My Websiteeee!! Yayyyyy!!!!

Found City of Atlantis

Cultural Event # 5: Armand Cerbone - Love, Sex, and Stigma in Same Sex Relationships

I am really glad I went to this lecture because it was the best one I have attended all semester.

The lecture started off talking about how there are two basic issues in any relationship, whether it is a heterosexual relationship or homosexual relationship. These issues are autonomy (the need to be your own person and an individual) and attachment (the feeling of being connected to somebody else). In a relationship you need both of these but it is a real challenge. He then talked about stigma and how stigma is an assault on the sense of who you are. He then discussed love and sex. He said love is about the "other" and being attached. Sex is more about "me" and not about the other. This all goes together in a relationship and as you get more intimate with somebody, you have to think about their needs and not just about your own.

He then started to discuss same-sex relationships. For same sex couples, it is hard to distinguish between normal conflict (conflicts any couple would have, such as heterosexual couples) and the conflicts caused by being a same-sex couple. They have to acheive intimacy without the support heterosexual couples get. He then discussed a situation that I think really opened my eyes. He talked about an example of how a gay man who works in an office goes to work everyday and listens to heterosexual coworkers talk about their relationships and their families, and sees how they have pictures of their significant others and families in their office. He then goes to his own office, where he has no pictures, and does not talk about his male significant other. This is because he doesn't know how others will react or if it is "safe" to talk about it. So for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week... he has to keep it pretty hidden. He talked about how if he got invited to a coworker's house for dinner, he wouldnt know if he is allowed to bring his significant other. Then, after all this every day, the man has to go home to his partner and try to switch gears and pretend that this relationship he has with his partner is the most important relationship in the world. He talked about how difficult this is for same-sex relationships because it isnt easy to have to deal with that all day and then come home and just flick a switch. This puts a lot of strain on same-sex relationships. I guess for me, I never really realized how hard it must be for same-sex relationships. I always knew that there are a lot of people that are not accepting of it, but the way Mr. Cerbone described it just made it seem so sad. And then when a kid stood up and asked a question about how to overcome it, it almost seemed hopeless. We live in a really intolerant culture.

Anyways, the moral to Mr. Cerbone's talk was that we have to appreciate and support same-sex relationships for the challenges they take on. Being in a relationship (heterosexual) is hard enough trying to balance love (attachment) and sex (autonomy), but throwing in stigma into the mix (which is the case for same-sex relationships) makes it so much more difficult.

Cultural Event # 4: David LaMotte

David Lamotte began his talk discussing "what is art" and "what is activism". He then began to discuss whether or not famous people should openly discuss politics. He thinks that people should speak out about everything and run the dialogue on political issues. Then he started talking about how everywhere you go there are television sets. He said in order for you to have a conversation you need to tune out the televisions. He said our society has become better ignorers instead of better listeners. As an artist, it is your job to listen, look, and percieve. He said that half of art is perceiving and the other hald is rendering. Then he started talking about debating issues with people. The best way to persuade somebody is to relate to the person and find a commonality. Art is a powerful way to bridge the gap between people with different ideas or views. He said he responds to music in two diferent ways: cerebrally and emotionally. He talked about how he can see a work of art and think "oh this is cool, but it doesnt move me". The purpose of art is to make our experiences immediate. He then returned to actvisim and said that it can be positive or negative. He then talked about his career. He is a singer and songwriter that plays accoustic guitar. He likes to write songs about everything. He said he writes about protests, but is not a protest singer. He writes funny songs, but is not a commedian. He writes love songs but isnt a love song writer. He writes christian songs, but is not a religious singer. He just does it all. He likes people that are different from him and have different beliefs and ideas. They intrigue him. He then showed us a video of this small non profit organization he started in Guatemala. He said we can change the world. Yay.

Site Map

Here is my site map! Yay.

Lost City of Atlantis Collage

This is my collage for my website about the Lost City of Atlantis:


Word Associations Include: Atlantis, Map of Atlantis, Treasure Chest, Mermaid, Dolphins, Sharks, Tropical Fish, Coral Reef, Plato, Scuba Diver, Lochness Monster, and Underwater City

Ideas for Website Project

Cage Diving with Great White Sharks
SeaWorld
National Zoo
American Airlines
Atlantis

My First Website

Yayyy!!!!

Click Here!

History of the Internet/Oil Standard Homework

I don't understand how this project is considered art. Mandiberg describes himself as "I am an artist, web person and rogue economist who uses the Internet, Video and performance to explore subjectivity, labor, and commerce. My current work employs Firefox plug-ins and open API platforms to highlight the real environmental costs of a global economy." Assuming I do beleive it is art, he uses the internet as a medium to show people how much commodities cost in terms of their equivalent value in barrels of crude oil. This program according to Mandiberg, is supposed to be "a glimpse into the moment when oil will replace (or already replaced) gold as the standard by which we trade all other goods and currencies". It uses the internet to its best advantage because the internet can show these conversions instantly and easily. Anybody can access and use this program. This piece could not be made any other way because it would be impossible to label every item in the world by hand how much it costs in barrels of crude oil. The internet allows this conversion to be done instantly and in addition, allows it to be shared with the entire world... or at least those with access to the internet.

This work fits into the history of the internet that Sterling describes because he discusses how the internet is a way for people to share and discuss whatever they want with no censors, and how it can reach people all over the world. Mandiberg is obviously trying to make a statement about our dependency on crude oil. The internet allows him to make this statement and share it globally.

Features of this "artwork" that reflect the time in which it was made is the entire concept. He is converting prices to the costs of barrels of crude oil in a time where we are dependent on oil. Today, we know that oil may not be around much longer and we need to come up with alternatives but we still depend on oil greatly. Oil is very controversial today in terms of where we get it from, its effect on the environment, and its constantly inflating price. Other features that reflect the time in which this peice was made is how advanced the program is. 20 years ago, he would not have been able to make this peice, but since we are so technologically advanced, he was able to do it.

Cultural Event # 3: Andrew Kieper

The first thing Andrew Kieper showed us was his work. His piece was interesting. The thing is that it was different every time you play it. He had loops that were unsynced, causing them to be different every time you play it, which means each time is a different experience. The peice was supposed to create a sense of atmosphere and space. He used different audio techniques to create space. He created different textures on the video that were meant to be ambiguous. He used a curtain, natural textures like tree bark and plants, and had a random blue square that periodically would appear in the middle. He said he was trying to defy the viewer's expectations of a narrative. It was interesting but got boring after a few minutes because it felt like you were just watching the same thing over and over.

He then talked with us about three different artists. The first artist was Nam Junpike. He said he was the first artist to use a camcorder. He is most famous for instillations that use televisions such as models that look like robots. The second artis he discussed was Bill Viola. He is one of the most famous video artists. This guy is interested in birth and death and elemental things. His projects work on hude screens in dark rooms. He liked to slow things down or speed things up and use a lot of imagery. The third artist he discussed was Matthew Barney. Apparently he is controversial because he has a lot of money to spend on his videos and art he makes. We watched Cremaster 3 and I could not beleive that this guy is actually a well known artist. It seemed like a joke to me. He was prancing around in a pink kilt, fighting with a half naked tiger woman, while a man melted vaseline and chucked it into a corner. It was just bizarre to me and I didn't get it at all.

I liked Andrew, he was nice. He showed us around the 3rd floor of the library. I feel like he is underappreciated... hiding up there.

Cultural Event # 2: Flawed Art - Mark Cooley

I just realized I never posted about a couple of the artist talks I have been to - so I figured I should do that now!

Mark Cooley is a new media artist. His work tends to involve US government foriegn policies, especially military interventions. One peice he showed us was called American Dreams. This peice was 62 packages that mocked department store toy packages. He installed them on 8 sections of 2'x4' pegboard. He had two rows of these packages. The first row of packages had images that were taken from popular culture. In addition, they had Countries and dates of where we have had military interventions. Inside the packaging, he had toys and games that represented the military such as toy guns. The second row of packages featured images taken from recruitment packages. On these there is a "made in SOME COUNTRY" and in the package, there is a product that was made in that country. On the back of these packages, there were scans of stock market reports and flesh with a word and things related to commerce.

Another peice he showed us was called Bad Dreams. This peice was about the insulated realm you enter when you go into a gallery. This peice had an oxygen tent that suspended over a pedestal with Jansens History of Art Textbook on top. In front of the pedestal, there was a desk facing it with a binder on top of the desk.

Another peice he showed us was called Enduring Freedom V.1. For this peice, he had two televisions on top of two pedistals facing back to back. The 2 pedistals were supposed to represent the twin towers. The TVs were supposed to represent how media and news comes from TV. One television was playing a video tape of documenturies that gave an overview of foreign policy since WWII. In front of this TV, there was a pile of dirt that the person watching the TV would be standing in. There was sureveilance camera that wwas directed at whoever was standing in the dirt. The second television was connected to the camera, which had a target on it. The target would be on the person standing in the dirt. In front of this pedestal, there was a mat that says "United We Stand".

I thought his lecture was okay. It got kind of boring after a while. While his ideas were good, I feel like the way artists and other people keep making political statements about our current government and war is becoming a little cliche.

SMP Critiques

The first critique I attended was Reena's sculpture. It was a large sculpture up on the wall of wooden planes that had color (redish colors) on some of the edges. She said she started off with boxes but ended up using planes. The sculpture was supposed to convey a slow sliding movement and balance that was set on an imaginary diagonal grid. The large scale of the peice was supposed to give a feeling of movement. The sculpture was made up of many constructed of many smaller pieces of 4-5 planes. Those pieces were then put on the wall but not connected, but is supposed to appear as if they are. She said she had a fascination with rectangles and that is what drew her to creating this piece. When they critiqued her, they said that her ambiguity about the reason for rectangles lead to the piece having no purpose. They questioned whether the piece was finished, and when she said yes, they seemed skeptical. They asked her if she had sketched it out and she said she had it layed out in her head. They said that was her downfall. They said they felt like the piece was moving from left to right but not from front to back. They then said that after a certain point, the piece just gets repetitive.

The second critique I attended was Ashley's. She had three different pieces that were all constructed with fabric and embroidery. Her creations were meant to resemble collections in her family's home and how collections are displayed in the home. The pieces were meant to be autobiographical and to resemble collections her family has. The first piece is a bunch of small shadow boxes with different size "buttons" (that she recreated with embroidery). Apparently she recreated all these buttons from her head. The second piece was recreated from a photograph and it was a piece of fabric that had 4 pictures of spoons created with embroidery. She tried to recreate the tarnish in the spoons as well. The third piece was a pice of fabric and was supposed to be a bunch of embroidered old fashioned oil cans. When they critiqued her, they said her pieces just represented objects and that there was no significant part of the pice that represents sentimental feelings or emotions. They said that the oil can piece was confusing and problematic. You couldnt tell they were supposed to be oil cans unless she told you. They said the spoon piece was good and seemed resolves. They said that the button pice was confusing but had potential. The didnt know why she chose to put each individual button in its own shadow box. They felt that the shadow boxes obscured the piece. They said it was a presentation issue.

The third critique I attended was Tom's photography. His was the creation of a photobook. In his photobook, he had paired up images that were similar in their composition. His intentions were to show connections between things in the world around us. It was about an appreciation of life. Very few of the pictures were actually staged. Then he had a few pictures on the wall that did not have a place in the book but he really liked them. He said these pictures he would put up by themselves and not in the book, just because he felt they were really good. When they critiqued him, they said that they were concerned that people would flip through the book quickly and would want people to investigae. The want him to consider the ordering of the pages and also to consider what should be in the gallery. In my opinion, this was the best of the critiques I saw. I liked his idea and I think the pictures worked very well.

The fourth critique I attended was Vanessa's. She had a display that went across an entire wall. It was supposed to represent and play off woman in today's society and how we have the tendency to listen and read magazines and take seriously and listen to what they say. The piece was like it was a journey of self discovery that was directed from a silly magazine. It started off with a cartoon looking drawing she did of a family of foxes. One young female fox is supposed to be the narrator. There is a drawing of her reading self help books. And then a blown up Cosmopolitan magazine cover. Then there is a note saying she discovered Cosmo and has to find herself. There is this a small suitcase. Then there is a map with postcards attached to every place she visited on her religious journey. Then there are magazine pages with fashion styles on it. Then there is letters, cards, and a calender that say she is found a man. So she found love. Then there was evidence that the relationship didnt work out. Then there was a paper that implied that she was looking into plastic surgery. In this piece, Vanessa used a combination of different things such as drawings she did, real items such as the suitcase, hand written letters, magazine pages, and cards. While the piece was interesting and there was definitly a lot to look at, it was a little messy looking and seemed unfinished.

Postcard Proposal

For my postcard project, I am making John Wilkes Booth and Edgar Allan Poe gambling, playing poker in Vegas. I chose to do this because I read the Poe was a gambler and had a lot of gambling debt. On one post card, I will show a view of Poe’s hand and across the table will be sitting John Wilkes Booth. Poe will have a 10 and 7 of hearts. This is because he died on October 7th and the hearts are supposed to represent his story “The Tell Tale Heart”. Next to him he will have beer bottles, since he died a mysterious death that was rumored to be because of alcohol. On the other post card it will be Booth’s hand with Poe sitting across the table. Booth will have two 4’s since he used a .44 caliber gun to shoot Lincoln. Out on the table, the 5 cards will be 4, Ace (which can stand for 1), 4, 6, and 5. This is because Booth shot Lincoln on 4-14-65. Then, to bring it all together, they will be gambling with Pennies and $5 bills since they have Lincoln on them. I intend on finding pictures to scan of a poker table in Vegas, Booth, and Poe. I intend on taking my own pictures of hands holding cards. One for Poe, and one for Booth. I also am going to take a picture of beer bottles and stacks of pennies. I intend on actually scanning in the cards that lay out on the table, pennies, and 5 dollar bills. The interesting thing is that you will need to have both post cards to understand the whole picture. Only with both post cards will you know who is on each side of the table and who actually wins the hand.

Celebrity Sports -Flav Plays Soccer

The contest I entered was called "Celebrity Sports". For the contest, I was supposed to take a non-athlete celebrity and photoshop that celeb to make it look like he is playing a professional sport. For mine, I chose to make Flavor Flav play soccer.
I used a variety of photoshop techniques to make this image. I took a picture of soccer players and put Flav's head on it. First I used the cloning tool to erase the original guy's head so it was just the background. Then I put Flav's head in its place. I had to use the arbitrary rotating CCW thing on his head so it would match the position of the body. Then for the neck, I used the healing tool to make it look natural. For the arms and the legs, I used the magnetic lasso tool to select those areas and i reduced the brightness since the original player was white. I had to match the arms with the tone of Flav's face. I also used the burn tool for this. For the clock, I used the magnetic lasso tool to cut it out of a different picture and then pasted it on the picture. For the rope around the neck, I used the brush tool. Go Flav!!!! Yeahhhhhhh Booooyyyyy!!!!

Click here to get to the contest entry.

William S. Burroughs Reading

After reading the reading, my opinion about the cut up technique is that I don't really like it. I feel like all it does is jumble up words so that is doesn't really make any sense. I don't think that it should be compared to an artist's collage at all. This is because I feel a collage is something you visually look at, and normally all of the cut up images are put together with some type of common theme that makes sense. Cutting up words and phrases and pasting them together I feel is nothing like that. The randomness of it also makes it less comphrensive when it is done. The examples of cut ups that are in the reading are not appealing to me at all. The finished product just seems like a mess to me, like it is butchering the English language. I personally just dont like it. My question is what do people who actually like this "cut up method" find appealing about it?

Magic Wand, Smudge, and Sharpen Tools

Dada Artist: Man Ray

The Dada Artist whose artwork I chose to discuss is Man Ray.

The first peice of artwork I looked at is called Cadeau (Gift).

This peice of artwork is an example of a rectified readymade. "Readymades are everyday manufactured goods that are deemed to be art merely by virtue of the artist's selection of them as such". This readymade is an painted flat iron with a row of tacks that are glued to the bottom. The reason this is a rectified readymade is because a rectified readymade is a readymade that has been modified by the artist. In this peice, Ray modified the iron by gluing the tacks to the bottom.

The second piece of artwork I looked at is called Rayograph.

This piece of artwork is an example of a photogram. A photogram is defined as a "camera-less photographic print that records the placement of objects on photosensitive paper that has been exposed to light". This creates an abstract photograph. The objects that Ray photographed using this technique is obviously camera negatives. If you look closely, it looks like there is another object in there but you cant really tell what exactly it is. This piece is my favorite because the negatives are transparent which looks really neat and if you zoom the piece in, you can kind of make out that photo that is actually on the negative. In one part, it looks like a womans torso area (but that is just what I am seeing, Im not sure if I am correct). Also, if you zoom in to the top left hand corner, you can even see a fingerprint.

Casey's Audio Journey From Home to the Beach

My Audio Journey

My audio journey is supposed to take you from a house in a neighborhood to the beach. I started off the peice indoors, and had the sound of flip flops (typical beach shoewear walking. I then had a door open to the outside. Outside, there is the sound of birds chirping and even a neighbor's dog. Unfortunately there is a short part where the sound cuts out, although it is not supposed to. That peice some how got cut out as I turned it into a wav or mp3. The journey then takes you to a car where you here keys juggling and then the open and slam of the car door. when the car door slams, the outside noises stop. The keys are put in the ignition and the car starts. You then hear the windows roll down and you can faintly hear the birds in the background. Then the car drives away and you can hear it on the road and cars passing by like on a highway. When the car arrives at the destination, the windows roll up, the car turns off and you hear the car door open and slam. You hear the sound of the ocean and the sound of walking. The walking stops and there are seagulls and the sound of a ship in the background. Yay, you are at the beach! I did this for my project because I love the beach, and the sound of the waves and the ocean is my favorite sound in the world so I had to use it for my project.

The sounds I recorded myself were the flip flops walking (inside and outside), the door slamming, and the car.

Attributions:

Ship Sound: By milo (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=444) ship2_bergen.aif (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=23722)

Car Highway Sounds: By FreqMan (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=92661) cars pass by.wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=20049)

Ocean Sounds: By Dynamicell (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=47052) Water_Miami_beach_Atlantic.aif (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=17552)

Seagull Sounds: By hazure (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=30150)
seagull.wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=23707)

Outdoor Sounds: By pcaeldries (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=97826) CountrySideSummerEvening.wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=23131)

Janet Cardiff Response

The Janet Cardiff radio interview seemed to me to be more of an audio infomercial. The purpose was obviously to promote and advertise Janet Cardiff' walks. The interview allowed you to learn a little bit about Cardiff's intentions and how she acheives her goals. The things I learned from the interview that I thought were interesting were how she records the sounds so that they feel more intimate to the listener. I like how she described how she makes you feel like the sounds are actually surrounding you. She says she acheived this because her recordings allow her to magnify and enhance the sounds that may otherwise be ignored if you were walking on your own outside. I also thought it was interesting how she said that she researches the history of the areas she takes you through on her walks, because it allows her to give the location its own personal touch. The thing I do not like about her walks is her voice. Her "dead flat tone of her voice" to me is kind of spooky. To me, it seems like the voice of somebody who would be doing a reading of a sexy romance novel... These were my thoughts after listening to the interview.

In response to Janet Cardiff's project for Whitechapel Gallery in London, she definetly uses the three level spatial structure. Throughout the peice, her voice is always in the foreground, normally in conjunction with footsteps. Sometimes though, she brings other sounds into the foreground. I also like how she brings sounds that were once in the background to the middle ground as you seemingly get closer to that noise. When she first goes outside, she starts with distant waves and voices in the background, birds in the middle ground, and footsteps in the foreground. Then she has a random helicopter come to the foreground for a few seconds. She then continues to have footsteps in the foreground. Then random weird music makes its way to the foreground. Birds continue to be in the middle ground. Then new weird music begins in the foreground. Footsteps stop and the birds move into the background. Dogs bark in the middleground. Footsteps start again and move back to the foreground and the music stops. You then hear an airplane in the foreground and birds in the middle ground. A voice giving a lecture then becomes the foreground. Footsteps start walking away from the lecture and a childs voice becomes the foreground and then fades away. Waves that are in the background slowly get louder as footsteps continue. The waves then become the middle ground and then fades away to the background. Running water then becomes the foreground and then footsteps. Waves then make there way back to the foreground. Footsteps start up again as the foreground, waves become the middle ground. The footsteps, still foreground, sound different as if they are crunching leaves in a forest. There is an ambient background. Birds then begin to chirp in the background. Suddenly you are inside and you hear footsteps on wood. A machine recording becomes the foreground. Then you are back outside and waves and birds become the middle ground. Birds fade to the background. Music then starts and stop. Footsteps continue to be the foreground. Waves become louder and go to the middle ground and then the foreground. Birds are in the middle ground and waves eventually fall back to the background. As previously stated, Janet's voice is always part of the foreground. Sometimes she has a man whispering that becomes part of the foreground. I think that her use of three-level spatial structure allows the listener to gain a sense of distance. The louder the particular sounds, the closer they feel. When the sounds are in the background, you can tell that you are far away from them. Also, after listening to the whole walk, her voice actually kind of grows on you. Ha!

First Audio Exercise

My Exercise Here! Yay!

For my peice, I overlapped the sound of walking on a wet street during a thunderstorm, and ended with the opening of a door as if you are going inside, and when the door slams, the thunder and rain noises arent as loud.

Credits:

Samples used from Freesound

January 25, 2007
By artifact (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=229220)
lightning_strike.wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=29675)
By acclivity (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=37876)
Puddle1.wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=24206)
By FreqMan (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=92661)
011 Door opens and shuts.wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=23168)

Audio Journey Project

For my audio journey project, I want to do a journey from the airport to the beach. I want it so seem like you are flying to a tropical place and end up on the beach.
So far, the sounds I intend to use include:

Airport Sounds
Airplane sounds
Walking sounds
Car sounds
Beach sounds
Seagull sounds

These are just a few ideas. Im not exactly sure what sound I will create yet.. I have been thinking hard though. I think Im just going to take it peice my peice and see where I end up!

Milan Knizak - Broken Music Composition, 1979

I listened to Milan Knizak's Broken Music Composition. To be completely honest, I do not think the peice was very pleasing to listen to. In fact, I would compare it to nails on a chalk board. You could hear in the background there was soft, pleasant peices of music but it is broken up in many places by what sounds to me like rubber rubbing against itself (hence the nails on the chalkboard comparison). When it is not broken up by the rubbery sound, it is just a scratchy sound which is also pretty unpleasant. All in all, I think the peice is pretty awful sounding.

After looking up some information on the peice, the sound of it is more justified (although it still does not help the fact that it is painful to listen to). The peice was released in 1979 by Milan Knizak. The piece "consists of Knizak's modified LPs being... cut them up and glued unrelated pieces together, pasted pieces of paper on them, scratched them, painted them -- anything to destroy the medium and subvert its original contents to create new sounds. The needle hops, skips, falls into the holes of this Swiss cheese of a record, and eventually self-destructs. As if all that wasn't enough, Knizak also tampers with the playback speed. Nothing is sacred: classical music, religious music, jazz, rock, or pop -- any recorded work is susceptible to be submitted to the torture chamber. The sound quality is often terrible -- and not only because of the mutilated artifacts. The technique used to record the record players must have been primitive. Then again, Knizak was not making nice, comfortable music, so its gritty, lo-fi quality fits the sound terrorist aesthetic perfectly."

I think calling the creation of the peice a music "torture chamber" perfectly describes the peice. I could not have said it any better myself. Now that I know what he was trying to acheive, I am not as baffled as I was before because originally, I thought he was trying to make something that he thought sounded good. To know that the music was purposely mutilated and meant to sound horrible to make a statement, it makes more sense. It still doesnt change my opinion, although now I am curious to see what the record looked like!

Information found here!

Bertrand Lavier Walt Disney Productions

Artist: Bertrand Lavier
Artwork: Walk Disney Productions

Background: "Over the past few decades, Lavier has focused on his Walt Disney Productions. Based on a 1947 cartoon in which a skeptical Mickey and an enthusiastic Minnie Mouse disagree about modern art, Lavier has produced a series of abstract paintings and Jean Arp-like sculptures using the curves and colors that characterize the original cartoon. In a move that suggests Disney originally appropriated the visual language of high art arabesques, he often exhibits photographs of the double-dated sculptures (eg 1947-1990) alongside the sculptures themselves. These works continue Lavier's interest in the play between art, the public perception of art, and reality. They also mark him as one of the most inventive and influential European artists of his generation."

**EDIT** The reason I was attracted to this work is because while I was reading the article, I saw "Walt Disney" and I thought "FINALLY something I can relate to!!" considering I am 21 years old and still watch the Disney Channel... so this quickly caught my eye. When I looked up the artwork I thought it was really interesting because I could see how the artist was inspired by Disney, in a bizarre way.

Links:
http://www.eyestorm.com/works/Bertrand_Lavier_10327.aspx
http://www.artmag.com/museums/a_suisse/mamco/lavier.html

Interesting Thing: Birth and Decay

Artist: julian konczak

"Birth and Decay invites the audience to explore a time-sliced anatomy of landscape as it cycles through the inevitable rhythm of change. The visual field is composed of a scaled representation of a piece of land broken down into constituent details � the vista is hidden but the proximity and exploded imagery gives us an intimate relationship with the environment.
A simple immediacy draws attention to the inevitability of life processes � the birth-life-decay-death cycle is an inevitable performance that drives the movement of time on this planet. We need to do very little with our conscious minds to perform this path: breath, eat, shed a little skin - or in this instance drag a mouse blindly and watch the world change. The imagery itself plays with the idea of repetition; the images offer 25 instances of the same subject, the eye decoding multiplicity and diversity."

Link: http://www.hidrazone.com/artists/julian_konczak/birth_and_decay/display_birth_and_decay.html