Final Project: The Improbable Monument

For my improbable monument, I was inspired by the Nazca lines of the Peruvian high plains. The lines are hundreds of meters long and can really only be seen at an elevation of 300 feet or more overhead. These lines are over 1,500 years old and were basically unknown to the rest of the world until they were discovered by western researchers in South America while flying overhead in airplanes during the 1930‘s.

My idea is to create modern versions of these lines in an urban setting. The lines in Peru are primarily simplistic geometric representations of the natural world that surrounded the people who created them. Birds, monkeys, plants, reptiles, spiders. These were largely universal elements in these people’s daily life 1,500 years ago. Today, mankind has gone on to discover so much more within the same world, and I want to update this concept with universal symbolic language that can potentially last another 1,500 years (or more).

The creative difficulty mostly came from deciding what kind of images to choose for my project. I was able to collaborate with my classmates Jerry and Stephanie to brainstorm and refine my current idea. I threw out a bunch of ideas and they helped me decide which were more universal, relevant, and comprehendible to the greatest potential number of people. I decided that I wanted to show progression in human development from the primitive times of the creation of the original lines. The people who made those lines were very much more in tune with the natural world that surrounded them. Their entire understanding of their daily world was likely reflected in those line drawings on the ground. So I wanted to display something that speaks to people in our world, in our time. These new designs are not meant merely to complement and reference the old lines- but to contrast and push beyond them. The most basic elements that I decided to touch on were: Technology, Science, and Music.

Technology is one of the foundations of human evolution. We measure the early progression of our own race by the technologies we were governed by. Stone age, Bronze age, Iron age. The middle ages and beyond have abandoned this naming structure, but are no less reliant on their technology as their defining characteristics. The enlightenment ignited with the printing press and lead to advancements in the areas of philosophy, mathematics, government, etc. The industrial revolution practically speaks for itself. Humans have largely progressed through technological advancements made in agriculture, in weapons, and in transportation. From domestication of animals, to the wheel, to combustion engines and beyond. I decided that an airplane would be an appropriate modern design that is understandable, representative of technology (the shrinking of our modern world), and represented a major advancement in technology through the use of many technological innovations leading up to its initial creation and how it’s continued to change the course of human history and has enabled the world to be brought together in so many new ways.

The idea of science is kind of all encompassing, and it’s something that largely hadn’t been developed and explored by many cultures 1,500 years ago (or maybe had been- but had been all but forgotten by the collapse of these cultures). Our world today is built upon a foundation of gradually amassed scientific understanding and I wanted to do something that encompassed newer scientific arenas such as medicine and chemistry. I chose to go with a simple image of an atom. The atom is widely understood to be one of the most foundational building blocks of all matter and it’s something that our human culture has learned to harness in the time since the ancient people of Peru.

I chose Music as the final image. I wanted to do something with art- but since the original Nazca lines are already pretty advanced, representational 2D images, I wasn’t sure exactly how to properly illustrate advancements in the arts. It’s a complex and aesthetical concern, so I thought of more universal kinds of art and realized that music has grown and advanced so much as a universal art form in the time since the original Nazca lines were created. Music back then was largely rhythmic/percussive and they likely hadn’t developed instruments with complex note scales. Today, almost every country (including Peru) has traditional music made with string instruments. It’s a beautiful kind of expression that can cross all language barriers and has the power to unite us all as human beings. I went with a flying V guitar just because it has an iconic shape and a pretty, geometric design that is very much in tune with my other two illustrations.


I chose to place these giant lines around our fair city, and after much consideration, I chose my own neighborhood: the Sunset. There are a number of reasons for this: first of all- it’s the largest, and most level portion of the city. It also doesn’t have any high rise buildings or structures which might obstruct the view or the construction of this project. The flat grid would be probably the easiest place to create these monuments, and would make the mapping and advanced planning much easier. Each block is about 80 meters wide by about 270 meters long so that should give you a pretty good idea of how large these images will be. I figure that using reflective road paint would be the most reasonable way to make these markings. Some of them would take up the entire width of some streets, and these lines would naturally have to cover some houses from the roofs to the sides and all around.

This is probably what makes the project so improbable, of course. The cost alone would be a massive undertaking. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of reflective road paint can’t be cheap- and likewise, the city would probably insist on overseeing the construction, so there would be a lot of labor involved. There are also legal ramifications in the form of property owners rights and inevitable resistance from people who resent having their streets and homes painted over. It would almost certainly cost hundreds of millions of dollars- if not over a billion dollars to clear this project through to completion since it would be created amidst the citizens of this city. I think when it’s completed, though- it could be something truly spectacular. Visible by flying overhead in airplanes (or perhaps someday in flying cars!) this could be a permanent and unique monument to our times and could last into the future of all humanity.

Reading Response: Seeing the Past in Present Tense

This was a really cool article. I found it to be a very informative account of the potential dangers or side effects that monuments can have on how a society will continue to look back on historical events as time marches on.

Especially monuments that directly tie to location-based history. The idea of a metaphorical detour is a very interesting way of explaining the potential uses of monuments, but in the way it can reshape history in the eye of the beholder is kind of scary, in my opinion. The example of the Emancipation Monument and how it serves to flatten and alter our common historical understanding is not really doing citizens a service. It would probably shock 90% of Americans to learn that Abe Lincoln didn't actually emancipate slaves as a statement toward civil rights and equality- but instead only as a way to confuse the south, drum up support for the Union forces and help them win the war. The fact that the emancipation proclamation only freed the confederate slaves (and the confederates didn't recognize laws passed in the Union) while still leaving slavery legal in the Union would probably lead most to think you were either playing a joke on them or make them outright angry.

The story about the Monument Against War, Fascism, and Violence in Germany was another interesting story about how monuments can fail to achieve their goal if they are designed to disappear from the public consciousness. The fact that this monument had been forgotten in less than 20 years from its creation is kind of disappointing and the fact that the only people who seemed to notice it at all were the people who were intent on defacing it. Designing an effective monument seems like a balancing act between over-simplifying an idea or message to the point that it leaves viewers with a misunderstanding of the historical event being memorialized and making a monument that is too easily forgotten or overlooked by the public it's intended to serve.

For my monument, I intend to make a much broader and simplified message. I don't want to reference a single historical event- I am striving to make something that is universally understood by as many people as possible, with no words- just simple graphics that describe modern human concerns.

Outside Event 3

The opportunity to see a large body of work by one of the most recognized artists of the past 100 years is rare for most people. When the artist happens to be Pablo Picasso, it’s reason for even the most jaded art enthusiast to take notice. The exhibition, Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musee National Picasso, Paris was recently showing at the deYoung Museum in San Francisco. It was part of a traveling tour that began in 2008 of roughly 150 original works by famous 20th century artist, Pablo Picasso. Stopping at various museums around the world, this collection-- on loan from the Musee National Picasso, in Paris-- boasts a huge number of paintings from every period of the famed artist’s nearly eighty year career.
One of the most interesting aspects of this particular show was that Picasso was one of the most prolific artists of the last century- and as innovative as his famously faceted cubist paintings were- they were only representative of a small percentage of his artistic output over the course of eight decades. From early sketches, to late-career sculptures and everything in between. Famous wartime painting “The Weeping Woman” (1930) represents one of his more well-known cubist works included in the exhibition, complete with angular lines (to illustrate volume), contorted facial features, eyeballs practically sitting on top of each other, and adorned with paisley-shaped tears. This contrasts dramatically with equally famous Blue Period portrait “La Celestine” (1904) with it’s monochromatic, realistic rendering of an old woman in a hooded cape with a massive cataract covering one eye. And yet further into the exhibit, another well-known, minimal work in black and white, “The Acrobat” (1930) shows an almost comically exaggerated pose of a nude contortionist. And elsewhere one can view early studies for “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” (1907) which was one of Picasso’s earliest paintings that foreshadowed the future development of cubism.
Of course the drawbacks to such an expansive collection of a single artist’s work are varied: such as trading quality for quantity. As big and comprehensive as this collection is: I would gladly trade the opportunity to see about a quarter of some of these paintings, rough sketches, and studies in exchange for a chance to see the massive “Guernica” (1937) which can be seen in Spain, or the finished “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon“ painting- which lives at the MoMA in New York. Now obviously, this isn’t possible since this exhibition represents only part of a collection from a single museum in Paris, but it also illustrates another missed opportunity: with such a huge collection of work from a single artist (shown chronologically from earliest to latest), it’s hard to fully comprehend the scope of work by this master of European modernism without comparing and contrasting this work to his contemporaries’ work at similar moments in history.
The exhibition itself, is unfortunately not optimized for such a small space. In it’s short 4-month stay, this exhibit was surely visited by hundreds of thousands of eager museum-goers. Needless to say, the exhibit was constantly overcrowded by a steady stream of visitors from open to close, day-in and day-out. The collection of work could have benefited from more room to be observed by such large crowds, not to mention the opportunity to provide more informational placards near the paintings for more thorough explanations- of course this would have been a missed opportunity for the museum to obnoxiously push it’s overpriced audio tours onto the curious public. Equally irritating is the way in which the tour inevitably ends up in a gift shop which sells refrigerator notepads and mouse pads with images of Picasso paintings on them for $10 each. Overlooking these avoidable (or unavoidable in some cases) shortcomings, the exhibit was generally well presented and certainly provided a rare opportunity to view a large number of works by Pablo Picasso for a much more reasonable price than a trip to Europe would cost.
The modernist obsession with the new, and the inevitability of obsolescence is perfectly illustrated in this chronological presentation. The linear march of artistic progress, the birth of new ideas at the expense of the death of old ideals seems to be an underlying theme of the show. As much as he constantly looked forward, Picasso seldom looked back. Revisiting the old never seemed to be a concern for him, perhaps more so than any other modernist. Whether it was modernism’s greatest strength or it’s greatest weakness, perhaps no other painter of the last century represented this idea as thoroughly (or as enduringly) as Pablo Picasso.

Outside Event 2

I went to see the Bristol experimental trip-hop band "Portishead" at the Berkeley Greek Theater in late October. It was a phenomenal performance by one of my favorite bands, who are very much reliant on technology for their signature sound: drum machines, samplers, vintage analog keyboards, and scratch turntables.

But what really made the show memorable was the fantastic visual presentation. Unlike most big rock concerts- Portishead play mellower, subdued, hypnotic electronic music and since there isn't really a "front" person in the band, their stage presence is kind of underplayed with minimal stage lights and is instead back-lit by a gigantic LED screen. This screen plays grainy footage and strange camera effects for much of the show and makes the band look like a haunting gang of black ghosts in the foreground.

It wasn't until the gritty, digitally-decayed footage of drums and cymbals and guitars that accompanied the opening notes of the song "Hunter" that i started to understand what was going on with the awesome visuals. There were two young men off to the side of the main stage who would occasionally run out and touch what appeared to be mounted digital cameras. I quickly realized that this is exactly what they were doing. I also noticed that there wasn't just one digital camera- there were nearly 20 of them surround every member of the band on stage. The footage was being edited, looped, visually treated/manipulated and screened in real time. When guitarist Adrian Utley bent down to change a guitar effects pedal- his image followed in perfect time on the screen only there appeared to be about a hundred of him in a row. These effects kind of resembled the cheezy in-camera effects utilized in early video editing, music videos, and cable-access commercials in the 80's and early 90's.

And yet, the entire effect was really impressive looking and very much stylized. The video artists had obviously been doing this kind of thing for a long time and their unique visual style was an important (and consistently stylish) part of the entire show. I had a hard time finding good footage of the video at the Berkeley show- but they had the same kind of video editing at work during the performance of this same song earlier in the tour at their England "All Tomorrow's Parties" music festival performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPsi6QcFs6U&feature=related

keep in mind that at the Berkeley show they played on a much larger and much darker stage, and their LED screen was about twice as big as the one in this video. It really made for a surreal and unusual-looking performance. The videos had a cold, deteriorated, security camera-quality to their appearance and it greatly enhanced the entire experience.

outside event 1

Earlier this semester I went to a presentation by my friend Aaron Rietz at Oddball Films. The show was called "Yesterday's Futures: Creeping Technology & The Dawn of Computer Graphics" a collection of short CG films from the 1970's through the early 1980's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7h0ppnUQhE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2kd1B0Ybto

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44i05aaoXN4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44i05aaoXN4&feature=related

It was actually a really fascinating event. People always look back on the Disney film "Tron" as the first CGI, when in fact- it was the culmination of over 15 years of prior CGI work pioneered by artists such as John Whitney and Robert Abel. In fact, Robert Abel contributed to the CG work on "Tron".

There were several films presented at the event (including Whitney's "Arabesque" posted above)- most of which aren't available on Youtube, but I have attempted to corral a few videos from online to illustrate what kind of films were collected for this interesting and impressive video exhibition.

I've always been fascinated by the possibilities of computer animation, and I still think that some of these early CGI creations are some of the most beautiful, inspirational and innovative advancements in modern art.

*edit: I just noticed that my youtube videos aren't showing up as videos on my blog. I'll try to fix them later- until then, please highlight them and follow to the addresses listed to look at the videos :)

Final Project Proposal Ideas 2(: Electric Boogaloo)

I had another monumental idea ;)
Inspired by the re-worked, anarchitectural building designs of Gordon Matta-Clark

I thought it would be cool to use an entire building as a work of art. Instead of chopping it up to make a comment on architecture, though- i would like to make a comment on perhaps a different kind of universal human concern.

I was thinking about impermanence and perhaps the environment. I found an amazing collection of photographs of old, overgrown houses by James D. Griffioen. I have always been intrigued by these houses whenever I see them- but it was a fantastic idea to collect them so thoughtfully. He calls this series "Feral Houses"

Anyway, I thought that maybe a building or structure could be constructed with the intention of watching it slowly corrode over time. It would be interesting to watch a man-made structure be reclaimed by nature over the course of multiple generations. part of the project would be to photograph the gradual dilapidation of the structure and also to maintain and upkeep the area surrounding it; a contrasting surrounding environment of well groomed gardens and sturdy, clean buildings would make the project especially interesting. There is a conceptual element of randomness built into the project in both the unpredictable nature in which the land and plants will reclaim the building, and also in the unpredictable way in which society will grow or shrink or utilize the surrounding land. It's an exciting idea to me that I would like to maybe explore in my final project for this class.

Final Project Proposal Ideas

So one of my ideas for an improbable monument is to make an image of massive scale on the ground. I was inspired by the Nazca lines in the high Peruvian plains. Believed to be around 1,500 years old- they weren't discovered until the 1930's when researchers were able to view them from airplanes. These line drawings on the ground resemble various animals and from the ground are almost invisible; they look like little more than winding paths. They only start to become visible from a height of at least 300 feet in the air (or more). This idea appeals to me for several reasons. For one thing: I'm coming from a more traditional art background of drawing and painting, so I could more easily use my talents in drawing to apply to this unique project. Another reason is that I have always loved those ancient Nazca lines- they are beautiful, mysterious and technologically impressive considering that they were developed by a primitive culture by the standards of western civilization at the time, yet they have managed to last for several centuries- and remained undiscovered for over a thousand years. Finally, the concept makes for a perfect fit in the improbable monument project- considering that the lines have lasted for so long, and the unique idea of only being visible from an unusual perspective. The original line drawings are over 600 feet across, so they would be a good fit in a large public park, like Golden Gate Park, or maybe a large golf course or even a nature preserve. I haven't yet figured out what I would make the image of (a monument to what??) but as a general concept- I think this is a pretty strong idea to work from.

Google Earth: Occupy San Francisco Tour

We decided to document the visual communications of our city's Occupy Wallstreet movement through the imagery of protesters' signs. Revolutionary/activist art has a rich history in both the US and abroad- and San Francisco has one of the most active population of political activists in the world. Take a look at the tour that Gregg and I photographed and then edited in Google Earth:

Augmented Body

My augmented body vision is to increase my strength and physical abilities through the addition of extra limbs. These would ideally be mechanical in design, because physically grown arms would require more complex skeletal and muscular systems to power them, and a lot more blood and oxygen than the human body can provide, or the heart was intended to pump.

Extra arms would allow for increased strength, lifting ability, climbing mobility, and enhanced dexterity due to having more hands. With more arms- you could carry all the groceries upstairs in a single trip. You could climb trees with ease. You could high-five four people at once.

I was inspired by the Indian/Hindu deities such as Shiva, Ganesh, and Kali. They represent many facets of human endeavors and our various behaviors- but one thing elevates them above the likes of mortal men: physical superiority! If we could have more arms, we could remove one more obstacle holding us back from achieving greatness, and further bridge the gap- bringing us closer to our godly inspirations

Logo Heist

Everyone remembers this company's name and logo. I decided to simply alter this logo because it's already so iconic. Originally created by legendary graphic designer Paul Rand, I thought it would be a good idea to take a recognizable corporate logo and alter it to reflect what the company is really about.

Enron was essentially a company formed by a merger of Texas-based oil and natural gas energy companies.  They rose to prominence when they inserted themselves into other states' energy markets and then became a limited liability company (LLC) and then later successfully applied for government deregulation.  Once they had these key components, they proceeded to fraudulently report their income and failed to disclose losses. This lead thousands of investors to believe that this was a profitable company.  By operating out of California and by maintaining no government regulation, Enron was able to further manipulate the market by having employees at major California energy plants divert as much energy out of state as they wanted, and even shutting them down altogether (rolling blackouts) to create a false "energy crisis". They were then able to sell the state-regulated power/utility companies their own electricity back to them at a rate of up to 20 times it's original value, and netted themselves a profit of over 800% between April 2000 and December 2000.  Since they didn't have to answer to government regulators, it was a long time before anyone was able to find out exactly what they were really doing. By the time anyone had discovered what was going on, they had bankrupted the California energy companies PG&E and Southern California Edison, they had laid off over 4,000 of their own employees, and when it became known that they had defrauded their investors as well as California state funds of nearly 50 billion dollars- it was too late to get the money back.  The taxpayers, customers and investors had to pay the bill.  Enron basically screwed everyone.

To this end, I decided to turn the logo from a colorful letter 'E' into a colorful hand making a gesture with an extended middle finger. With the knowledge of what this company has done, I think it's pretty self-explanatory.

I decided that the best place to post this image is a place that has a direct relationship to the ugly history of the company in question (and by extension, their logo).  Pretty much everyone in California was affected by the energy crisis in the form of raised electricity bills, increased taxes to bail out the state utilities who were bankrupted by the need to buy back their own electricity at 20 times the price they originally sold it for, and in some cases by rolling blackouts.  So I decided to post my logo in the middle of the electricity meters at my apartment building.

Art by Chance

M.A.S.H. is a game that almost everyone has played as a child. it's already a weird, interactive, 2-player game by design- but with a few more rules and changes it can be made even weirder and more random.  my idea for further randomness only requires a novel (in addition to a piece of paper and a pen). traditionally, M.A.S.H. is an acronym for mansion, apartment, shack, house and the game is something of a random fortune teller. my version makes it a random word generator.

Step one: Write "M.A.S.H" on the top of your page.

Step two: On the left side of the page write "Verbs" and make four spaces to fill with verbs later when we begin playing the game.

Step three: On the right side of the page write "Nouns" and make four spaces to fill with nouns.

Step four: On the bottom of the page write "Adjectives" and make four spaces to fill with adjectives.

Step five: Finally you should have a big blank space in the middle of the page. Have the player begin to draw a spiral starting small and gradually growing larger and larger. The other player will quickly tell them when to stop spiraling. count the number of lines from the center to the outside of the spiral. for the sake of this demonstration we'll say our number is 4.

Write down your number.

Step six: Grab a book and turn to the page of the number you picked (alternatively, you can turn to the chapter of the corresponding number).

Step seven: Read the words on the page and when you find the fourth word on the page that begins with the letter "M", write it down, under the letter "M" at the top of the page. repeat the process for letters "A", "S", and "H".

Step eight: Turn four more pages. Begin reading the page from the top, and write down every fourth noun in each of the four spaces in the section labeled for nouns.

Step nine: Repeat step eight- only instead of nouns, search for every fourth adjective and write them in the spaces labeled for adjectives.

Step ten: Repeat the last two steps- only this time search for verbs and write every fourth verb on the corresponding verb spaces.

Step eleven: With our board full of words, go back to the top of the page and beginning with your "M" word, begin reading each word that you have written, moving around the page in a clockwise fashion. Cross out every fourth word.

Step twelve: After rotating around the board, crossing out words- you should start running out of words to cross out. Make sure that you circle the last remaining word in each section and make sure not to cross out this word. Keep counting off four and crossing out words until you only have one word at the top of the page beginning with the letter "M", "A", "S", or "H"- one noun, one adjective, and one verb.

Write these four words down.

Step thirteen: At a very high volume, read the words aloud.

ART.

Golan Levin. Blog Response 3

The third artist I have explored from the artist links on our class website is Golan Levin. An artist and teacher/researcher in Pittsburgh who teaches at Carnegie Mellon University where he is an Associate Professor of Electronic Art. This artist is prolific, but his project that most caught my eye is his Dialtones: Telesymphony collaborative performance piece. Using special software and utilizing audience participation, the artists asked audience members to register their cell phone numbers in advance of the show. The artists then utilized this software to dial multiple audience members simultaneously at different times to create music utilizing the ringtones of the participating audience members as various instruments.  The audience members have assigned seats and are given customized ringtones before the concert so they can present location-specific sounds and create cascading waves of sound throughout the concert venue. There are some terrific videos available here:
http://www.flong.com/projects/telesymphony/

Second Blog Response: Manfred Mohr

Further exploring algorithmic art led me to an artist named Manfred Mohr.  Another early proponent of digital art, this German-born experimentalist was involved in the world of digital art from the early years dating back to the late 1960's. Living and working out of Germany, Spain and Paris- before finally settling in New York in the early 1980's- Mohr has continued to produce interesting, and influential work with a strong geometric emphasis. Creating both still images as well as animated digital installation pieces- this artist has a large and very diverse body of work. My favorite piece on display is the recent Klangfarben installation. using custom software to randomly generate multidimensional frames of cubes that animate, grow, shrink and rotate while cycling colors and displaying across two LCD panels- one of which displays a constantly evolving image while the other displays still snapshots of individual screens from the animated screen.
http://www.emohr.com/ww1_out.html

First Blog Response

Our first assignment was to search our class website for links to other artists currently producing art in the always expanding realm of "digital media". My attention was immediately drawn to Algorithmic art and mathematics. Digital art is a very new area for me to practice- but it's something I've known about and have been interested in for years.  Having recently learned about fractals in a math class last semester, i was interested in seeing what kind of work people were producing using mathematical problems that didn't have easy, round numbers. Using computers to digitally create visualizations of these long equations which continually reduce to ugly, long strings of numbers manages to create beautiful, spiraling patterns that look extremely organic and often have repeating patterns resembling leaves, seashells, sunflowers and stars. One such artist is Bogdan Soban, a Slovenian artist who studied mechanical engineering. He became involved in emerging computer technology toward the end of his studies and decided that he wanted to explore the other uses of computers and this led to his experimentation in digital, generative art. The results are fascinating and quite beautiful.  This kind of art can be found all over the world today, but in the 1960's and 70's, before the era of home computing, it was radically new and exciting. Here are some of my favorite pieces: http://www.soban-art.com/galery22.asp

Hello

I am Joe, and this is my first school blog. This is an early post mostly to establish this blog and to explain briefly what I hope to accomplish in my Art 410 Conceptual Strategies class at San Francisco State University, Fall 2011.  Ideally, this is where my current work will be published. Any future assignments will be posted here as well, and by the end of the semester I hope to have a nice collection of new work available to view online here. I will try to put everything up here and maybe even some incomplete or failed projects as well. I've never done anything like this before, so I'll have to feel it out as I progress.