This project has encouraged an ongoing internal dialogue about the intention of art, the role of the artists, and what art should be within society. My specific artwork serves as a visual exploration into interactivity verses collaboration. While my project began as an interactive artwork, it has since shifted into a collaborative piece that serves as a means for me to explore the importance of the object, the breakdown of artists and audience, and removal/engagement of the gallery space. I would not claim that my work is a finished piece, but that it is an introductory work that will lead to a long line of works where I will be addressing the conceptual questions that were just stated. While I did not create interactive artwork, artwork where the artist has dictation over how much and in what way the audience can interact with the art, I did create a collaborative piece. I wanted to use this piece as a means to strive to achieve equality and blurring of the artist-audience relationship. The audience within this specific work is my peers, specifically those who influence me on a daily basis, both artistically and personally. So, I collaborated with those that influence and push me mentally by having them influence the medium that I would use for this project. Those that engage with me through conversation and influence now became the ones who had influence over the physicality of my art. My work is collaborative because the medium that I used was all donated items from my peers. They dictated what my medium would be. Also, through this engagement I was in an ongoing dialogue with my peers about my art making, art in general, the object I was creating, and how they felt about art. So, in that sense, the influence and collaborative element within my work is a two part element: I was influenced within my material use and through the dialogue and constant engagement that I was having with the people around me. In that way my artwork is successful because it opened artistic communication and influence with my peers, and allowed for a fluid conversation to occur throughout the process of creation. With that said, this artwork did successfully experiment with breaking down artists and audience boundaries, and equalizing artists and audience. But, it was also a selective breakdown; the people who influenced my art were a selected group that I engage with on a regular basis, and not random or large amounts of people. It would be interesting to explore how much my art, and the conversation that occurred from my art, would have changed if I had been open to working with anyone. Within this work I also explored the importance of the object and the gallery setting. I used this project to create a visual representation of my questioning of some theoretical issues within contemporary art. I undeniably made an object, and even though I was influenced by those around me, the object is still a visible representation of my individual work as an artist. I am trying to explore how to break down the structure of artist, work, audience, and consumption while at the same time feel fulfilled as an artist. I in no way claim to have even come close to solving that concept, but I do think that this artwork explores those issues. By creating and displaying the object I am isolating myself and my work into something separate from the audience. As described above, my process re-engaged with the audience by having them influence my work. I think that my object also re-engages with the audience and space outside of the institution of the gallery by having the roping from the sculpture leave the gallery and enter public space. In this way my sculpture is not stagnant and isolated in the elevated gallery setting, but is attempting to enter public everyday space. However, at the same time, my sculpture is still in the studio removed from the every day, so perhaps I need to explore more public art making and how that could further break down the institution of the gallery, yet still satisfy my need to create some form of an object and physically do work. I think that this work is an unfinished exploration, but that it does successfully touch on visual ways I can explore some of the theoretical issues I am dealing with. I deliberately decided not to create interactive art, but my work is still collaborative. What it did was encourage engagement, and explore the boundaries that art-making can break down and the boundaries that art-making can enforce. I think that this was successful artwork because it was an experiment of conceptual ideas, but I think that it is not a finished project because my ideas are not finished.
For some reason I seem to pick ideas that hinge one details out of my control for their success, especially the weather. I am glad that I have gotten lucky in that regard though. I think that this one will be successful, provided that tomorrow is not rainy, or too windy. It was the second in an exercise of mine to reexamine how we relate to the geographic/land features of the school. I wanted to challenge myself to build a floating sculpture. At first I wanted to build something that used the wind to create a sound, so that the piece was multidimensional, in that it acted on more than one sense. I had to settle with just the visual stimulation provided by the pinwheels. The piece is whimsical and fantastic, as it is an island built on trash. But under closer inspection, one is able to see that it is more plastic and false vegetation "growing". I really do not see it as a comment on anything in particular, but feel like someone will probably take it as a message about trash or something. Or perhaps they will think it is about how people should not try to build their own island.
For my Interactive art piece I started by carving a woman’s face into wood. I didn’t have a concrete plan for what my completed piece would be but I needed a starting place with some sort of art that I liked doing. After finishing the face I realized I wanted to make a mobile which left me with the planning of what objects should be hanging from the structure. I looked around my room and found a rock I had taken from the sandy shore at Saint Mary’s and decided it should include pieces I found on the shore. After wandering along the shore I had found a bunch of items that I found pretty and brought them back to create the mobile. While I was thinking of what to use or pick up for my mobile I kept thinking of different parts of my life I could focus on for objects. Usually when I am stressed out I go to the beach and wander around there until I feel better so I decided that I should use things found there to make up my mobile. I’m pretty sure this decision was most directly made by the fact that I was very stressed this past week and that the wood carving I created made me think of a shipwrecked piece that had washed up on shore. During the making of my mobile I kept thinking about how it would be great to have more time to collect pieces from the shore. It made me want each object hanging from the mobile to have meaning to me but that takes time and different opportunities. Perhaps when I hang it up in my room I can switch out different pieces when I find ones I like and relate to more. It is however interesting to me to have this one piece I made and put a lot of work into hanging in the middle with many unimportant objects around it. It made me feel as if the girl in the middle was having many random thoughts that weren’t particularly important which I did like. I believe this piece showed the use of interactive art because I want people to be able to touch it and look closely. The mobile moves in many different ways such as when the centerpiece rotates while the outer objects go in the opposite direction. While the mobile wasn’t particularly involved in mechanics and engineering like many of the amazing pieces we viewed in videos and pictures, it is still interactive and I am happy with it.
Kate- Interactivity Intention Statement
ReplyDeleteThis project has encouraged an ongoing internal dialogue about the intention of art, the role of the artists, and what art should be within society. My specific artwork serves as a visual exploration into interactivity verses collaboration. While my project began as an interactive artwork, it has since shifted into a collaborative piece that serves as a means for me to explore the importance of the object, the breakdown of artists and audience, and removal/engagement of the gallery space. I would not claim that my work is a finished piece, but that it is an introductory work that will lead to a long line of works where I will be addressing the conceptual questions that were just stated. While I did not create interactive artwork, artwork where the artist has dictation over how much and in what way the audience can interact with the art, I did create a collaborative piece. I wanted to use this piece as a means to strive to achieve equality and blurring of the artist-audience relationship. The audience within this specific work is my peers, specifically those who influence me on a daily basis, both artistically and personally. So, I collaborated with those that influence and push me mentally by having them influence the medium that I would use for this project. Those that engage with me through conversation and influence now became the ones who had influence over the physicality of my art. My work is collaborative because the medium that I used was all donated items from my peers. They dictated what my medium would be. Also, through this engagement I was in an ongoing dialogue with my peers about my art making, art in general, the object I was creating, and how they felt about art.
So, in that sense, the influence and collaborative element within my work is a two part element: I was influenced within my material use and through the dialogue and constant engagement that I was having with the people around me. In that way my artwork is successful because it opened artistic communication and influence with my peers, and allowed for a fluid conversation to occur throughout the process of creation. With that said, this artwork did successfully experiment with breaking down artists and audience boundaries, and equalizing artists and audience. But, it was also a selective breakdown; the people who influenced my art were a selected group that I engage with on a regular basis, and not random or large amounts of people. It would be interesting to explore how much my art, and the conversation that occurred from my art, would have changed if I had been open to working with anyone.
Within this work I also explored the importance of the object and the gallery setting. I used this project to create a visual representation of my questioning of some theoretical issues within contemporary art. I undeniably made an object, and even though I was influenced by those around me, the object is still a visible representation of my individual work as an artist. I am trying to explore how to break down the structure of artist, work, audience, and consumption while at the same time feel fulfilled as an artist. I in no way claim to have even come close to solving that concept, but I do think that this artwork explores those issues. By creating and displaying the object I am isolating myself and my work into something separate from the audience. As described above, my process re-engaged with the audience by having them influence my work. I think that my object also re-engages with the audience and space outside of the institution of the gallery by having the roping from the sculpture leave the gallery and enter public space. In this way my sculpture is not stagnant and isolated in the elevated gallery setting, but is attempting to enter public everyday space. However, at the same time, my sculpture is still in the studio removed from the every day, so perhaps I need to explore more public art making and how that could further break down the institution of the gallery, yet still satisfy my need to create some form of an object and physically do work.
I think that this work is an unfinished exploration, but that it does successfully touch on visual ways I can explore some of the theoretical issues I am dealing with. I deliberately decided not to create interactive art, but my work is still collaborative. What it did was encourage engagement, and explore the boundaries that art-making can break down and the boundaries that art-making can enforce. I think that this was successful artwork because it was an experiment of conceptual ideas, but I think that it is not a finished project because my ideas are not finished.
For some reason I seem to pick ideas that hinge one details out of my control for their success, especially the weather. I am glad that I have gotten lucky in that regard though. I think that this one will be successful, provided that tomorrow is not rainy, or too windy.
ReplyDeleteIt was the second in an exercise of mine to reexamine how we relate to the geographic/land features of the school. I wanted to challenge myself to build a floating sculpture. At first I wanted to build something that used the wind to create a sound, so that the piece was multidimensional, in that it acted on more than one sense. I had to settle with just the visual stimulation provided by the pinwheels.
The piece is whimsical and fantastic, as it is an island built on trash. But under closer inspection, one is able to see that it is more plastic and false vegetation "growing". I really do not see it as a comment on anything in particular, but feel like someone will probably take it as a message about trash or something. Or perhaps they will think it is about how people should not try to build their own island.
Interactive Intention Statement
ReplyDeleteKate Brown
For my Interactive art piece I started by carving a woman’s face into wood. I didn’t have a concrete plan for what my completed piece would be but I needed a starting place with some sort of art that I liked doing. After finishing the face I realized I wanted to make a mobile which left me with the planning of what objects should be hanging from the structure. I looked around my room and found a rock I had taken from the sandy shore at Saint Mary’s and decided it should include pieces I found on the shore. After wandering along the shore I had found a bunch of items that I found pretty and brought them back to create the mobile.
While I was thinking of what to use or pick up for my mobile I kept thinking of different parts of my life I could focus on for objects. Usually when I am stressed out I go to the beach and wander around there until I feel better so I decided that I should use things found there to make up my mobile. I’m pretty sure this decision was most directly made by the fact that I was very stressed this past week and that the wood carving I created made me think of a shipwrecked piece that had washed up on shore.
During the making of my mobile I kept thinking about how it would be great to have more time to collect pieces from the shore. It made me want each object hanging from the mobile to have meaning to me but that takes time and different opportunities. Perhaps when I hang it up in my room I can switch out different pieces when I find ones I like and relate to more. It is however interesting to me to have this one piece I made and put a lot of work into hanging in the middle with many unimportant objects around it. It made me feel as if the girl in the middle was having many random thoughts that weren’t particularly important which I did like.
I believe this piece showed the use of interactive art because I want people to be able to touch it and look closely. The mobile moves in many different ways such as when the centerpiece rotates while the outer objects go in the opposite direction. While the mobile wasn’t particularly involved in mechanics and engineering like many of the amazing pieces we viewed in videos and pictures, it is still interactive and I am happy with it.