Monthly Archives: March 2017

Final Project, Research

4D II Project 2 – Individual Research

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  • Santiago Sierra
    • Santiago Sierra is a performance artists that has caused waves in his exploration of capitalism: the exploitation of workers and immigrant poverty. One of his most controversial works was when he blockaded the entrance to the Spanish Pavilion in 2003, during the  Venice Biennale. He only allowed entry to Spanish passport-holders; a form of discrimination. He has also questioned the nature of employment in art institutions – he paid a museum watchman to live for 365 hours behind a wall at MoMA. In another installation, he filled the Kestner Gesellschaft museum with 400 tons of mud (a reflection on the creation of a Hanover lake using unemployed people as cheap labor).
House in Mud (2005)

 

  • Maurizio Cattelan
    • Cattelan has done many controversial works commenting on the ‘readymade’, seemingly lackluster effort in many modern contemporary artists’ work. He has stolen an entire artist’s show from a gallery and tried to sell it as his own, titling it “Another Fucking Readymade.” However, his most controversial work was “All”, a Guggenheim retrospective.  He hung his work from the ceiling. However, what was hung was high-end, valuable internationally collected art suspended in the air from cables.
“All”
  • Guillermo Vargas
    • Guillermo Varga’s work is controversial for his installation featuring an emaciated dog. He featured the words “You Are What You Read” behind the dog, the letters spelled out with dog food. The controversy behind this work is that the dog died after the exhibition from starvation, but Vargas argued that no one who saw intervened by feeding the dog.
“You Are What You Eat”

What I have learned from all of these controversial artists, is that they make headlines and draw attention because they focus on work that is very of the ‘now’. What I mean by this is that within their given contexts, they exhibit and display work about things that they notice and observe about society today. Specific things that they want to comment on, the things that they believe are affecting society today. For example, Sierra’s work on immigrant discrimination and capitalism is something that has affected human behaviour and he creates a very glaring, obvious commentary through his performance art. What I have learned from my research is that they take aspects of life that surround people (e.g. contemporary ‘ready made’ art, capitalism) and bring it into the limelight. Such things make us (as the audience) uncomfortable because we choose to live amongst things that may be otherwise morally wrong, and to face it head-on through installations or performance art is forcing us to face it ourselves, that this is the society we live in.

Project

4D II Project 2 – Soundscape

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AN URBAN MESS

SoundCloud Link

ARTIST STATEMENT

“An Urban Mess” is a soundscape that draws you into the overlaying of sounds that exist in modern living. I wanted to create an auditory environment that evokes a scenario of being in a bedroom in the city, or in a very busy urban place. We tend to think of our bedrooms as a place of peace and quiet, but often times that isn’t the case. I noticed that the whirring of fans or the hum of air-conditioners combined with our constant laptop typing, phones, and outside noises we hear in our room combine to give quite a chaotic scene. My soundscape shows a contrast between what we think is ‘quiet’ in our rooms with true quiet – which I think is our breathing and our heartbeat. This piece goes from the chaos of a regular urban, modern life to something that we tend to forget we need in this time of noise and busyness.

CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT AND RESEARCH

I initially wanted to explore soundscapes in nature, like the ocean, or a forest, or a desert. However, while I was trying to think of ideas in my room, I started to realise how noisy everything was around me, even though I was in a space where I was the only person.

Watching movies that take place in city areas like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and The Devil Wears Prada helped me realise just how noisy everything was. I wanted to include city aspects like sirens, but also largely focus on what happens when we’re alone and seemingly ‘at peace’ in our rooms.

The largest part of my research stemmed from the in-class activity where we were tasked with recreating a zoom recording using other items (e.g tapping on a water bottle) to imitate/mimic a sound. My final soundscape uses much more organic sounds that aren’t hard to recreate, but the process educated me on how to use a zoom recorder. I learned about its sensitivity and how to operate it properly.

I also learned how to use audio-focused software; operating GarageBand to help me edit my soundscape. Layering and adjusting fade-ins, fade-outs and other aspects of audio was time-consuming but worth it, as I gained more knowledge of another software. A challenge for my project was figuring out the sequence and layering for my audio files, as I have a lot of different sounds that are going on at the same time. I eventually decided that I wanted to contrast a lot of sounds with true quiet. My version of true quiet is breathing and a heartbeat.

The effect that I was going after was making the listener realise the essence of true quietness in an urban world.

Project 2 Zine: Research

2D II ZINE: Likeable Layouts

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During my research, I was looking at different Zine layouts that caught my eye and compiled 5 of the best ones here, stating what I like best about them.

one

I like this Zine layout because of the strict colour scheme. Pink and mint green work uncannily well together and the layout is definitely not standard – a lot of overlapping of both text and photos makes it very interesting to look at. Even the photos have been edited to match the colour scheme. Though I appreciate this layout for its aesthetics, I’m not sure about how functional and effective it is for actually understanding the text. However, I admire its avant-garde style, it makes it quite original.

two

I like this layout because of the black and white. I usually tend to like darker backgrounds with lighter text. I really like how abstract the background is – it simply looks good, and it reminds you of the stars. I think it’s important to have the design remind you of what the zine’s contents are – if this zine is about stargazing, it does its job well. I also like the singular box in the centre; there is no need for visual hierarchy because there is only one thing you’re supposed to be looking at. The appreciation for simplicity is very obvious in this design.

three

This zine masters a concept that is hard to execute – variety. Zines are aesthetically pleasing when they follow similar layouts on each spread, with the same colour scheme – it looks well composed and very coherent. Variety is important too however, if you want to saturate your reader’s mind with everything you want to talk about (I think this is very valuable for travel zines). This zine pulls off everything from a two-page spread, combines both illustration AND photography, and uses multiple styles of layouts. Each page is a new color scheme, theme, and layout that makes you excited to turn to the next spread.

four

This zine makes good use of geometry. In addition to the colour scheme, you can see cohesion throughout because of the simple use of shapes and line. The colourful shapes against the black and white background also serve to highlight the important aspects of each page, so one doesn’t get lost in the middle of all the geometry The font is also very simplistic, so that all the elements don’t jumble and fall onto one another – complicated, but easy at the same time.

 five

For this zine, I like it a lot because of how beautiful the illustration is. The colours of text and the drawings are also kept simple to make sure the photographs are appreciated, but the illustration is gorgeous – and links the pages too! Birds are an obvious recurring motif throughout the zine and they add a special original touch. It makes me want to illustrate in my zine too.