Showing posts with label art talk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art talk. Show all posts

Friday, March 2, 2007

Artist Talk

This morning I listened to Patrick Kelly, a candidate for the digital arts teaching job. He presented a lot of his photography and how he got started with his love for nature and brought in some human aspects of creating the environment. Eventually he started using the web as a showcase and then created some natural looking art with the computer. He is currently interested in using web space not only as a showcase, but as the art itself. For example, he collaborated with a musician to create a labryinth on the computer, much like a video game. He likes the idea of the viewer being able to interact with the art and decide for themself what is real and what has been created. I think he is an excellent candidate for the posistion.

Monday, February 19, 2007

S-E-X-Oh!

Last Friday night I saw a wonderful production called "S-E-X-Oh!" by Teatro Luna. The show was a compilation of true stories about the Latina women who perform for this group. While most of the stories were funny, others were heart-breaking and upsetting. The movement of the show was very well done as it flowed so seamlessly to bring in very dynamic emotions. Being able to identify with the show, as a Latina, really brought me into the whole experience. I think that this is why the show was so amazing to me and perhaps not to others. Simply being Catholic is not really what the show is about, but more specifically being a Latina (who are stereotypically devout Catholics). I believe that some may have misinterpreted what was being portrayed with these topics on stage. I am so glad that I had the opportunity to see these women perform such an amazing show and I hope that I see them in their new show soon.

Thursday, February 1, 2007

Reynold Bailey: Perception-Guiding Image Editing

Today, Reynold Bailey gave a talk on Perception-Guiding Image Editing. I thought that he was funny and liked the format of his presentation. However, I was not expecting such a huge part of his talk to be an extensive neuroscience background of the work he does. I thought this much detail was unnecessary and could have been summed up much more quickly for the purposes of his talk. Feeling like I was in a review session for all my neuroscience classes really distracted me from what his talk was actually about. I really only saw a few slides that were about his actual work, and am therefore not truly sure what the talk was about. It seems to me that he has studied the interaction between human perception and the way graphics are displayed on the computer and is now finding ways to alter graphics so that humans will perceive them a certain way. For instance, his cinematography example about having a main character in the background of a scene can be colored in a different way (warmer colors) so that humans will more readily perceive and attend to the character as opposed to something else in the scene. Overall, I thought his work was very interesting, just that the talk could have been organized to be more effective.

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Lance Winn: drawing, robotics, sculpture

Yesterday I attended the art talk with Lance Winn who shared his work with drawing, robotics and sculpture. I missed the beginning, and therefore his discussion on ectoplasm, however, I did hear a lot about some specific pieces. I was fascinated by the way he allowed the work to guide him and make itself. I felt that this spoke to me because I've always held that curiosity about "secret messages" (even if I know they're not really there). I'm also very indecisive and have a lot of trouble planning any art project because I never know where I want it to go when I start. While I really enjoyed hearing his concepts, I wasn't too sure what I thought about the art itself. I liked that he layered his work so that what it started out as may not be what you see when you look at the finished product. I felt that he showed us a lot of the same work over and over again, which I thought to be unnecessary. I think his presentation would have been just as effective if he had chosen a select number of pieces that are mostly dissimilar from each other. I also give him a lot of credit because I don't have his patience to draw/paint all those lines!

Thursday, January 25, 2007

"Consumed" by Melissa Dean

Yesterday I attended "Consumed" by Melissa Dean. It was (I'm sad to say) my first art event in all my time here at St. Mary's. I really enjoyed it, not only because I finally got to attend one and even step foot into Boyden Gallery, but I really enjoyed her talk. I was afraid that, not being an art major, I would have no idea what she was talking about when she discussed her techniques and philosophies behind her work. I was greatly pleased that this was not the case. I think my favorite piece was the painting of all the different items on top of one another, mostly because I felt like I understood it (which is sort of rare for me). I thought her ideas of the consumer vs. organic paradox were very interesting and loved that she wanted the viewer to decide what each piece says. I really like the idea of overlaying simplistic images on top of one another to take away meaning, it sounds fascinating and I'd like to try it sometime.