Archive for Art
August 3, 2008 at 8:34 am · Filed under Art
These are the three small cups I mentioned last week:
I also mentioned trying, but failing, to make a small bottle with a tapered top and spout to go with them. This week our instructor demoed throwing a tall vase and pitcher, both with tapered tops and, following her process, I was able to make my bottle. It was difficult though. After tapering the clay above the neck became all uneven and wonky. Maybe I was not centered properly from the beginning?
Other than the bottle, I made a bowl and a plate. Pictures to come next week. But that’s it for throwing this summer. I have three classes left and they will be spent trimming the rest of my work, glazing, and more glazing. I am so looking forward to seeing the final pieces but the glazing process will be hard. So many colours to choose from and so little idea what they will look like in the end!
July 26, 2008 at 11:40 pm · Filed under Art
This morning my pieces from last week were semi-dry and ready for trimming. Trimming involves putting the piece back on the wheel, usually upside-down, securing it at the bottom with clay, and using tools like these to trim away excess clay, rough spots, and add details like grooves and feet.
One thing enjoyable about trimming is the immediate feedback with almost anything you do. You can quickly tell if your piece is not centered or if you are spinning to slow or if your clay is still too wet. It’s harder to tell if you’ve trimmed to far (ex. break through the bottom), but a quick tap let’s you know.
The other great thing is that when you do make mistakes, you can trim them away, provided that you don’t trim your piece away and that you are flexible with how the resulting piece will look.
I’m excited to glaze these guys:
I think they’ll get into the kiln this week and maybe I’ll do glazing next Saturday.
In the meantime, I threw a bit more today and made three small cups with the intentions of making a sake drinking set. The cups were extremely simple cup shapes and more an exercise in hand memory - could I make three cups of the same shape and size? Not really. I also tried making the sake bottle (about 15cm high, pear-shaped with very tapered top) but it did not work out. Maybe next week. I have to learn how to make a tapered top without the piece caving into itself.
Oh - and maybe you noticed the handle on my coffee mug. Yeah…that didn’t work. I tried to make it with the pulling method but did a number of things wrong. Next time. But that mug doesn’t really need a proper handle anyway. It’s more a cup with both hands kind of mug ; )
July 19, 2008 at 3:09 pm · Filed under Art
I started a pottery class at the West Point Grey Community Centre three weeks ago. I went there remembering trying the wheel when I was a kid and making something good enough that it sat on top of my mother’s fridge for a number of years to hold pennies, pins, missing buttons, and other odd bits.
What was forgotten was that we likely did not have to center our own clay. After the first class three weeks ago, I realized there was no way my 10-year-old self could have done that. The first class was really discouraging. Clay looked and moved like silk under the teacher’s hands. My clay was trying to run away from me. I left thinking that I’ll have to forget about increasing the already too large mug collection at the Kommune this summer.
During the second class my centering started to get better. I felt more at ease bringing clay up into a cone, and then bringing it back down with pressure from the heel of my left hand. I realized that this step isn’t about pushing straight down, but pushing towards the center from the side as well. Still, once centered I worked at bringing the clay up into a simple cylinder and seven out of eight times, clay gathered at the top would soon fall into the middle that was tapered by too much pressure and hastiness. My last try was a little better but still not good enough to make something from it.
I was a little less enthusiastic about going this morning but given that it’s a great way to start a Saturday and the studio is downhill from my house, I got there. Brought out my lumps of used clay, shaped into arches to help them dry faster for re-use, and got started. To my surprise, things came more naturally and I felt more careful and confident. Then, lo and behold, I made something that actually sort of…worked!!!
The above picture was taken in a moment of glory at the wheel so it’s a pretty happy picture. The piece didn’t end up that great. It’s sort of a bowl but the bottom is quite thin - I might cut it out and make a small planter. But I think it gave me a steadier and more directed hand and my next three throws turned into things as well. From left to right below: my first bowl, my third piece which will probably become a coffee mug, my fourth and last piece, a salad bowl, and my second piece that could be a cup, but I think it will also be a small planter for my desk at work.
I had been worried that I wouldn’t get to try trimming and glazing. Now I can and am quite please : ) Gotta go buy some limes!
October 11, 2007 at 12:00 pm · Filed under Art, Technology & Effects
Infosthetics blogs the Google Vanity Ring, a project by Marcus Kison. The ring indicates the number of google hits received when the wearer’s name is queried. The wearer places the ring in a dock at nighttime to update the hit count.
Very interesting concept. How else will we present our online status in the real world? For what reasons would we want to? Online is public but we have ways to control the way we present ourselves and who can see those presentations. Did we have such direct management before? How will this organization translate to the real world? Will I have clothing that reveals some information about me at a bar, different information at a job interview, and possibly none while I am waiting for the bus?
I like some of Kison’s other work, especially “touched echo“. Invisible memorial for the Bruehlsche Terrasse (Dresden), using bone conduction to take visitors back in time. While I am not that into artworks involving participants listening to audio tracks in a place to imagine themselves in that same place but another time, I really like that people can listen using a standing pose natural to the space the work is installed in. (See pictures at above link…to listen a participant stands at a fence around a raised plaza area overlooking a river, they place their elbows on the fence, hands over the ears and can lean in and listen.)
In other news, I want my garbage picked up. Though that’s not the news and unfortunately it is hard to say when garbage pick up will resume. Though parking enforcement will be in full swing. That sounds a little too enthusiastic for me.
July 24, 2007 at 10:30 pm · Filed under Art, Theeeeeeeeeeesis
I am reading about Myron Krueger’s “VIDEOPLACE“. Myron Krueger is the guy who coined the term “artificial reality” and VIDEOPLACE was one of his artworks from the 1970s that is sort of labeled as “the first” in interactive artwork. I don’t know if that is too accurate but I guess the point is that the work was/is very influencial, especially for video- and camera-based interactive systems that track participant movement and gestures.
VIDEOPLACE is an artificial reality environment consisting of a video camera and other sensors to track a participant’s movement in front of a projection screen. Video displayed on the projection screen responds to participant gestures with over 50 compositions that include the person’s shadow as a base. The compositions manipulate participant silhouettes, create graphical worlds around them, and produce virtual objects and lively organisms that interact with the silhouettes. A participant in turn can interact with movement of their whole body as well as direct manipulation with elements of the compositions.
I’ve read about VIDEOPLACE a lot but I think that tonight is the first time that I’ve really looked at imagery from the video compositions and I must say that they really attract me. I kind of want mini VIDEOPLACE aesthetics on my computer at work. Some images from this guy here (who took them from some of Krueger’s publications I think so we both apologize if they were copyrighted):
…and from a Golan Levin paper…
Graphics from the 70s - simplistic shapes but amazing colour schemes. It makes me nostalgic for a time before I was born. A time when people who experienced this artwork would be absolutely amazed by the technology. It would be like magic for them.
From what I read VIDEOPLACE is still up and running somewhere but I don’t know where. I would really like to see it. I imagine that it could still be a really engaging experience given the playfulness of the interaction compositions.
Why are similar video/camera interactive pieces made nowadays not very engaging? Is it because the experience is convolved with social, political, environmental, etc. messages and it is no longer based on pure interaction with the media and reflection of the participant?
UPDATE: I woke up in the morning thinking about what I said in that last paragraph. About pure interaction with the media…Well that was in a day when the technologies used were not woven into the fabric of life. When what was being confronted was the technology itself and what it meant for our future. Now many of the same technologies are still used in artworks but in an exploration of current-future issues such as our social networks and behaviours as constructed with current communication technologies and environmental consequences of current human practices (much supported by computing devices).
May 10, 2007 at 10:33 am · Filed under Art
I mentioned that I would be going to the digital public art festival last weekend and that I did. The most impressive piece was まばたきの葉 (mabataki no ha = wink or winking leaves roughly). Hundreds of paper leaves were scattered around the base of a high white tower. Each leaf had a picture of an open eye on one side and a closed eye on the other. We picked up piles of the white leaves and fed them into the two slots on the tower around chest height. The tower ate our leaves and blew them out from the top with a phffft! sound. The leaves floated down, twisting and twirling, winking to us as we craned our necks to watch them. It really scratched my itching to stuff paper into a tower that would immediately spew it back out. But I didn’t realize that I had this itching until after I experienced まばたきの葉.
April 12, 2007 at 3:18 am · Filed under Art, In the Kitchen and Foodstuff, Theeeeeeeeeeesis
Lately. But I make sense of places with things in this order: food, architecture, vegetation, fashion so…food tops. No really, this is a happy find. I am in the Boulevard, a new coffee house on campus. It’s an alright place. Big, full or students but the sound level is not too bad, and I am enjoying the current artwork. A little expensive…when you see a student spend 4.45+tax on a chai latte you wonder how tuition can be complained about but…
…they have onigiri here! I was told you could find it in Vancouver but was not sure where. Now I have a source!! Chicken, tuna and konbu varieties. Bought one for lunch so today will be a happy day. (As long as the onigiri high can mask my tax return emotions.)
Speaking of tax return…
…actually no, let’s not talk about that.
Actually, I am reading a paper right now: Crafting participation: designing ecologies, configuring experience (Heath, Luff, vom Lehn, Hindmarsh, 2002) and in the beginning they talk about how visual art from the Renaissance onward (use paintings as specific examples) were designed to engage a viewer more and make the viewer an “active spectator”. The context of the spectator - their location, perspective of the artwork and the relationship between the viewer, the artwork, and surrounding physical elements were taken into account to create different viewing experiences. An example given is of artwork in a chapel. A figure on an altarpiece might be gazing towards an image of a saint in the roof of the chapel. Upon seeing the figure a viewer will follow its gaze and discover the saint.
I think I have read about how artists do this before but today I am relating it to research considering a person’s location, physical relationship to other objects, etc. in the design of new technologies. How our devices might respond to our physical context, how technology can be used to create even more drastic variations on how we experience our environment, depending on our location within it. Just thinking about examples of that…none of them all that well formulated in my head so I am gonna stop here and go pick up my T4.
May 30, 2006 at 10:06 am · Filed under Art, Experiences
It is almost midnight and I can’t get to sleep. My room gets stuffy so I like to sleep with the window open but tonight there are scooters and/or motorcycles driving by every five minutes. The worst is when they have to stop at the closest intersection and then when the light turns green the rev rev reeev roars throughout the neighborhood. This is like, some kind of sign as just today I was emailing the girls about my love for men on scooters. I don’t know what that sign is exactly…but it is a sign I say.
Or maybe I can’t sleep because of my late afternoon coffee and too much Tetris and Japanese vocabulary on the brain. Well, whatever. At least waffles is getting some attention now. I have been totally neglecting my powerbook. Since waffles cannot connect to other computers at work, it stays home mostly. I wonder if (s)he is aware of my mac mini use…or even worse…my PC use. I will have to find a wifi spot somewhere so that I can liven this baby up on the weekends. For now, its only connection to the outside world is through a USB stick.
Okay enough of that now. I will talk about my weekend. On Saturday I went to a concert with a friend from work. The concert started just before 1pm and four bands composed of other NTT people (and maybe some not-NTT people) played. They were actually really good. That sounds like I didn’t expect that they would be good but that’s not it. I figured they would be good…but they were really good. Like, given this is just a pastime for many of the band members, the parts were surprisingly tight. The first band played ska/jazz, the second played g’n’r style hard rock, the third was just two girls and one guitar, somewhat folksy maybe (?), and the forth (and I know one of the guys in this one) was a KISS cover band. Yes, makeup and all. They were pretty sweet. It was a little weird being in this club on a Saturday afternoon. I left early to go to my Japanese lesson and I expected to leave feeling a little drunk and it being dark outside but then I remembered that it was only 3pm and I hadn’t a drop of alcohol in there.
The Japanese lesson was good. I think I am progressing. Although I get that constant frustration of I think I am learning a lot but I am still not conversational because there is SO MUCH more to learn. I guess you need to start somewhere.
After the lesson I had plans to go check out an art party in Tokyo. You know the operation I talked about in my last post…well this was part 1. That and I stumbled upon this dude’s work online and I liked it so even if my operation failed, there would still be a good outcome to checking the place out.
So I went to this small bar/gallery in the Asagaya area (a few stations away from Shinjuku). I arrived quite early so there were no other people there yet but this gave me a chance to meet the artist, chomp chomp, and chat with him a little. He is originally from the states and came to Japan a year and some ago I think. I think that’s one of the reasons why I really liked what I saw of his work…there is that element of “foreigner in foreign land” but with much subtlety. It is not screaming look at me look at what I am experiencing here I am putting it in this drawing and can you see can you see? (Wow, I just have to say that there is this cat outside right now and it is meowing like a machine…it almost sounds like a cat meow recording). It is more like, if I took a book of his illustrations back to Canada with me, I could look at them and think..heh…yeah…I remember.
More people came shortly after – mostly other foreigners but there were a few people from Japan. Really great people! Have further inspired me to just get OVER myself and my comfort zone and go and meet people. As a conclusion to that, I think that next weekend I will be joining a few (I almost spelled that fiew…maybe finally getting tired) of them on a scavenger hunt around Shibuya. I think it will be fun!! Sadly I couldn’t stay too long as I had to catch that last train. Yeah, I don’t get this no night train business. It is possible that I might sleep a few nights in train stations this year.
Saturday was my weekend. Sunday I stayed home (日曜日はどこも行きませんでした) studied that a lot, and did some cleaning. I have a lot that I want to do this week so I imagine it will go by fast (like all of the others) and then it will be next weekend again. Ahhh…it has already been two months here…only 10 more to go and soo much to do. So sleep now!!!
May 6, 2006 at 5:41 pm · Filed under Art, Technology & Effects
Yes, I realized that if I didn’t make a few posts before the weekend, by Monday I would have forgotten everything I did this past week so here I am, hitting the Internet cafÈ. Not actually there yet…but writing at home before I go. The first thing to talk about, and the subject of this post, is that I went to the National Museum of Western Art in Ueno Park (a big famous park in Tokyo) last Tuesday. I went with a group of people from work specifically to try out an information delivery system being tested at the museum by the Ubiquitous Networking Laboratory (short – UNL).
UNL was testing the use of these handheld devices + RFID (I think) to deliver extra information and some videos on a few pieces in the special Rodin exhibit currently on display. The idea is that being equipped with this handheld, people can tour the museum and use tags at each piece to bring up information particular to that piece.
Unfortunately, they only had the system set up for three larger sculptures outside and extra-unfortunately, it was raining so we couldn’t try it outside anyway. We were given the handhelds and were allowed to sit inside on chairs, facing outside with no direct view of the sculptures. Hehe…and another unfortunate point for me (I guess) was that the content was only available in Japanese. Oh well, I played.
The devices we were given were pretty cool but there were too many functions given their purpose. Of course, this was just a test and if such a system were actually implemented I think they would redesign the device (hopefully) to better suit the museum environment and its goers. What I was thinking about more is how the availability of this manner of information delivery would affect 1) the relationship between people and the artwork and 2) the interaction between people.
I couldn’t get the full experience because I was confined to a chair and I could not understand the content, but I imagined myself walking around the museum with this, looking at pieces but also reading, listening, and watching videos. Would this be a distraction to fully appreciating the art? I guess it depends on the person. I work with what I see presented to me in a painting and I like to make my own emotional associations and stories whereas other people might be more interested in the real, historical context of a piece or how it is related to the artist’s life. So given your interests, extra media can be appreciated or annoying. I wonder how different types of information can appeal to the different types of people? Hmm…I wouldn’t mind hearing music at each piece – music nominated by other visitors.
Related to the second point above, I was initially concerned that using such a device would create boundaries between people in the museum space. Well, I think those are already there. My visit felt very personal. I was in my own space for the majority of the time. Using these types of technologies only enhance my existing experience (I tried a similar system at the Van Gogh museum). On the other hand – when might I want to step out of my bubble? At times I wonder how my friends feel: are they bored, what are their favorite pieces, are they being inspired…? With some people I have no trouble interrupting them and asking but with others I am worried I might disrupt a flow they have going on. What about strangers? What are they thinking and do they have insight that I would like to hear?
I hope that (if) as more of these information delivery systems become available in museums, they will be more than just “information delivery systems”…perhaps by allowing more collective knowledge, more sharing (when desired of course) :p
April 25, 2006 at 5:23 pm · Filed under Art, Experiences
My story telling has been a little crappy lately. I get tired out from all this information absorbing and when it comes time to summarize, my brain is mush. But for archival purposes, and for your reading pleasure, I need to try harder.
So, I can`t remember last week too well. There was the field work and that was really exhausting (again because there is so much thinking to do), but good. On Saturday I decided to see this artpiece by Makoto Ishiwata, Vacuum Packing!: Heartbeat. I suggest checking out this link for the details and the concept behind the work. Basically, you put on a protective mask and climb inside this structure. The artist takes your pulse and a beat to the same time plays from speakers surrounding the structure. You are given a button to press. Once to the start the work and possibly again if you PANIC!
In Vacuum Packing!, the air is sucked from inside the structure and the membrane surrounding it starts to close in on you. The space inside gets smaller and smaller and you feel pressure from all sides. All you hear is sucking and the loud beat.
It was a really incredible experience. Scary at first, but very comforting inside. My biggest fear was that the membrane would pop like a balloon but that didn`t happen. Then Atsu, a friend from work who also came to see the piece, tried it and a piece of the membrane (or skin ??) did pop! It was quiet surprising but he was okay so that is good. Definitely a fun time. Ishiwata-san had an initial version of Vacuum Packing! that used a coffin/closet form for the structure. Here are some pictures of that.
After seeing the piece, I went to the Shimokitazawa area in Tokyo. I read that it was a popular area for artists and young people and that it was. Though there were not as many art supply stores as I would have hoped for. Still…pretty cool. It was similar to Commercial Drive in Vancouver, but bigger, more adhoc, and with more stores and people. There were also many more vintage stores and good ones too! Clothing was organized and much of it looked unused. I guess maybe some people prefer that soapy used feel…but I don`t like it when you finally find an awesome jacket and then you find the huge stain on the elbow. My final purchase: a belt. Yay! And I was lucky too…went to some non-vintage stores as well and tried some belts. Haha…yeah the Large size might fit but they do not stock them. I also found a Lush store but I didn`t go inside!! I can`t believe myself. The logic I used at the time was, “oh, that`s not new”…but now I am wishing I would have gone in to compare products and prices and possibly get some maaaahbar. Oh well.
Other highlights…I can`t think of so many right now. I spent Sunday at a 100￥ shop (there`s this awesome one near my apartment) and at home cleaning. Yesterday I was in Yokohama for some fieldwork. Most of my time was spent in Yokohama station and the surrounding shopping centres (which are also in the station as far as I can tell) but I also wandered the streets around the station a little too. My next step today is to analyze some of my observations from yesterday so I won`t get into them now.
I will end here with my next purchasing goal: a Nintendo DS Lite. I found an application for Japanese-English dictionary. Terrific! But very impossible to find (the DS Lite)…they get sold so quickly here. It will be quite the quest.
November 21, 2005 at 7:04 am · Filed under Art, Reflection
We stayed in hotels along Orchard Road in Singapore. Orchard Road is a business / shopping district…very COMMERCIAL. In contrast was an exhibit consisting of large aerial photographs that lined two long blocks. They stayed up and open around the clock, every day. Surprisingly not one was marked by a vandal. This made me happy.
The work was beautiful and breathtaking. Some of the photographs made me want to cry. I urge you to check his work out by clicking on the above picture. It will link to his website…check out the photograph series “Earth From Above”.
As individuals we are so small compared to the big things and when we read facts and statements like those Yann accompanies his photography with, it can be hard for small us to realize the magnitude of the larger picture. These pictures help with that. Some are reminders, some deal with sustainable, some say “hey look at this beautiful thing we have here…don’t forget that”.
September 11, 2005 at 8:53 pm · Filed under Art, Reading
I’m horrible for starting them and never finishing. I wanted to get this done very much. The goal of it was to paint a picture I could stare at for a very long time and not think about. That and to not use much colour. Yes there is colour, but usually my paintings scream RGB and it makes me sick. I really need to take classes. This is a little closer to what I want to do. Must practice more.
This painting last was started last summer - only the background and windows. It took this summer’s passing to “inspire” me to add the bottle. A few days later I decided the finishing touch would be a wine coloured stain, Ralph Steadman style, around the bottom. I just finished reading Steadman’s Doodaa and have been thinking about his illustrations a lot. I love their sketchiness and appreciate them even more now because it is hard to create something in messy abandon without making it look forced. Maybe I should have finished it drunk. That seems to be the style of Doodaa’s Gavin Twinge. But then it may have become overdone…I wouldn’t know when to stop painting. But then maybe that holding back is just what makes it look forced.
May 30, 2005 at 7:15 pm · Filed under Art, Experiences, Work
echology setup
NIME is over. The installations all worked out (for the most part) and now it’s time to move on like I said I would. After all the cleaning up of course.
Echology was relatively successful. There was a little disaster in the last 15 minutes of its show, but those who saw it before then became well engaged. People came and played. They tried various combinations of sound directions and tactics. What I noticed the most was how people not only came and played and left, they communicated to eachother over the table. I don’t think that the interface was engaging as a game itself; it’s more that the nature of the piece, the subject matter that everyone can enjoy, the belugas and life, brought out conversation in everyone.
For this I am happy. For now I must sleep. zzzz
