jtorres814: 2011

Monday, May 16, 2011

Performance Art- The Jab

I am trying to get a video i made onto here from my friend's Ipod 4G and i am having trouble. The video is about the art of jabbing in boxing and mixed martial arts. The jab is under utilized and an important tool to use in setting up strikes and messing up your opponents rhythm. The video that i am still trying to put up talks about this and show me jabbing on my punching bag. Sorry it isn't up yet, but i am working on it.

Yoko Ono

Yoko was born on February 18, 1933. She is Japanese and is an artist, musician, peace activist, and is well known for her marriage with John Lennon. She is known for her philantropic contributions to the arts, peace, and AIDS outreach programs.

Jamie Isenstein

Jamie Isenstein was born in 1975 in Portland, Oregon, and lives in New York. She earned her BA from Reed College in Portland in 1998 and her MFA from Columbia University in 2004. Her performances, installations, drawings, and sculptures have been the subject of solo exhibitions at Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York (2007); Meyer Riegger Galerie, Karlsruhe and Berlin, Germany (2006); and Guild and Greyshkul, New York (2004). Group exhibitions include those at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York; CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco; and Museum Moderner Kunst, Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna. Reviews of Isenstein’s work have appeared in such publications as the New York Times, Contemporary, Art in America, and Modern Painters. In her work she uses inanimate objects such as a chair and adds something to it. In one of her pieces she transforms herself with a chair and makes her legs the front legs of the chair.

The Museum of Jurassic Technology

The Museum of Jurrasic Technology was pretty cool. It had a bunch of interesting things to look at and watch. I didn’t get any pictures of the things because I forgot my camera. I had pulled over in a neighborhood and when I looked in my rear view mirror, there was a police woman so I got out and my friends and I started to leave so she wouldn’t think we were doing anything. We walked to the museum from there and my friend had remembered that he didn’t lock his door, so we had to walk back. We walked to the car and then back to the museum and I then remembered that I forgot my camera! I was mad, but I wasn’t going to walk back to the car again so I tried to take pictures with my phone and my friend’s phone. It didn’t work out.

One of the things that was interesting to me was this display of three green flowers but the middle one had a huge spike in the middle. I don’t know why, but I found myself just standing and looking at it. I was thinking that how can something so beautiful be so dangerous and destructive. The flowers were engraved with designs that made it look like a crazy flower.

Another thing I found cool was a display thalking about a guy whos name started with a “K”, I think it was like Kiercher or something, but he was mesmerized by space, magnetism, and asteroids. He made this display with clouds and a meteorite that would glow. It looked pretty crazy. Something else that was crazy was a display that was called, “In the Eye of a Needle”. It was funny because it had a couple figures in the eye of a needle like a soldier and then there was Goofy! Yes Goofy from Disney. It was because the guy who made it was a musician who got to know Walt Disney and did some work for him.

Another thing that was pretty cool was the microscopes. Under the microscopes were these very little things, but when looked under a microscope, the things turned into a full picture such as a bouquet of flowers or a basket of flowers. I just found it amazing that someone could put a piece of work together that was that small. I also enjoyed the crystal balls that were glowing in the darkness of one room. There were little plastic men inside of them and the balls looked like little planets to me. What I got from it was that each person is surrounded by themselves and the world and needs to expand his knowledge to be free.

I enjoyed the trip over to the Museum of Jurassic Technology. I went with two of my friends and they said that they liked it as well. They found it interesting and fun. We all had a good time, except when the cop cam, but it was all good. I would recommend going to the Museum because it was pretty cool.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Nancy Popp

Nancy Popp (Performing Artist)

Nancy Popp is an artist that is based at Los Angeles who creates performance art, videos, drawings, and photographs. Her projects are supposed to investigate how things can be performed pertaining to things using geography and identity and its relation to the body and its identity. Some of her recent projects have been some street performances at the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center, “The Audacity of Desperation” at Gallery Ps122 in New York, “Documental” at pilot Projects in Dusseldorf, “Checking Point” at The Rex Cultural Center in Belgrade, and “Performing Public Space” at Casa del Tunnel in Tijuana, Mexico.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Inflatable bodies

When we were assigned to go to Irvine and go to an inflatable bodies exhibit, I wasn’t sure what I was going to see. I was sort of expecting real life human bodies that would fill with air and expand. I thought this would be weird and how could people do that? We were told that the exhibit was small, but I didn’t know it was that small. I paid for 2 hours just in case I needed it and I was there for about ten minutes. I was upset that I didn’t have to pay for all the time, but it was only $4.

When entering the exhibit, I didn’t know what to do. I just started to take pictures and was moving around. When I started to move, the bodies inflated. It was pretty cool, but its not what I expected. The bodies didn’t look like bodies. They were supposed to be parts of the body of something, im not sure. They were pretty cool though. I forgot to get a picture of me with them, but in one of the pictures there is a glimpse of my friend Jesus.

The exhibit next to the bodies was cool. It had some paintings and stuff like that. My favorite thing was all the books smashed together sticking out of the wall. They weren’t on a table, but they seemed to sit there in the air. It must be crazy glue or something.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Edweard Muybridge

Edweard was an English photographer who spent most of his life in The United States. He is known for hie pieces of animals. He used to film animals and capture their everyday motions. He also invented his zoopraxiscope which is a device for projecting motion pictures that pre-dated the flexible perforated film strip.

He emigrated to the US, arriving in San Francisco in 1855, where he started a career as a publisher's agent and bookseller. He left San Francisco at the end of the 1850s, and, after a stagecoach accident in which he received severe head injuries, returned to England for a few years. While recumperating, he got into photography and really enjoyed it.

Robert Raushenberg

Robert was born an American and rose as an abstract artist , but then came to be known as a pop artist. He is well known for his "Combines" pieces in the 1950's in which non-traditional materials and were used and put together in inovative ways. He was a painter and a sculpture, but his Combine pieces combined both of the styles of art. He also used photography, printmaking, papermaking, and performance.

He was born as Milton Ernest Raushenberg. His father was German and part Cherokee and his mother was of Anglo-Saxon decent. HIs family was Christian and he studied at the Kansas State Art Institute and he later studied art at the Juilan Academy in Paris. He died on May 12, 2008 of heart failure.

John Whitney

John Whitney was an American artist that was an animator, composer, and inventor. He was born on April 8, 1917 and died on September 22, 1995. He was born in Pasadena and attended Pomona College. He first started with a 8mm camera. then he went and studied in Paris. On return he began filming his pieces with his brother James.

Whitney used mechanical animations for some of his pieces as well. he did pieces on guided missle projects and psycadelic pieces. He had 3 children named Michael, Mark and John Jr. They are all filmakers. There is a Whitney film collection that contains all of his works at the Academy of motion picture and arts sciences.

Bill Viola

Bill Viola (b.1951) is internationally recognized as one of today’s leading artists. He has been instrumental in the establishment of video as a vital form of contemporary art, and in so doing has helped to greatly expand its scope in terms of technology, content, and historical reach. For 40 years he has created videotapes, architectural video installations, sound environments, electronic music performances, flat panel video pieces, and works for television broadcast. Viola’s video installations—total environments that envelop the viewer in image and sound—employ state-of-the-art technologies and are distinguished by their precision and direct simplicity. They are shown in museums and galleries worldwide and are found in many distinguished collections. His single channel videotapes have been widely broadcast and presented cinematically, while his writings have been extensively published, and translated for international readers. Viola uses video to explore the phenomena of sense perception as an avenue to self-knowledge. His works focus on universal human experiences—birth, death, the unfolding of consciousness—and have roots in both Eastern and Western art as well as spiritual traditions, including Zen Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, and Christian mysticism. Using the inner language of subjective thoughts and collective memories, his videos communicate to a wide audience, allowing viewers to experience the work directly, and in their own personal way.

Matthew Barney

Matthew Narney is an American artist that does sculptures, drawing, film, and photography. His first works used video and performance with sculpure installations. He created a couple pieces between 1994 and 2002 called the Cremaster Cycle.

Matthew Barney was born March 25, 1967, in San Fransisco. He lived in Boise, Idaho from 1973 to 1985, where he attended elementary, middle, and high school. His parents divorced and his mother moved to New York City, where he would frequently visit, and where he was introduced to the art scene In 1989, he graduated from Yale University. His earliest works, created at Yale, were staged at the university’s athletic complex. Barney lives with his partner, singer Bjork, with whom he had a daughter 2002.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Stelarc

Stelarc is a performance artist who has visually probed and acoustically amplified his body. He has made three films of the inside of his body. Between 1976-1988 he completed 25 body suspension performances with hooks into the skin. He has used medical instruments, prosthetics, robotics, Virtual Reality systems, the Internet and biotechnology to explore alternate, intimate and involuntary interfaces with the body.

In 2004 was awarded a two year New Media Arts Fellowship. In 1997 he was appointed Honorary Professor of Art and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. He was Artist-In-Residence for Hamburg City in 1997. In 2000 he was awarded an Honorary Degree of Laws by Monash University.

Erwin Redl

   Austrian-born artist Erwin Redl uses LEDs as an artistic medium. Working in both two and three dimensions, his works redefine interior and exterior spaces. Born in 1963, Redl began his studies as a musician, receiving a BA in Composition and Diploma in Electronic Music at the Music Academy in Vienna, Austria. In 1995, he received an MFA in Computer Art at the School of Visual Arts in New York, where he now lives.

    Redl's works have received attention both nationally and internationally. With his piece Matrix 1, he lit the face of New York's Whitney Museum of American Art for its 2002 Biennial Exhibit. Works such as Matrix 2, which was shown in New York, Germany, France, Austria, and Korea, and Fade 1, which animated the Eglise Sainte-Marie Madeleine in Lille, France, explore volume and allow people to move through lit spaces.

Knowbotic Research

Knowbotic Research is a German company established in 1991. They experiment with technology, information and knowledge, interface, immersive virtual reality, and networked agency.
Knowbotic is a term that combined “knowledge” with "robot" meaning intellectual agent on the Internet. Knowbotic has developed some projects themed on an information environment and a computer interface. Since 1998, it has become more flexible, and with these main three of them, different members from various fields such as art, science, and philosophy, have joined in each program. In 1997, it worked with Japanese art group, Canon Art Lab, in Tokyo. This project aimed at revealing the function of the city by interacting between real and the virtual world.

The Knowbotic Research group received some awards such as:

Two Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nicas (in 1994 and 1998)
The Claasen Prize for Media Art and Photography, Cologne
The international ZKM Media-art award
The August Seeling-Award of Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Joan Jonas

Joan Jonas was born in 1936 in New York City. She is a pioneer of video and art performances. She does videos of things that are weird. One of her pieces is called “Roll Call” and it is just images coming down vertically and a metal spoon hitting the screen. It goes on for nineteen minutes. She started out her career as a sculptor then slowly began her transition into video art. She is supposed to be one of the most important female artists to emerge in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, but I don’t understand her art. It was also hard to see her videos. There were like two videos out to see and the rest, if there was any, was twenty seconds long. Some of the pieces she has done are: Wind (1968), Songdelay (1973), Organic Honey (1972-1976), the Juniper Tree (1976), and Lines in the Sand (2002). Some of her influences are conceptual art, theater performance, feminism, and other visual media. In 2003, she also had some solo exhibitions at Rosamund Felsen in Los Angeles and the Pat Hern Gallery in New York. Today she is a professor of visual arts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Nam June Paik

Paik was a video artist and I believe he was on during the video day. He used video art to perplex his audience. He first started in Neo-Dada art which was inspired by John Cage. He then worked with a woman to combine his video and music with hers. They placed the images and sounds on top of each other and there was his first success at getting his name out.

He did crazy things like putting 3 television sets out of a cello. Not that many people would think of doing that. His notes and works have been collected and put into one book for fans to research him. Sadly he died in 2006 due to a stroke. His piece with the cello is cool because it is a real cello. He didn’t make one, but he improvised it.

Four Yip

Four Yip is an artist from Amsterdam who uses art in the world of Second Life. She really pushes the boundries of the system and creates these pieces of art that may be confusing.

She tries to create these things that will blow your mind. It is weird in that she tries to make two sides of an avatar and put them together. Some websites say other things so it was hard to fidure out what or why she does it, but she does and here is a picture of her strange art.

Scott Blake

Scott Blake was born in Tampa, Florida. His style of art is the use of barcodes to make art. He would use pixels that will show up and dissipate to make a piece seem like it is animated. He started to do this around the Y2K scare and that could have influenced him, but it isn’t sure where this barcode style of art came from. It sort of just popped up.

Scott’s art has been in magazines such as: The New York Times, FHM, and Adbusters. He has been asked to do work for private collections such as for Jane Fonda and many people have his work in their collections. The creators of Photoshop also recognized his artwork. They recognized him at the Adobe Design Achievement Awards. He also received a B.F.A. from Savannah College of Art and Design.

Gracie Kendal

Gracie Kendal is a woman who uses Second Life because she is not content with her actual self. Gracie is the name of her avatar I believe and this is how she feels about it, "…I have found it difficult to be comfortable in my own skin. My sense of self has become dislodged and torn apart. Through Gracie I have begun to put myself back together." Kris is her name in real life, but she feels that both are her. To her the cyber world is an outlet for the real world. Second life helps her feel comfortable because Kris doesn’t feel “real” in her body. It is as if she was born in the wrong body. She feels as if Gracie can help her in ways that she cannot.

Gracie started using second life because of her grandparents telling her about it. She started an art gallery and is on the top ten lists for the best art in the second life world. In the real world, Kris is trying to be an art major and in 2010 she was supposed to be graduating with her art degree. The belief that second life is real can be confusing for some. Kris uses it as an outlet for her emotions and that is all that counts. If it makes her feel better about herself, then no one should penalize or disrespect her for doing what makes her feel good.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Identity Collage

When doing the collage, I didn’t know what to put on there. I thought about music because I listen to it a lot so I decided to put Jimi Hendrix next to Bob Dylan and also the Rolling Stones. These are three of my favorite music selections to listen to. Bob Dylan being next to Jimi Hendrix is supposed to mean something. I put Dylan next to Jimi because Jimi Hendrix was supposed to have really liked Bob Dylan’s songs. In a documentary, his drummer was telling a story about when someone would mention Bob Dylan’s name, Jimi would get all exited. Jimi also was supposed to have carried a book of all of Bob Dylan’s songs and albums. He would refer to it daily. The Rolling Stones speak for themselves. They have so many songs and everyone liked them.

At the top is my family. Me, my dad, my mom, and my brother. We all like sports and different teams so I decided to put a little picture of them next to a football team they like. I prefer the San Francisco 49er’s. They arent doing good right now, but its all good.

I coverd the bottom and sides with leaves and grass because I like to be outside. The grass will die soon so the green wont last that long. The picture of someone hugging a Siberian Husky is of me and my dog Samson. Next to it is a no cat sign because I don’t like cats. All of the ones I met are mean. My frend had one and it seemed nice until it scratched me. Then my friend Mehrdad was going to pick it up and asked my friend Michael if it would be okay. He said ya, but I told him he shouldn’t. he picked it up and the cat bit him. So pretty much I havent found a nice cat. There is also a picture of some books I have read. On top is my Xbox 360. The books are books that I have read and I like reading, but I prefer videogames. I get to be the person that books are talking about so it makes it better. The picture of me and my friends at Disneyland is split by an Army lightning bolt because my friend went to the Army on February 24. He had to be at a hotel two days before so my friends and I drove over to Los Angeles to see him for the last time for a good while. I put that because he was one of my best friends so it was something big that happened recently. There is a picture of Pink Floyd. I like them and I believed that there needed to be something there so I put that.

I also cut out a picture of me and drew big arms shoulder pressing a barbell because I enjoy working out. I try to work out every day out of the week, but sometimes to take the weekends off because I am sore. That is also why I put a picture of a UFC fighter kneeing someone in the face next to boxing gloves. I kickbox for a workout and lift weights. I also bought focus mits, so I use them with my friend Jesus. I put those two together because I like them both, buit they are completely different. Alost of people who like boxing don’t like MMA. That is mixed martial arts; its what the UFC fighters do. Boxing is just on part of MMA. MMA is better because it incorporates all aspects of fighting. It has boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, Jiu Jitzu, and there are different fight styles that are incorporated into MMA to make that person even better. Boxing is one of the earliest fighting sports and should be respected, but MMA is better and different. There are two skateboards in a cross because I am a christian and I used to skate. I don’t really skate that much any more, but I used to skate everyday. It was fun; very tiring but fun. It took time to do. Sometimes it would be so frustrating to learn or do a trick and it would just piss me off. Then there were times when I fell. I never broke anything when skating, but I should have. One time may friends and I took the bus to Diamond Bar. There was a cool school over there with a six, four, and two stair pyramid, they were all connected. Next to them was huge hills my friend Jesus and I decied to bomb them. We got to the top and my friend jumped on his board while I puched around ten times. I was going about 45 miles an hour and I started to get the speed wiggles. Those are created when going really fast; the board starts to wiggle real fast. I started to stabalize my legs and I hit a pile of pebbles. I did like ten front flips and came to a stop in the middle of the street. I got to see my friend bomb the hill to the end and ollie up the curb! I couldn’t believe it. Good thing I didn’t make it down the hill because we thought about it later and at the bottom is like a ten lane freeway entrance. I may have gotten hurt if I made it but good thing I didn’t. I covered my head with my elbows so my skin was just scratched off on the bottom of my arms, but it was fun. It was funny, when going back home this lady insisted on me having one of her disinfectant wipes. She made me have it.

The collage was fun. Hard to think of what to put on and how, but it went over well and I had a good time.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Los Angeles Art Museum

Los Angeles Museum of Art

Going to the Museum of Art in Los Angeles was fun. It was a lot bigger than the Norton Simon and had a lot of very different things to look at. I first had to find the place. I was convinced I had passed it when I saw it. A huge building next to the tar pits! I had always wanted to go to the tar pits and this museum trip allowed me to see it. I couldn’t really find that many things that indentified me, but I found some alright things and took a picture of them.

The first building I went in had a Korean exhibit. I couldn’t really find anything that related to me or that I really liked enough to take a picture. I had to conserve my camera because my batteries were low. I had an extra pair in the front pocket of my camera, but their energy was drained. I didn’t buy any because they didn’t sell them at the museum and when going there, I believed the batteries were full. However, I found a Buddha gold sculpture thing and I took a picture with it because it was the only thing I saw that was pretty cool. This one was of Western Paradise and his hand gesture indicates that wisdom and salvation are accessible to anyone and I believe that is true, but it depends on that person to do it. Here is the picture.

The second exhibit I saw was Japanese exhibit. I saw a couple things I liked, but I only took a picture of this Japanese samurai suit. I looked cool and I made me think of a warrior spirit. Not giving up and striving to be the best one possibly can. That’s what I was thinking when I was looking at it and it was cool to be able to see in person. The picture is a little blurry, but the suit is awesome.

This photo was pretty cool. I believe it was about working hard. There are a bunch of gears going around and that signifies constant work and always working towards something.

This other photo was taken from the arts of the Pacific. Nothing had explanations or who did it so many things were confusing. I didn’t find anything good so I took a picture of this item that looks like a wok because I like to cook.

In another exhibit there were a bunch of just random things. There were basketballs in water. There were vacuums under lights, and just random stuff. I took a picture of this big blue dog because I like dogs and couldn’t find anything that I really liked.

The last two exhibits I was going to go in were closed an I wasn’t able to go in so I couldn’t get a picture of anything, but I took a couple pictures outside and that was it. I enjoyed my time at the museum and was really tired when it was time to go. I got to see some interesting things and the La Brea Tar Pits. The day went over well and was a fun trip. However, if I had to choose which museum I liked better, I would choose the Norton Simon. It had a lot more things that I really liked and was smaller so I wasn’t as tired at the end of the day, but I enjoyed my time at the Los Angeles Museum of Art.

Artist Research: Barbara Kruger

Barbara Kruger

Barbara Kruger was born in Newark, New Jersey. She attended Syracuse University, the School of Visual Arts. She also worked with Diane Arbus. Diane was a lady who influenced Barbara in that she took pictures of irregular people such as midgets, nude people, and circus people. This is sort of what Kruger does. While in her design job, she was promoted to head designer because she was working under Mademoiselle Magazine. After that job she worked in graphic designer, art director and picture editor for the art department “House and Home”.

Barbara layers photos that she found and inserts aggressive text in it that talks about things she strongly feels about such as feminism, consumerism, and desire. It’s funny because she talks about being led like consumerism. People buy items because it is advertised and that is what the magazines that she works for does. They try to sell people things such as alcohol, cigarettes, and food. Some of her internationally renowned work has slogans such as: “I shop, therefore I am”, and “Your body is a Battleground”. Mostly all of her pictures are black and white, but it gives her pictures a rustic look and can really bring out the message she is trying to send. Kruger’s work has appeared on billboards, buscards, posters, public parks, a train station platform in France, and in other public places. She also teaches. She taught at the California Institute of Art, The School of Art Institute of Chicago, and the University of California, Berkely. She now lives in New York and Los Angeles. Here are some pictures she has done. Hope you enjoy!