Reflection on Ya Haddy Njie's SMP presentation

In her pamphlet Ya Haddy Njie states that through art making she narrates her emotions and how different experiences have hindered her formation of self-identity. She furthermore points out that when she starts making arts, she tries to back from her role as a author but rather sees herself in a role of a seeker. Her art thus becomes an extension of herself.
This point of view is really interesting since her works were all in black and white. Some of them depicted a human figure. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to ask her personally why she exclusively used the colors black and white. Nevertheless I though her work the most appealing one to me.
She also mentions that with the use of black and white, the image becomes a link between the past and the present. This, on the other hand, requires the reader to make an effort to connect with piece of art in a special way.
Another piece of work she exhibited was a black and white movie where the audience could see most of the international students talking in their own mother tongue about their experiences at St.Mary's. However, the faces were only roughly visible since a certain pattern kept flowing through the screen while the individuals were talking.
All in all I have to admit that I was totally surprised by the actual power of her works. Since Ya Haddy and I have been friends, she has always told me a lot of her works and how she wanted to present them. But without a doubt, the actual exhibition was by far more impressive than my imagination.

Reflection on the excursion to the National Gallery of Art

I really enjoyed the speech we attended as well as the exhibition of Robert Frank's work. One thing i vividly remember was the fact that Robert Frank had to select those few pictures, which we could see at the Gallery, from probably over several thousand photographs. This must have been a extremely time-consuming work. However, by knowing this, one might even more appreciate his selection.

Nevertheless, I would like too point out something else. After the exhibition we still had time to explore the rest of the National Gallery. The excursion had been my second time at the Gallery so have had the chance to see most of the works. However, there was one picture by Albert Bierstadt from 1858 that was called "Lake Lucerne" and was painted with oil on canvas.
I don't know what it was but this picture made me stand on in front of it for a least 20 minutes. It depicts a beautiful Swiss landscape that reminded my of my former visits to Switzerland and Austria. Once one has actually seen how beautiful those countries are, one might has the chance to fully comprehend the magic of Albert Bierstadt's picture.

Response to the William Irwin Thompson's reading

William Irwin Thompson mentiones four different levels of reading Grimms' fairy tale of Rapunzel: the literal, the structual,the anthropological, and the cosmological level.
Before I read the text I hadn't been familiar with Thompson's theory. I really think it interesting in how far he analysis Grimm's fairy tale of Rapunzel. Especially what he mentions about the antropological and structual level really seems to correspond to also present TV shows or movies. When I was reading this passage, I had to think about the TV series "Scrubs". By taking a closer look at it, one can easily detect reoccuring patterns.
However, I don't necessarily agree totally with what he states about the cosmological level in whoch one realizes that the story is also about the setting up of an order that is planetary. By reconsidering his arguementation I have to admit that it makes sense and also seems to be logical; but nevertheless, I think that this interpretaion is kind of far fetched.

Response to the Artists (art:21)

Sally Mann, a photographe and artist, gets depicted by her children as a driven professional and passionate mother at the same time. According to her her children, her obession with taking pictures, being her child has been sometimes difficult. Her daughter states in the film that thez kids have lost her mother to a certain extent but, on the other hand, have gained a friend. I am not sure if would necessarily consider that a positive development. The fact that the whole family seems to fit their needs to the mother's passion might create a critical relation between them in the long run. I can image that having such a passionate mother who truly seems to be involved in her work can also be a huge challenge or test for the family's cohesion.

I truly liked Mel Chin's artistic approach. He is one of the artists who uses certain objects that people usually don't need anymore or even consider them to be trash. Mel Chin then applies them to create something copmpletly new out of it. I furthermore appreachiate his effort in connecting art with science. He thereby generate art and helps to protect the environment at the same time.

James Turrell's project (The Roder Crater Project) was fascinating in this respect that is represents such a long and time consuming project. He mentions in the movie that this work has cost him two marriages and two realtions. However, his passion and dedication didn't seem to be restrictied by these sacrifices.

I especially liked Gabriel Orozco's attitude towards the process of art making. He pointed out that he uses tools everbody can use and that wants to depict "reality", which makes him to be outdoor all the time. I can't really explain why, but I was truly fascinated by some of his works. The most lasting impact on me was caused by the simple idea to attach a toilete roll to a huge ventilator on the roof. The idea seems so simple but it looked amazing.

Artist Response No 11

First Person Shooters

In the late 20th century, the entertainment industry began to converge in video and computer games. As the artists Anne-Marie Schleiner, Joan Leandre, and Brody Condon state in the excerpt describing their work, the industry's focus especially lay on video games that simulate war and war-like situations. Through the present technologies in the field of video game programming, online battles can be often experienced as the real world through the mediating interfaces of game-like targeting and navigation systems. At the same time, increasingly realistic games known as "first person shooters" featured immersive, three-dimensional worlds in which players engaged in violent conflicts, depicted with near-photographic realism.

After September 11, 2001, the artists Anne-Marie Schleiner, Joan Leandre, and Brody Condon were all fascinated by and critical of an internationally popular first-person shooter called Counter-Strike, in which players choose to undertake either terrorist or counter-terrorist operations in an urban environment. However, the artists claimed to have seen the game as an overly simplistic ""convergence of network shooter games and contemporary Middle Eastern politics in a game.

When playing Counter-Strike multiple players connect via the Internet to occupy the same virtual environment, fighting with or against one another in teams and communicating through text messages and voice channels. In addition, players can upload images to insert in the game space as "spray paints," or graffiti tags, to commemorate a kill or mark territory. Velvet-Strike is an artistic intervention that enables participants to insert what the artists call "counter-military graffiti" into the virtual space of Counter-Strike.

In addition, the site features screen-capture movies showing sprayers in action and examples of hate mail from Counter-Strike players angered by the artists' provocative actions, which some fans of the original game interpreted as denouncing video game violence.
Schleiner, Leandre, and Condon, however, have made it clear that Velvet-Strike is not critical of violence in video games, per se. Instead, as the three artists point out, the work forces us to wonder what exactly is at stake in the fictive virtual worlds in which both soldiers and civilians immerse themselves, at a time when real-life warfare increasingly resembles games and games increasingly resemble real life.
I have always been wondering what it exactly is that makes us so curious about those video games. Maybe these games are becoming even more popular in the future, as Schleiner, Leandre, and Condon indicate, because the games become reality and the reality becomes the games. It might also be due to the believe that one has the chance to have such a dangerous experience without actually being in risk to die.
However, I appreciate the artist's approach to such a disputable issue. Nevertheless, I doubt that users are actually prompted to wonder what exactly "is at stake in the fictive virtual worlds".

Artist Response No 10

Vectorial Elevation (1999)

Mexican-born artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer created a unique spectacle by placing eighteen robotic searchlights around Mexico City's Zócalo, the world's third-largest urban square. In his project called Vectorial Elevation (http://www.alzado.net/), first presented in Mexico City to celebrate the new millennium, participants used a Web-based interface to control the searchlights, choreographing patterns on the night sky and the urban landscape.
According to the artis himself, this type of performance is called "Relational Architecture," which he defines as "the technological actualization of buildings with alien memory." The interesting aspect about his work is that laypeople and passersby can construct new meanings for edifices with internet software and robotic lights. In other words, even a layman has the chance to produce such an outstanding spectacle. According to Lozano-Hemmer, "light projections...can achieve the desired monumental scale, can be changed in real time, and their immateriality makes their deployment more logistically feasible."

Lozano-Hemmer furthermore explains that when a participant's design for Vectorial Elevation reached the head of the Web queue, it was beamed into the sky, visible to crowds on the ground in Mexico City and, via Web cameras, to a large online audience. More than 800,000 people from 89 countries visited the Web site in a two-week period. The light show they produced was visible within a 20-kilometer radius.

As it is described by the author, the project's aesthetic effect remind us of those of the Tribute in Light (2002), a temporary public art memorial to the victims of 9/11, by Julian LaVerdiere and Paul Myoda, who utilized vertical beams supplied by 44 searchlights placed at Ground Zero in New York to project vertical beams into the night sky above the World Trade Center's destroyed Twin Towers.
However, Lozano-Hemmer describes his project as an "anti-monument" that serves primarily as a platform for public self-expression. Although Lozano-Hemmer uses technologies that suggest "panoptic regimes of control", Vectorial Elevation is primarily meant to be a celebration of the potential these technologies have to produce a new kind of participatory spectacle.

Artist Response No 9

360degrees

360degrees started out as an idea for a website almost five years ago. It has since evolved into a major initiative with the collaboration of dozens of imaginative and dedicated scholars, statisticians, activists, ex-offenders, students, educators, artists, and programmers.
According to the website (http://www.360degrees.org/360degrees.html), 360degree is a web page that is creating a database of organizations working around issues of incarcerations, crime and community development. The names who stand behind that idea are Jennifer and Kevin Mccoy. In the context of their project, they have been collecting the stories of inmates,lawyers, judges, parole officers, parents, victims and others whose lives have been affected by the criminal justice system.
In connection with a new series on National Public Radio, Prison Diaries, they have conducted interviews and given inmates and officers tape recorders so that they could keep tape diaries of their experience in prison.
They claim that each story is focused around a specific case and is told from the point of view from the people involved. The amazing aspect about their project is that one is able to explore each speaker's personal space by navigating 360 degrees through their chambers or cells.
Mr and Mrs Mccoy's website state that its ambition is to involve and motivate other the web sites visitors in the fight for justice. I truly find the depiction of authentic stories and fates interesting and also inspiring at the same time. Thus, people have the unique opportunity and chance to read, hear or even understand victims' perspectives better.