Death Clock

I have given a lot of thought to the final project. I came up with a dozen ideas on incorporating food into art, such as creating a landscape in a diorama that resembled a landscape painting or layering parts of a cake to imitate a painting. I also considered sculpture made from different types of food, and even considered making a Dahli clock styled pizza (partly because I fear everyone will bring in desert type work). During the last class before finals, the topic of death came up and I started thinking a lot about it. Time and death have some pretty obvious links, so I chose to make a giant cookie to represent these two themes. It was too large to shape traditionally, but I managed to keep it together on my second try. I will update this blog with more details after it has been presented (I don't want to spoil the surprise.)

Update
The big reveal: A Giant Fortune Cookie. Inside is a running stopwatch and the fortune "When men speak of the future, the God's laugh."

I named this piece Death Clock. Generally, a death clock "predicts" when the user will die. This of course is  nonsense as no one knows when their "time is up". It is still amusing for people to imagine that their future can be told. I think it is fascinating that people can be entertained by the concept of death, even their own. I chose to make a fortune cookie as the first layer to my edible metaphor, since it is a playful way for people to imagine the future. It was a double batch of batter (made mostly of egg whites, sugar, and flour) spread on a pizza pan. After it was baked, I placed the running stopwatch and the fortune inside. The clock started when the cookie was "born". It resets every 60 minutes, so there is no way to know how long the clock has been running. Ultimately, the message of this piece is that death is simultaneously serious and funny, and that no one knows when it will come.

People tend to overlook the unpredictability of life and constantly plan for tomorrow. When men speak of the future, the God's laugh.

Boyden Gallery Opens

New exhibits were installed in the Boyden Gallery. The largest exhibit looked like an arranged collage of white paper with curving black stripes. The rhythm created by this arrangement was confusing. There was also a collection of concrete slabs on display with strange foot prints within. One slab represented an adult, and another represented a baby of some imaginary creature. The texture distracted from the impressions of feet a little, and I noticed that the edges were already crumbling. The exhibits that I looked at the most was the collection called Aggregates, and Tactile Aggregates,  by Garret Zopfi. Tactile Aggregates was intended to be handled by viewers. The collection that was brightly colored easily drew me in. Each piece was molded from plaster and sported a coat of neon spray paint. There were several molds used, but like-shapes were displayed together so that the arrangement very much resembled work by Andy Warhol, who was a source of inspiration for the artist. The shapes of the pieces seemed organic, and my first impression was that they looked like some non-human organs. It may be representative of, or inspired by, other organic forms such as root vegetables. The collection conveyed energy in the forms and the colors, and rhythm in repeated patterns. I thought it was the most interesting exhibit in the gallery. 

Seeing vs. Vision

The reading from The Object Stares Back was really interesting, mostly because I had never thought about how I see things. I started looking around, and to be honest I had a hard time noticing the things I don't see - which is a strange statement but Elkins did talk about our vision being filled with what we don't see. Some things limit our vision, some things divert out attention, and so on. I did have some success with a little experiment though. He talked about the distortions of out peripheral vision, so I created the scenarios he described to see if I would see things the way he claimed. I went into a hallway with a doorway at my side, and when I looked straight ahead the doorway did seem to be higher. I think that may have been caused by my inability to see the top of the door frame, which made it seem like the top was way over my head. I also tested the motion sensitivity of my peripheral vision with my hand at my side, which did play out the way he described. I also have been thinking about other things that change my vision. After he discussed the view though his window and a telescope, I recalled an illusion I often see with my glasses. I see points of light cast out from street lamps and cars at night, as if they were twinkling stars. I also see it during the day sometimes. I never gave it thought beyond wiping my lens clean (which helps, but doesn't remove the illusion). Now it seems to be one more filter in a list of things that impact my ability to see. It joins other physical filters like the amount of light available and the limitations of my eyes, as well as social filters which change the attention I give to certain images. It was a very though provoking reading, but I would have liked to see the pictures better.

This theme of "seeing" can be linked to some of the recent activities in class. We watched a short documentary in class on an artist that removes elements from videos to create his art, essentially making the things that we can't see become the focus of the word. One such video was an athlete in his moment of triumph, except that he had been removed from the moment and a ghostly void was left in his place. The things we can't see in his work make it very interesting, and a little uncomfortable (because we want to see what we know or think should be there).

We also created videos using shared recordings. Even though clips were reused, the end product of each persons video was really different, which demonstrates that we all see different meanings in the same image. The focus of this project may have been more about time, but our individual visions are clearly demonstrated in this project.

Most recently, we all studied and responded to a selected piece of art or an artist. I chose to study the work of Edvard Munch, whose most famous work is an expressionist painting call The Scream. It uses strong color and line to visually represent dark and ominous emotions, with the central figure seeming to warp under the pressure of so much emotional agony. It was a moment that Munch actually experienced, and managed to create visually even though feelings can't be seen.