LINE
While I did struggle with the style of writing in Walking In the City, I thoroughly enjoyed the ideas that Michel De Certeau's expressed about the urban landscape. I especially enjoyed his thoughts about how a city is nothing without people; No matter how sophisticated a city is designed, if there are no people, the buildings will remain empty shells and the streets hollow. I also enjoyed the way that De Certeau's was able to take the city, something that we are so accustomed to, and transform it into something artfu with his poetic prose. While most pedestrians recognize the beauty of the city, most don’t consider themselves as an essential piece to New York; in a city of millions of people, how can a single person’s story matter? However, De Certeau claims that “the chorus of idle footsteps” is essential to the patchwork of the city; Our “intertwined paths give shape to spaces” and we “weave places together”, creating a intricate network of stories that are inseparable from each other. After reading this article, I remember walking outside and being hyper aware of the daily route I take to class-- suddenly, every pedestrian that walked by or bumped into me seemed to have a much bigger impact on how I walked than they had the day before. I started to think about the line I made from my hall to class, and how each person walking influenced where I placed my foot, and how my decisions are directly affected by other people’s “lines”, no matter at what angle they intersect. I also enjoyed his sentiment about how space is constantly fluctuating as the definition created by one person is immediately changed when another comes along.
For my line drawings, De Certeau made me think about viewing everyday circumstances through a different lense––one that is more calculated. I was listening to music while reading Walking In The City, and I started to think about the path that music takes when people listen to it. Similar to how a city with no people is an empty shell, music with no listeners has no route; the melody will float in the air with no direction if no one is there to hear. I decided to divide the music into several different categories and map the “path” it walks. De Certeau made me think about mundane, everyday occurrences with much more direction. While this thought may be more abstract, it also had me thinking about how though music has a one, concrete structure, the path it takes for each listener is different. The simultaneous objectivity and subjectivity of music’s “path”, or the song as a whole, is incredibly fascinating.
THE WHITNEY
Score for Dance
In his piece Score for Dance #1, artist and choreographer Philip Glass created a visual art piece rooted in the collaboration of dance and visual art. Captured on video, Glass composed a five-part dance to a score he had written and with his collaborator, painter Lucinda Childs, projected a drawing of the motion of the dancers. The drawings alongside colored lights map out the repetitive movement of the dancers. Performance art is a unique because there is a great amount of time put in leading up to the performance, so its short duration can be a dilemma. In Score for a Dance #1, the artists put together an outcome that immortalizes the art of dance and subsequently creates a new type of art out of the conjunction of still and moving art. Through this project, Glass and Childs create an art piece that will last forever out of a brief moment. The dancers bring the drawing to life, and the drawings add another aspect to the dancers’ motion. Both can exist without the other yet completely transform eachother when brought together.
Ambigious Icons
Jim Campbell, an electronic-based artist, breaks down the art of digital image to its very basics: units of light. In his piece Ambiguous Icon #5, Campbell explores the ability of the digital image through a matrix of pixels constructed from red LED lights. The matrix shows a loop of a man running and falling. At first glance, it may be hard to decipher the image; once seen, however, it cannot be unseen. Even though it is constructed from very low-resolution pixels, the loop could not be clearer. Campbell showcases the abilities of programmed electronics and draws attention to the threshold of our ability to view images through low-resolution images, creating art out matrixes and patterns. People may not think of technology as that much of an artform but Campbell challenges this idea through his pixel art, allowing for a unique take on something that may seem very mundane to some.
Tilted Plane
In another of Campbell's pieces, Tilted Plane, Campbell puts a two-dimensional image into a three dimensional space by using perspective and lights. The light bulbs that hang from the ceiling of the space act as pixels that act as a low-resolution image. The lights flicker in different patterns that appear differently depending on what angle the viewer is standing, displaying the flexibility in the otherwise rigid medium of matrix and pixels. However, Campbell is able to push these boundaries and show the malleability of electronic art. Just like in his piece "Ambigious Icons", Campell challenges the notion that art rooted in technology must be static. He pushes these creative boundries through his use of technology in a different way.
NEWS
With the decline in popularity of the newspaper at a result of technology, it's easier to strip back the medium and examine how it is constructed. It is important to examine anywhere we get our information to see if it is biased or misconstrued. In the era of fake news, it is essential that we break down the information we recieve and pay attention to where we recieve it from. The use of images in the news is especially intriguing as often we don’t question why they’re there –– it’s just a given that they appear alongside headlines. To question this, I separated the images ––all taken from a one newspaper–– from the headlines allowing the viewer to focus solely on the images. However, since the headline does change our perception of the image, I made a flap that when opened reveals it. It’s interesting to see the differences in the headline size compared to the images, as well as what images were chosen to fit the headline. I found it interesting to look at all of the images from one newspaper and compare them to eachother and see the consistenties and disparities between the images. For example, for the images of the people, I was not surprised that the majoirty of the images were men. For the events, I was able to appreciate the images as art objects much more.
OUTLINES
To strip back everyday objects to their outlines is to examine their form and their shape. For our outlines, I found a lot of pleasure in outlining objects I usually don’t think about and finding their patterns. It’s important to view mundane parts of life as art as it helps bring us pleasure in the more boring parts of life. I’ve especially enjoyed the outline of a sign I see everyday walking out of my dorm –– I notice it daily but after I made the outline I started to notice its shape more and the repetition of the squares. Now when I walk out of the doors, I see the shape and pattern rather than just an ugly sign. This project helps me to notice the form in different objects and I feel like I am more aware of shape and perspective in images. I think as a photographer I am always noticing shape but never really that consciously, but this assignment made me feel more aware of shape in my images.
INTERACTION OF COLOR
I was drawn to this scene mainly because of the colors; I was particularly struck by the variety of blue tones in the sky, the gentle gradient leading from the top of the frame to the tip of the mountain into the white clouds. The blue tones are light and airy which heavily contrasts the deep, rich brown tones of the mountain. The browns of the image are deep and rich but not overbearing but rather grounding against the airy blues. There is one part of this image, however, that pulls that lets these two very different colors coexist without clashing: the very small section of yellow that leads up the road and the red cars add little bits of vibrancy to an otherwise more muted scene. This balance of completely different colors makes the tones of this image very intriguing to look at it. This assignment made me really think about what kind of colors I am drawn to in a scene and think about why I am drawn to them; I've noticed that i ma attracted to cooler, mellower tones with some kind of pop of color.