Art history always have its own biased opinions be it by the ancestors or art historians, but it is these opinions and ideas that shaped the response/ image of our world heritage. While what we learnt might not be always true, we are able to understand the thinking of these people nontheless.
August 2018
Research Critique: Please Change Beliefs (1997)
Jenny Holzer, Please Change Beliefs (1997)
Upon entering the site, I was quite confused at what was the site about with the website changing a new quote every few seconds and the title of the work “Please Change Beliefs”. After exploring around, I realised that this website is about truism and how the public can vote and change the truism they believe in.
After clicking on the truism, I was brought to the next page where I can vote for the various truism that I believe in.
After choosing the various truisms, I was brought to the results page where you can see the number of votes for each truism. I felt a sense of familiarity due to its similarity to various social media like Instagram where users can hold polls to engage with their followers and poll sites like doodle where users can choose a date that they are free in this coordinates in group meetups.
Looking at all the quotes, I can’t help but curate imaginary scenarios in my head to form up the circumstances of each truism and to judge the justifiability of the quotes. This work intrigues me to ponder over whether our beliefs are facts and does it really hold true to everyone. For example, “Even your family can betray you”. While I can’t relate fully to this quote as I did not experienced this before, I can imagine the circumstances that this can happen and hence, this truism holds true.
Adding on, I always see art in the form of visual, performances and audio. With people defining this metascape as a internet art, I was confused at how should one define art? Technically, it does put forth an idea and thinking that is truism and it engages the audience with its input of one’s own truism and voting system, which parallels with the idea of most artworks. But the unique way of representation of this art piece really intrigues me and challenged the boundary of our definition of art. In my opinion, I am still in a dilemma, not due to me disliking or rejecting this work, but I find it interesting and excited that I am trying to evolve my own thinking to appreciate and understand internet art and many different forms of art. I am still in the phase of picking up new things as I go along and understanding the concept and gist of the art scene.
References:
- https://art.colorado.edu/hiaff/review4da6.html?id=116&cid=7
- https://elmcip.net/creative-work/please-change-beliefs
- http://gallery9.walkerart.org/midobject.html?id=10604
LED // Rainbow Dome
Group Members: Yi Jie, Felicia, Jin Yee and Hannah
First Sketch
Our initial idea was to interact with the audience through the stepping of sensors on the ground to initiate different lightings of the rainbow dome- when all the sensors are stepped, a rainbow will be formed. However, this feels more of an installation than a device.
Second Sketch
Hence, we decided to include the factor of time into our dome.
With the red part of the rainbow indicating that it is morning and purple being night, there will be different parts of the led stripes lighting up to indicate the exact timing at the moment. Will update more of our process in the next post.
Research and Moodboard
Chinese Oriental Style
- Chinese Painting
- Ancient Chinese music that links to the beautiful scenery in China
- Normally depicts nature objects like bamboo, mountains, fishes
- Example of link between music and chinese paintings: Chinese writings claim that in 2697 BCE the emperor sent a scholar, Ling Lun, to the western mountain area to cut bamboo pipes that could emit sounds matching the call of the pheonix, an immortal bird whose rare appearance signaled harmony in the reign of a new emperor. By imitating the sound of the bird, Huangdi made possible the creation of music properly pitched to harmonize his rulership with the universe.
- Colours associated: dull washed inks, black, seldom use of pinks and bright colours
Foxes
- Music as a form of message/ idea
- Foxes and humans lived close together in ancient Japan; this companionship gave rise to legends about the creatures. Kitsune have become closely associated with Inari, a spirit, and serve as its messengers.
- Often depicted with nature that can be linked to the oriental style
- Movement of foxes: swift, arrogant, proud, cunning and subtle at times, bold
- Resembles the multi-perspective of music
- Colours associated: Red, Orange, Black, Purple
References:
- https://www.britannica.com/art/Chinese-music
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsune
- https://www.chinatour360.com/culture/art/
- http://www.123independenceday.com/china/art-and-culture.html
Micro Project: Video Double
Created my video using Tiktok- this platform allows everyone to be a creator, and encourages users to share their passion and creative expression through short videos. My alter ego in this video is a 网红，someone who is famous online.
Beware: Cringy content.
Open Source Studio: Research Critique
Open source platforms have opened up the boundary to advocate for more community participation, creating a space for collective efforts to constantly push the boundaries of creative thinking. With the ease of accessing such platforms at the tip of the fingers, artists/ aspiring content makers can easily find inspirations for their next artwork or even share their experience and thoughts. For students like us, open source platforms meant that we can save money on licensed inspirations and resources. It is useful when a question/ difficulty is posted online and people are prone to answer it. However, the trustability of these open source sites maybe questionable at times due to it being open to the public, with most people being unlikely to be professionals in the field.
One example of open source platforms given by Prof. Randall Parker’s article is Wikipedia. To most people on the web, Wikipedia is not an unfamiliar website to us and we often use Wikipedia to access quick information and to roughly familiarise ourselves with certain topics and genres. It provides the audiences the ease of information and also constantly update them with the latest news in our fast paced society. One good example of the detrimental side of open-source websites can be seen here at Wikipedia; just because an information source is extensive and easily available, it doesn’t make it authoritative. This is why we should proceed carefully when using such platforms as human factors like biased feelings nad opnions may be included in these information at times.
“You still have to carry out the human element of information, which is to compare sources and evaluate what’s good and what isn’t.”
http://www.chronicle.com/blognetwork/castingoutnines/2005/12/07/debating-the-pros-and-cons-of-wikipedia/