Environmental Art Festival in Iran

These are a few pictures from the 19th Environmental Art Festival in Iran. It was an organized event at which more than 60 artists participated. These artists created art to emphasize on the beauty of the natural world.
A lot of these artworks reminded me of the video we watched about Andy Goldsworthy.

"Safavid art teaches that man can make his paradise in this world."

More pictures here:

The 19th Environmental Art Festival in Iran (2008)

It would be fun to organize some sort of environmental art-making event for a final project??? Ideas!

Crows

So, this is a little random, but I found this really interesting.

Joshua Klein presented this talk about the intelligence of crows. He talks about the adaptation techniques of crows and how they have found more and more ways to adapt to living nearby humans over the years - "cultural adaption".
He builds this vending machine that crows learn how to interact with. He states that the significance of this finding would be to use crows in a mutually beneficial way - such as collecting garbage, etc.

http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_klein_on_the_intelligence_of_crows.html

Midterm Presentation Outline

For my midterm presentation I am going to present the four different theories of "what art is" from the book "the Art Question" by Nigel Warbuton. We have been learning about these in my Philosophy of the Arts class and I find them all very interesting.
The first theory is the theory of Significant Form, presented by Clive Bell.
"Some objects, created by human hands, have, for whatever reason, been charged with a power to produce an aesthetic emotion in sensitive viewers. These objects are all around us, and when we are interesting in them as works of art it is irrelevant when they were made, who made them, or why. The power to produce an aesthetic emotion is inherent in significant form." - (pg.10)

The second theory is the theory of the Expression of Emotion, presented by R.G.Collingwood.
"...art proper is the imaginative expression of emotion. He means something quite specific by 'expression' - not an outpouring or betrayal of emotion, nor a deliberate arousing of emotion, but rather a clarification of an initially vague feeling that through its expression becomes clear."(pg.49)

The third theory is the theory of Family Resemblance, presented by Wittgenstein and Weitz.
"Perhaps there was no such thing as the 'correct' definition of art, and the best that philosophers of art could hope for was to reveal the complex patterns of overlapping resemblances between the things we called art." (pg.66)

The last theory is the Institutional Theory, presented by Danto and Dickie:
Danto: "He suggests that it is theory that makes something a work of art, not some visible element of it: 'To see something as art requires something that the eye cannot descry - an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld.'" (pg.91)
Dickie: "A work of art in the classificatory sense is (1) an artifact (2) a set of the aspects of which has had conferred upon it the status of candidate for appreciation by some person or persons acting on behalf of a certain social institution (the artworld)."(pg.95)

In my presentation I am going to outline each of these theories and explain the criticisms of each.

Figurative Formalist Assignment

This is my drawing for the Figurative Formalist assignment for my Advanced Figure Drawing class. I was thinking a lot about mark-making while drawing this. I was also thinking about some of Richard Diebenkorn's drawings where he has drawn over previous figures leaving "ghosts" of them behind. My friend was in a totally different position on her bed when I decided to erase it out. You can only really see slight traces of where it used to be instead of the more visible lines of Richard Diebenkorn's drawings. I had to erase it mostly so I wouldn't get confused which lines were what when drawing the rest. Oh, and sorry about the random ray of sunlight at the bottom - I took this picture while it was still hanging up on the classroom wall after critique. 

Exploring!

Today I went exploring at Tom Sawyer park and left behind my crocheted yarn on different trees along the way. I'm posting some pictures I took while hiking + documentation of the yarn. 

Self-portrait in progress

Just felt like painting - quick beginning, not finished.

Snowflakes

Speaking of snow, photographer Andrew Osokin captures ethereal macro photos of snowflakes that have fallen on the ground and are in the process of melting away. 

I was driving home today and at a red light a snowflake landed on my window and I was looking at how beautiful and unique it actually was. I guess if you don't stop and actually LOOK at things like snow, you never realize how great they are. 

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2pnYmj/:F2Z2tqXe:QzDO$jSr/www.petapixel.com/2012/12/07/ethereal-macro-photos-of-snowflakes-in-the-moments-before-they-disappear/

Live Paintings!

I found the artist, Alexa Meade, to be extremely interesting. She actually graduated school as a political science major, but has recently branched out into a new genre of painting. She actually applies acrylic paint to people and objects/surroundings directly. She does this using large visible brushstrokes - emphasizing that it is paint on these people/objects/etc. Then she positions these people in areas and photographs them. The effect is very surreal because it really does look like the person she painted is an object in an actual painting instead of a real life person. It's very confusing to look at because your mind does want to believe these are actual paintings...then you realize they're not. Awesome!

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1qze9t/:2S6+.Y-i:U!@GBEWS/thedesigninspiration.com/articles/incredible-living-painting-with-realistic-body-paint/

Found Object 2/3/13

On the way to the library at school I picked up a branch that had fallen off of a tree with little flowers on it. When I got home I laid it down on top of some of my stuff in the kitchen - leaving it there until I could decide what to do with it. I was expecting that if my Mom found it she would just put it back outside or throw it away, but what's interesting is that I came home this morning and found it in a plastic bag on the counter...I found this interesting because by bringing it into my house I had given it some kind of purpose that even people who had no idea what I was doing with it still knew I had brought it in for a reason.

I first decided that since I began with picking my item up outside, I wanted to return it back outside. Of course, it would be in a different environment than it had been in the beginning. Also, I decided I wanted to give it new "life" (as it was just a branch that had broken off and was laying on the ground). 

I wanted to return it to nature, but give it new "life" (as in, show that it had come in contact with humans). I decided to use white string to tie onto the different pieces of flowers from the branch and then string them onto the branches of a tree in my backyard. There were some pieces and the original branch that I left unstrung and laid on the ground around the tree. I also created a spiral pattern around the tree by walking through the snow, leaving my footprints.