Jim Condron: Picking Up the Pieces

       On Thursday, November 9th, I attended the artist talk and reception for Jim Condron's art gallery. It was interesting to see and hear Condron discuss his artwork and listen to what he had to say. At first glance and looking solely at the art gallery, I would have thought that Condron was primarily a sculptor. But in reality, he trained as a painter and claims that he does not know the first thing about sculpture. He even said he feels uncomfortable calling his artwork "sculpture." Condron's art takes everyday, mundane objects and transforms them into something visually interesting and smile-worthy. 

       When we visited the gallery during class,  I had no clue what I was looking at. The pieces did not really connect to their titles and it was hard to derive meaning from them. After hearing Jim Condron talk, I learned that not all of his work is random. His mom is dying from ALS and a few of his pieces are meant to reflect that situation. He keeps a running list of phrases and sentences which he pulls from to title his artwork. He told the audience that he is deliberately unclear so his art is subjective to personal meaning. 

       It was also interesting to hear Ann Landi, an art critic from New York, speak about Condron's work and the art world today. When asked about Condron's work she said the first thing that comes to mind is "What's going on?!" She told the audience that art journalism is dwindling and people need to work to bring back traditional art reviews in literature. Condron's work is important because it is eclectic and different and is worth writing about.

The Art of Data Visualization

      At any given moment, our brains are processing millions of different things at the speed of light. Data visualization transforms otherwise complex data into a simpler form. It helps us to make sense of complicated information and perceive it as simple. I liked the end of the video where he talked about how an important aspect of data visualization is leaving room for some interpretation. Interpretation is important because maybe someone else will notice or realize something that the artist had not. It's not a one-sided relationship.
      An aspect of the video that I found interesting was that in data visualization, the creator also takes into consideration his or her own message and what they want to get across. We see data images every single day and it is fascinating to see the amount of thought and work that goes into each visual piece. But I guess that's the point of data visualization. The creator is the one who is supposed to do all the hard work to make it easy for the audience to comprehend the data given.
      The world creates patterns whether we realize it or not. It was interesting to see how charts of flight patterns or maps of all the McDonald's in the country creates a visually pleasing image or pattern. We react just as much to the aesthetic as we do to the actual information. If the visualization does not match the data, the piece will just be a failure. It is important to respect the data and to respect the visuals as well. "How can we see not to confirm, but to see to learn."

Postmodern Mixed Media Phase 2

The piece has many different components of it including images, paper, color, ink, and lines. The piece features a collage of crying or upset babies that was cut up to fit the four corners of the paper. Blue and purple construction paper was used to balance the overwhelming flesh tones of the babies. The focal point is the center where a larger, crying baby face is pasted on the body of a Victoria Secret model. The background features dripping ink blots or splatters.

The connotative meaning of the piece is that it is meant to represent Jean Baudrillard's quote, "There is no aphrodisiac like innocence." The piece make you feel unsettled and chaotic. It can be a little funny at times. There is nothing more annoying than the shrillness of babies crying so this was meant to put a little humorous twist on that. The piece is chaotic and insane. Babies are the essence of innocence, so to compare them with "aphrodisiac" is a little unsettling. When I first read the quote I was taken aback and thought "was this guy into child pornography?" So I took the quote literally and paired crying babies with a Victoria Secret model. The idealogical meaning is how messed up society's view of "sexy" is. While people should be admiring experience and intelligence, Jean Baudrillard says that "innocence" is sexy.

Postmodernism

I found both the readings on postmodernism to be a little confusing. It makes sense that they would be confusing because the contradictory clash of old traditions and modern values is inherently confusing. One question I have regarding the readings is about the difference between places like Disneyland and downtown LA. Were the writers saying that Disneyland is "real" and LA is not? Or were they saying that both places are not real? I was kind of confused about what they were trying to say about that. But I really liked the depiction of new age forms of communication. We see things like that all the time in everyday life but never really stop to think about the origins.

Color Podcast

Color is such an interesting and fascinating concept. Thinking about colors for too long is enough to make your head hurt. When I was younger, I learned that butterflies can see more colors than humans. As a young child, this thought frustrated me to no end. I struggled to wrap my head around the fact that colors that I couldn't see existed. It is impossible to imagine colors you have never seen. The color podcast brought back these thoughts that haunted me as a child. It's kind of like asking the question: "how can you explain or describe color to someone who is blind?" It is nearly impossible.

It is easy to imagine a dog's world which is either in blue/yellow tones or is black and white. It is simple to eliminate color from our palette but incredibly difficult to add color. While humans normally have 3 color receptors, creatures like butterflies have 5 or 6, and even more unbelievable, mantis shrimp have 16 color receptors. A creature so small and insignificant lives in a more vibrant world than humans. But apparently, there are some women who have 4 color receptors. The podcast discussed how hard it is to determine the accuracy of this fact.

We don't think about how much color affects our every day life. Color determines what clothes we wear and what foods we eat. This podcast reminded me of an experiment I once saw. People ate skittles blindfolded and were unable to differentiate between flavors even though each skittle has a different flavor. Humans associate colors with mood. People associate with different colors and tend to gravitate towards different colors. I started to think, "what if I am seeing green but another sees 'red'?" How do we know that we are all seeing the same colors with the same names?

There has been a trend on the internet for a while now where people post an image and then debate the colors of the object. This was first seen with "the dress" where some people saw black and blue and others saw white and gold. "The dress" sparked arguments all over. How could someone be seeing something so opposite of me? Last week an image of a shoe went around the internet. Some said it was white and pink, and others said mint and grey. People were again divided. How do you determine who is correct when so many people are convinced on what colors they are seeing?

Whitescapes

The first photo is a picture of the bottom of a frosting can against the dry-erase white board in my living room. It was taken with the lights on and no flash. The second photo is the same image but taken with the lights off and with the flash of my camera on. Although the can of frosting and white board are classified as white, they all look different in both images. The contrast of the frosting can makes both the backgrounds look grey rather than white. The lighting in the first image makes the frosting can look darker and creamier than the bottom image. The can in the bottom image looks more white than the first image because of the strong contrast with the white board. The white board in the bottom picture has a darker grey tone than the top image. 

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