeven, the book “Impostor” was made into a film by the same name and directed by Gary Fledor, the book “paycheck” was made into a film by John Woo titled “Paycheck”, his book “Minority Report” was made into a film by the same name and directed by Stephen Spielberg, the book “A Scanner Darkly” was adapted for the screen by Richard Linklater, and last but not least his book “The Golden Man” was made into the film “Next” directed by Lee Tamahori. Enjoy!!!

Picturesque Geography: Flint to Detroit

Time lapse can supply many different aspects of a subject that we would normally never see with our eyes naturally.  We as humans are always in motion and it is almost impossible for us to stay still for long periods of time, even if we could it would be inconceivable to take all the information in and process it in this manner. Since time lapse creates the possibility to witness motion, light, and nature in ways that  we cannot see with our naked eye it offers plenty of applications.  I think it will be interesting to see how Alex uses this technique to complete his project, there are a lot of diverse areas that he can document from Flint to Detroit. Flint and Detroit are two cities that have suffered considerably from the decline of the auto industry, although there are a lot of affluent communities that lie between the two so it will allow for a good contrast of social and economical demographics.  Pontiac has suffered considerably from the decline of the auto industry as well and it's just about half way between Flint and Detroit. It is unfortunate how reliant we are on the auto industry here in Michigan, three of the so called worst cities in Michigan are all in the financial situation that they are in because of it. I think that it would be an interesting aspect to represent this problem with this particular project because it is something that people could relate to that are from different cities throughout the entire country, and world for that matter, because of the economic climate from the recession.

Food and color

Photographing food can be considered an art form, most critics refer to it as still life and I must agree to a certain degree.  Many people shoot food because they are interested in the forms, colors, and textures which I agree should be considered still life or sculpture.  However, I think that when food is photographed merely for the sake of advertising and promotion, of specific products, that it shouldn’t be considered art at all.  I thought that the majority of the images that were posted on the blog fell more into the advertising/promotional aspect of food, so I was inspired to look up some artists whose works would actually be in the fine art canon.  I hope these references can offer some inspiration to you all; they did for me.  Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Martha Friedman, Carl Warner, Dieter Roth were some of the people whose work I thought fell into this category. 

Giuseppe Arcimboldo  is an artist who used food as art; although he was a renaissance painter and not a photographer, I think he exemplifies the use of food in fine art. 

  Martha Friedman uses food or the forms of food in her art; she creates playful, large scale sculptures using the forms of food in many of her works.  

 Carl Warner uses food to create interesting 2D landscapes that he refers to as being “foodscapes”.

 Dieter Roth’s use of food is different than that of the others, because he actually used real food to create his imagery so that he could see how the work evolved as it decayed. 

 

Perception, Stop Motion, and the Circle of Life.

Stop motion animation is another technique that we have learned about this semester that actually has very old roots in the arts, but because of contemporary practices is considered New Media.  Thomas Edison’s invention of the kinetoscope and Casler’s mutoscope invention pioneered the way for the film industry to become such a success and also were the technological inspiration for special effects.   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetoscope

Both of these machines worked on the same principal of stop animation and created the same effects that we are creating in the 21^st century, they just used different photographic techniques and were unable to project their images.    

Like most people, I really enjoy stop animation and can remember it from my youth because of the Christmas movies Rudolph the red nosed reindeer and the Grinch who stole Christmas, as well as all of the truly bad dinosaur “B” movies from the fifties and sixties. It would also be a travesty to forget Gojira for Godzilla’s sake.    

I think that Amanda’s choice to use the topic of the “circle of life” is really interesting because we don’t generally notice the decay of things on a time lapse so for us to actually be able to perceive it will be entertaining.   Her choice of subject should be the most important element of the piece; however, the way that she demonstrates the circle of life and the decline of her subject will be interesting to see because it can be, depending on the subject, a pretty grotesque thing to watch. I am extremely interested in seeing how she incorporates all of the elements of the circle of life in her project as well: birth, life, and death.

In Motion: The Dynamic of the Blur

I really appreciated all of the images that were chosen for this presentation, I think they are wonderful examples of how motion can be captured by using the photographic process.  It is interesting that you can look at an image that was created by Muybridge or Marey over a hundred years ago, when photography was in it's infancy, and see how they did what some contemporary photographers are trying to do today.  Capturing the motion that is occurring in an image can be a daunting task at times, some people get very frustrated by unwanted motion and dispense it as an exposure problem, others attempt to purposely do it and have absolutely no success at all.  I personally enjoy images that have had motion intentionally added to them, especially when they are done well and aren't too gimmicky, taking an image that would otherwise be completely static and making it appear to be almost animated can be a really effective aesthetic or compositional choice.  
    I completely agree with the description on the seamonkey site; that when blurred motion or stop motion is used in a photograph that it can serve as an aide for creative interpretation. The juxtaposition that is created is quite powerful and it definitely helps the viewer to "pull more than just aesthetics from the work, but and understanding of the meaning."  I am really excited to see the final images, I'm sure they will be very dynamic.

Abandonment: Potential in the Ruins

Kim-
    I believe that you have a really good subject to work with, I have always found abandonment to be a fascinating subject; how can someone or people just up and leave a person or place and not give consideration or understand the impact that it's going to have on that person or place.  I believe that you are fortunate to have our great city of Detroit at your access for this project because it is an excellent example of abandonment. Having personally spent a great deal of time in the city, I have seen the abandonment first hand and am astonished that such a once amazing city can be in complete ruins. When people or places are abandoned they always have the appearance of emptiness and convey sadness because we know that there was once life there and Detroit is a perfect place to document those emotions.  I agree with you and think that it is very important to not just skim over the matter, paying attention to the elements that are often overlooked is what people need to think about and I'm looking forward to seeing how you address it.  A lot of people think that Detroit is a lost cause because of the condition it's in now, however it's projects like this that can bring things to light and restore some hope for the city.

artist presentation

Kumi Yamashita
question mark, 2003

steel, light, shadow
h200cm, w150cm, d20cm
collection of Namba Parks Tower
Osaka, Japan
http://kumiyamashita.com/

Chinese shadow puppets
shadow pup­petry orig­i­nated in the Han dynasty to help con­sole an emperor mourn­ing a lost con­cu­bine. The per­form­ers brought the image of his beloved back to life with two ele­ments: leather shapes and light!

http://www.timnobleandsuewebster.com/
Tim Nobel & Sue Webster
HE/SHE, (Diptych) 2004
He: 96x148x185cm
She: 100x186x144cm

 Norman Rockwell
Shadow Artist
cover of country gentleman
magazine.
1920, oil on canvas
collection of George Lucas
Smithsonian art museumhttp://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128360139

Personal Style & Personal Traits: the Reality of Identity.

Alexandra,

    I think you're off to a good start and your choice of topic is something that you can truly find a lot of references and information on in order to help you develop your project.  Fashion is and probably always will be something that people use to identify themselves with; even though all of it is borrowed from somewhere or someone else, in some way.  I think that people use fashion as an identifier all the time, it has always been a cliche that you can tell a lot about people by how they dress.  However, I personally believe that to be an untrue statement. People are just like books; you can never judge them by the way they are covered. When I was younger, I was always very conscientious about my clothing and the way that I looked when I went out into public, or anywhere for that matter, because I was always concerned that if I didn't present myself in a certain fashion that some people (the people I was trying to impress or belong with) wouldn't take me seriously or would think I had bad taste;  obviously, I cancelled my subscription to that years ago. I think that the fact that fashion is such a media based and driven form of representation is the problem, as you pointed out on your page people look to movie stars, pop stars, magazines, web pages... for their identity because they think that if they emulate those people or what they see looks good on others that people will think they have the same characteristics.
    I'm curious to know if this is something that troubles you about yourself or if it is something that you recognize in others and it bothers you or raises questions about the validity of their choices.