Flex Credit--Multiple

            Before Brain Gillis’s presentation, once someone mentioning multiple, my first reaction is mathematics, and I never have thought that this abstract words would have relationship with art. Like Brain said in class, the multiple in art is similar to the multiple in mathematics, they are all containing more than once, or more than one, consisting of more than one, manifold, repeated many times, having several, or many parts. Like all other presentations came to class this term, drawing, digital media, fibers, sculpting, art&environment, those media of art all are from our daily life and ignored by our eyes.

 In the lecture, which one attracted me most is the Marcel Duchamp, one reason is we learned his famous ‘Fountain’ earlier, and the other reason is his work is awash with multiple personalities. Like his art work—‘Bicycle Wheels’, which was readymade art object. In this picture, it is a sweet and goofy construction: a bicycle wheel and fork mounted upside-down on a tall stool. Many aspects of a bike lend themselves to wonder and introspection—everything from the double-triangle frame designing to the bearing and races in a hub—but the wheel ranks right up here at the top with its combination of fragility and strength. If I looked those two objects separately, I cannot think they may work together. But Marcel Duchamp used the readymade way and multiple angles to achieve this goal, and Duchamp even said to have enjoyed spinning his stool-mounted wheel and its widely quoted as saying: I enjoyed looking at it, just as I enjoy looking at the flames dancing in a fireplace. As Brain said in lecture, the readymades include different types of works: Assisted Readymade and Rectified Readymades. The readymades are experiments in provocation, the products of a conscious effort to break every rule of the artistic tradition, in order to create a new kind of art — one that engages the mind instead of the eye, in ways that provoke the observer to participate and think. Assisted readymades were constructed of two or more objects. Some were simple, like Bicycle Wheel, which was made by joining two prefabricated objects. Another iconic duplication is the different style of Mona Lisa. This is really a funny one. In this work, I can see Simpson, Mr. Bean, Paris Hilton and etc. When I saw these pictures, I really admire the creativities of authors and understand that why Brain said : ‘idea behind the object considered more important than the object itself.’ In the end, the Brain summarized the notion of multiple: mass fabrication, readymades, industrial processes used to make original pieces, repetitive processed used to make original piece, original work that use repetitive action and original work that use repetition.

This week multimedia--Gabriel Orozco have the similar idea as Brain Gillis. Like his famous work—ping pong table, which is not just a piece of art, but yet a game that symbolically relates to Orozco’s belief that every game is an expression of how the universe works for different cultures. He used new way to make original pieces—ping pong table and lotus—together. Instead of a net, the table has been pulled apart and a raised pond (complete with lilly pads) put in its place, along with two more table sections making it a game for up to 4 players. He explained his inspirit in his video: ‘The Ping Pond Table is connected to this idea of a new space, a new possible space. When you have a normal ping pong game you have a net which is enough space between two spaces. But when you multiply that space by four, instead of two people playing you have four people playing in four tables. You open that space so the net is also open.’ From here we see that, he used the notion of multiply into space, not only the numbers. You can see the idea of multiples also in "La D.S." car, a silver DS that has been sliced into three pieces length wide, the middle section was removed and the two remaining pieces were reassembled as a one seater, and the result is an arrow-like car sculpture, with less width than its original. He recreated a work in new way and explained his lyricism and humorous, I found that his work is a continuous exploration, revealing a spirit of equal parts wit and amazement, open to surprise. In his art work, like ‘supermarket’, Gabriel took the idea of a mass produced object and modified it, using the notion of multiple to create new works.

Justin Novak is another artist whom is well equipped to use multiples in order to describe his creativity. Among his work, ‘Confessional Sinks’ made a deep impression on me. Justin used the original Kohler sink that is easy find in our daily life, producing confessional by adding latticed ceramic panels on the both sides that have a quatrefoil pattern. Through this work, the sinks were transformed into sites of spiritual as well as physical cleansing. The integration of this ritual of atonement into a domestic object suggested a private reckoning with one’s past deeds rather than a reliance on religious institutions. It’s worth mentioning that Justin was a student at the university of Oregon and Tyrras would be his GTF, it’s really interesting one~hahaha~!

The last thing we did in our class was watch the video of JR. I found this guy is the most moving and touching out of the entire artists we studied. He took the idea of multiples to a whole new level.  He used the art of photography and used it to spread a message around the world. By giving people the opportunity to share their stories and have people to learn about it, he is changing the world.  It may not be a drastic change, but he is slowly inspiring people to open up and not be afraid to share their thoughts.  

Mar­cel Ducham gave me this idea for an image when he used into Fountain to show that even though the picture is distorted in a certain way, you still know its function. It is a work of art that tran­scends a form, but that is also intel­li­gi­ble, an object that strikes down an idea while allow­ing it to spring up stronger.

Finally, I really want to give my thanks to Tyrras~Thanks for the patience, knowledge and humorous, as foreign students, I really realize the charming from American professor~~thkssss!

Flex Credit--Chris Jordan

            During the Chris Jordan’s exhibition, I went to the Jordan Schnitzer Museum three times to watch his show. Before I visited his exhibition I never heard him before (please forgive my shallow~~), thereby, I searched his information online to help me to beginning knowing about him.

            Chris Jordan is an artist based in Seattle, Washington who is best known for his large scale works depicting mass consumption and waste, particularly garbage. He has been called "the 'it' artist of the green movement". With these preliminary understanding, I visited his exhibition at first time. Like most art exhibition, the entire layout of Chris Jordan’s art exhibition is simple and clean, the only difference is that the light in here is darker and softer than other exhibitions. And then I found the sign which write that: 75% energy saving, that’s how much the JSMA is projected to save   traditional halogen lighting.’ Applying the environmental protection concept to the subtle details, which is the first highlight I found in Jordan’s exhibition. I watched every pieces and comments in this exhibition carefully, when I stared every work, I tried my best to reached a realm that not only just looking, but also to understand the author’s soul.

            Among Chris Jordan’s work, there are some pieces left a deep impression on me.

The first one is named ‘Light Bulbs’, the note is that ‘Depicts 320,000 light bulbs, equal to the number of kilowatt hours of electricity wasted in the United States every minute from inefficient residential electricity usage’. Jordan’s work is a frightening wake-up call that is based on waste, consumerism, planned obsolescence and the ravages to our environment.The work consists of large, detailed prints put together by using thousands of tiny photographs. The importance of the individual among the collective is made visually clear, and the sheer overwhelming nature of these problems cannot be escaped.

The other piece ‘Barbie Dolls’ which attracted me deeply, I think almost every girl liked Barbie Dolls in their childhood, thereby, I can grasp that feeling quickly. At the beginning, I was just attracted by the millions of pretty Barbie dolls, the orange background and countless Barbie dolls were composed of the numerous flowers, everything in this piece looked normal and good. But when I read the note and went home to search it on the internet, I found it was talking about ‘the number of electric breast augmentation surgeries performed monthly in the United Stated’. These plastic, large breasted, out of proportion dolls create unrealistic images in children's minds of a woman's body. Yet media advertising, television and Hollywood would reinforce her message, influencing what would become the American ideal of beauty. With more and more women pursuing the beauty, Chris Jordan made his own comments about this phenomenon in his work, which is how this doll has affected American women’s body images.

At second times, when I watched again his exhibition. I found the joint point among these 20 pieces—every piece is composed by the same small elements which constitute the overall theme. Let’s move our topic here to a wider theme, it can be given an example that-- ‘Skull With Cigarette’, which is an interesting piece in his exhibition. This skull gave me a fashion sense when I looked from a distance, it looks like the posters of Alexander Mcqueen~~But when I walked nearer the wall, I found an interesting thing that the whole skull is made up by millions of cigarette brands, like Winston, American Spirit and etc.—they all are the common brands. Chris Jordan wanted to approve that 200,000 packs of cigarettes equal to the number of Americans who die from cigarette smoking every six months. Among his 20 works in this show, at first glance, they all are the ordinary pictures, but when you enlarge these pictures, you will see this figure is made up of thousands of airplanes, dollar bills, barrels, beverage bottles and etc. Chris Jordan used daily necessities to wake up the public’s environmental awareness and want to visualize the massive consumption products in our daily life. It’s worth mentioning that each image depicts a specific amount: 1.5 billion Office paper (amount of paper used every five minutes), 106,000 aluminum cans (aluminum can consumption of every 30 seconds). Chris Jordan hopes will bring the number of these images represent the original data more intense shock effect, because we see the raw data is abstracted in the newspaper every day and make us numb, it is difficult to think of statistical data on the true meaning of our lives.

When I came to the Museum at third time, I sit down quietly, listening to the introduction on the phone and tasting the spirit he would bring to us. This exhibition through the intricate visual to look at our huge and strange society, Chris Jordan used the comparison of far and near, more and less to explain everything. When I looked again these pictures, I can’t help but think of some questions: how consumerism leads to waste and ecological destruction, how deadly habits like smoking really are, how an idealized body image drives the plastic surgery industry and in an increasingly large, strongly changing society, what is our role and responsibilities? When I was deeply impacted by these ideas, I don’t know how to answer these questions in-depth thought, maybe we should drink less beverage, save paper in every time, reduce the frequency of travelling by plane and do not pursue trend to change new style phones often. From the small details in our daily life, starting to change bit by bit, enhancing our environmental awareness and correcting the incorrect behavior. After this exhibition, I have to say that Chris Jordan used special to describe the phenomenon of American consumerism, we really should pay more attention about this.

This i s one of Chris Jordan's famous work.

On Midway Atoll, a remote cluster of islands more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent, the detritus of our mass consumption surfaces in an astonishing place: inside the stomachs of thousands of dead baby albatrosses. The nesting chicks are fed lethal quantities of plastic by their parents, who mistake the floating trash for food as they forage over the vast polluted Pacific Ocean.

Not Just Looking

  This week when I after listened to Amanda Wojick’s lecture, I have a new understanding about sculptors. Honestly, the reason why I like her lecture because that the work she showed in the class are really amazing and cool, not like the sculptors in the past. And she has her own special though about these fantastic works, thereby, her lecture attracted me most. What is sculpture? Amanda said that ‘with impressive continuity it testifies to man’s evolving sense of reality, and fulfills the recessity to express what cannot be verbalized’.

 Amanda informed us two themes, the first one is the use of abstraction, the distance between abstraction and representation, and the second one is the use of/approach to materials. She tried to explain that a work is abstraction when it is based on something real. Representational art is the thing that the artist is trying to depict where abstraction is inspired by nature and has no identifiable point. The first sculptor group piece she showed in class is named ‘9 women sculpture’. I found an interesting that most of these female artists worked with different material, they few like to work with one material at all. This character is fit the second themes which Amanda said. Among these sculptors, the one which leave a deep impression on me is ‘Arch of Hysteria’ made by Louise Bourgeois. I was shocked by this piece. Because a paralyzed body is arching their back as far back as possible, it’s truth to say that this behavior should be looked at helpless and immobile. But the feeling which I had is powerful, really powerful. I can’t reached the distance between abstraction and representation from this piece, but this little golden body contains an enormous amount of energy, it seemed like that if arch a little bit more, it will be hysteria. From an unprofessional point, I can feel a perfect interpretation of the name of sculpture, it can be considered successful~~In fact, in Louise Bourgeois’ work, I can see the delicate soft side in women’s heart.

But from Richard Serra’s work, I think his perspective is more from men’s view. Among a lot of his abstracted work, one made a deep impression on me is ‘Snake’. It was constructed by three pieces of weatherproof steels. At first look, when I saw this piece, I just saw three weatherproof steels. But when I saw the name, I tried to use my imagination to think it as snakes. It suddenly gave me more feeling. If I walked through the steel, it will be similar like to walk through the snakes because of the sharp of steel. It’s really amazing feeling! Like the author of this piece—Richard Serra said ‘You get involved with what effect the work has physically on your body as you walk.’ Thereby, the imaginations of viewer are this piece physical effect and it’s important to evaluate the value of artworks which from the audiences.

    With the same spirit is this week's reading—Just Looking by James Elkins from ‘The Object Stares Back’. One main point that James makes is that we are all hunters when it comes to our site. He explained it like that we are just looking for everything and instead of hunting for the things what we actually looking for. Like when I watched the sculpture work the professor showed in class, at first look, I always think that: wow, it’s shinning, or it’s strange piece~My eyes would always stop at the surface of the work at first look, and there is no real in-depth knowledge to feel works. But like he stated, “ In thinking about these things, it is important not to become too enraptured with the idea that seeing is desire, because it tends to split seeing into the ordinary occurrences of life, when we behave as if seeing could be disinterested and passionless, and the reflective moments, when we become archaeologists of our desires.” Like when you went shopping, you said you like this clothes. But why? You must think it in psychology space and physical space, and then you may find the real reason why you like this piece. Moving to a wider theme, the connection between the theme of James and this week lecture is like the connection between looking sculpture in the physical space and viewing it on the screen. After Tyrras guided us to leave the lecture and view a piece on campus, I have a different feeling I never had before. This experience was special and interesting to know that the sculpture as an actual and touched physical thing instead of just an abstract image on a screen. Like the sculpture before Lilis Hall, I passed here everyday, but I never stop and watched it. When I looked it carefully today, I think that like Tyrras said it like a window which is same as my first opinion. And then I found that this big windows was made up by millions of small aluminium, only one end of them was fixed, the other end can keep swinging when wind passed. Listening to it carefully, I can hear some fantastic sound like the wind chimes. Then, suddenly, I felt the world around me become colorful. I think this is a magic of enjoying sculpture in the physical space. Tyrras said something which shocked me yesterday. She mentioned that she thought looking was a passive process, that it was just something that you do. We think, we feel, we understand…so many things are thought, felt, and reacted to when looking.  Elkins described looking as hunting, it is really a kind of hunting!

This art work is from Antony Gormley. His best known works include the is this piece 'Angel of the North'.It is a steel sculpture of an angel, with wings. The wings themselves are not planar, but are angled 3.5º forward, which Gormley used to create "a sense of embrace". Aftet I saw it in the psychology space, I think that :I sometimes look a hole bored in the room, nothing happens, but gradually there is sunshine, come in through the window as, and then the dark corner of the room, will suddenly be sunshine, renders the Golden brilliant luster ... Meeting during that time I thought, no matter how boring life, will also have a certain corner, one in the morning, was illuminated by love ...

Craft & Methods of production

I like this week lecture. Why? Although my major is not art, most of the art works which Anya Kivarkis introduced to us are about jewelry. For most girls, these works are very attractive things, what’s more, they are the highly skillful jewelry—most of these jewelry we can’t see in our daily life. Among these amazing art works, Marilyn Minter attracted me most, and her work is from the category about handmade reproduction original copies. At first look, high heel is decorated with shining diamond attracted my all attention. The fantastic combination of splashing oil, bruised and dirty foot and fashionable high heels laced with rhinestones, it’s an iconic image viewed from a low angle, a larger than life paean to both pain and beauty. The third work of her we saw on the class is the sexy red lips bite the string of pearls which is covered with sweat, in a lurid display of ornamentation and ritual pain. All of them made me feel shocked deeply. I don’t know how to express my feeling more emotional in English, but that impact is not only visually, but also psychologically. In Minter’s work, makeup and jewelry work to highlight either imperfection or penchants for self-destruction and avarice. I remembered Anya Kivarkis said that the art of style of Marilyn Minter is ‘when everything goes wrong’. It’s really interesting. I searched the information about her online, seeing the sentences like this: ‘if you’re walking through Anya wondering what sort of fashion crisis could have spawned an ad campaign in which haute couture literally gets down in the mud, what you really will be experiencing is what happens when painting and photography collide with our perverse ambivalence toward fashion.’ From these words, I can get that it’s disquieting combination of the art works of Marilyn Minter, she deftly captures the fluidity and ambiguity of bodies that cannot easily be contained by standards of propriety and acceptable beauty.

Another art which Anya introduced to us in the class leave me a deep impression is from Karl Fritsch, which belong to the category—limited serial production. The rings which he designed are fantastic and best. (After looking, the shining, colorful, special, and super cute ring, I super want one!!!) The craft and method of his production is special, he used common gold, gemstone, iron, and emeralds, then he piled them precariously on top of one another, pressing them into roughly formed setting, pierced, unpolished, oxidized, or inserted into the eyes of small skulls. He created wholly unique and inspired renovations of traditional jewelry, in his own special feature to win applause.

The different methods Anya Kivarkis talked about were handmade production, reproduction, mass production, limited serial production and post-production with intervention. I can find some of those methods in John Feodorov’s work. After I saw his famous work, he is a funny man in my opinion. When I saw his art work, I think I can read the humor and some elements about religion from his work. One of his art work, Tyrras showed in Blackboard is the most interesting one. In this work, at first look, it’s funny for me to see 12different animals in different color and use feather as dividing line. But when I looked the work carefully, I can get the author’s opinion like that John Feodorov as a biracial artist—the Navajo and European American decent, thereby, his work comically confronts native American stereotypes, like this ‘Animal Spirit Channeling Device for the Contemporary Shaman’. I know that the principal of Shaman way is staying with nature in harmony, there is no level difference, and the 12 animals are their faith. In this work, I can see the method--post-production, which means when the artist takes something that they did not design and changes it some how to make it their own. Except the Shaman animals, he also took classic spin and adds feathers all over it, along with writing spirit under all the animal names.

The other piece of him I think cute is ‘Ted Bear’, the teddy bear was given totem spirit masks to wear in place of their original face, from here, I can get that John Feodorov used the method of post-production again to finish this work. He stated that the bear is spiritual and powerful in Navaho beliefs. But when you buy it, you still don’t have power to over it, the beliefs, faith, and wishes are priceless. In the ‘Office Shaman’, he did the same thing, putting spirituality into a capitalism idea of the office job and confronts it with something important and spiritual. I remember in his interview, he said that: "Western culture likes to castrate the powerful, maybe because it doesn't want to be less powerful than something else, that maybe it has to bring everything down to a level where...well, maybe it's capitalism really, to where it's a product, to where it's something that can be controlled by purchase, controlled by owning it and by owning, even in art." I think that the reason why his works are previous is that we can feel the depth of his minds in his work, and we also can’t buy these spirits when you buy his work.  

This work is from John Feodorov. From the girl’s perspective, this work is colorful and interesting. I saw a comment about these work, ‘Some have his characteristic puffy cheeked silhouette with various eccentric tableaux. The more you look, the more you wander off into some crazy land where nothing is quite as it seems.’ Yeap~The more I wander about this piece, it really a crazy land, at this land, I saw a lot of emotions, happy, sad, humours, helpless, powerful and some elements about religions. In brief, when I saw his work, I can feel warm and happy~~

Death of the Author

From the Tuesday lecture—‘art & environment’, I found an interesting thing that images show the experience. Why I say this? Because in the beginning Miss instructor asked us a question that ‘what do you see from the environment is interesting?’ Everyone must have the different images, because of the different experience. Before I came to class, I was waiting outside and siting before the glass door at first floor.  When I sat in silence, I can see the clear rain lines drop down on the window, clear, transparent and looming, those feeling made me feel relax and comfortable suddenly. Maybe other saw the same scene, they may never have the feeling like I felt this way.  Thereby, when I in the class, when the instructor said ‘everyone can be art suppliers’,  I have had a very strong resonance. Although not everything  is art, when you see something in an art way, you can think you are seeing an art work. Like when I saw raining in normal times, I would not feel like that. But when I tried to focus on the interesting phenomenon, I would think it’s art. From the romantic tradition into modernism into postmodernism, everyone has different feelings in the different age of art, despite their overall style is the same.       

Thereby, that make me thinking of the "Death of the Author," which written by Roland Barthes. It seems like these two things seem analogous. Bart said no matter what the intent of the author, text only has consistency on himself. But as long as the text once published or rendered, readers met with encounter, they may think in the cultural way, and thinking, creating meaning for themselves. Those text viewers would always change, instability, and allow question to find the real meaning. They are not concerned about its general structure, but the creative reading.  Stripping from the authority and criticism of the author, giving the meaning  and interpretation of the right to viewer and bringing more literary space of creativity to reader. Thereby, in the multiplicity of writing, everything is to be disentangled, nothing deciphered. This idea of Roland Barthes completely turned traditional reading  to a new way. Also, the cost of the born of reader must be the death of author. Every time you are reading something, while you are writing something. Readers with their own unique blend of criticism, interpretation, explanation, using their experience or interests in the idea of writing text, at the same times, the collapse of the traditional method of reading. He will be liberated from the authority of the author. The real talker is not the author, but the language. If there is anything I gather a wealth of diversity, that is not the author, but a reader. In my own opinion, ‘Death of the Author’ in favor of the independent life outside of the work itself. The moment when the author completed works, the relationship between the author and work is going to the end, the right of the real meaning is given to the reader. Roland Barthes once said that ‘a piece of the immortal, not because it imposed a meaning that added to different people, but to everyone, it suggests that a different meaning.’ The most important thing to a work is the meaning which reader gave. Thereby, right of interpretation has been released back in the hands of readers, symbolizing the death of author and the regeneration to readers.( I know this is an abstract type, please excuse my grammar mistakes, I'm going to try my best to explain what I really wanna say~~~~but u, the viewer, you can create the meaning if u want, I wish I can give you the power).

Thereby, when I saw the art work which from Kiki Smith, at first, I think I have no idea about that. But Tyrras said we should bring something into art work, then associated with my own experience, I think that Kiki Smith worked with various kinds of materials and many topics of which include shame, our relationship to nature, and she is even considered to be a feminist artist. I remembered that in the interview Kiki said such sentences, ‘ I long for something radical--whether it be in my own work or in the art world. Works of art world seems to have been continuously outputs dominates, it is no longer exist as an interesting art world, and I now is one of the products manufactured. These are all artists can't decide. When I first came to New York really took no small effort to practice this. I remember at that time, I wanted to do something other than my own, but sometimes I do not have such a personality.’Kiki see themselves really rather surprising, especially after watching so many of her works, but the truth is probably that, although mood heated Kiki works, always impose an unexpected powerful influence to the audience, but Kiki I was in a very naive point of view of their own creation. Like she said, she sometimes doesn't understand art, she will feel like a ordinary art is weird. But she believed the goddess of inspiration from art, Goddess when art came when she had to do was follow the just do it. Art for her was such that is not complicated. (By the way, I really wanna say that she looks like Professor Trelawney in Harry Potter.)

As regards the William Kentridge--anything is possible, I really appreciate his creative minds. Does every people who have strange ideas in order to become an artist? William Kentridge said that, ‘Absurdity] is in fact an accurate and a productive way of understanding the world. Why should we be interested in a clearly impossible story? Because, as Gogol says, in fact the impossible is what happens all the time.’ When I saw the process of his work and idea,  I understood the meaning of why he said anything is possible. Like his own words, ‘With its playful bending of reality and observations on hierarchical systems, the world of The Nose provides an ideal vehicle for Kentridge. The absurdism, he explains in the documentary's closing, "...is in fact an accurate and a productive way of understanding the world. Why should we be interested in a clearly impossible story? Because, as Gogol says, in fact the impossible is what happens all the time.’

Digital Art

Digital arts is a part of art. I really enjoy the lecture which John Park given to us. He is a nice guy with humor, and the art materials which he showed in class in high level. Because with the development of our society, more and more art work is associated with digital technology. Although the digital media made the art work more artistic and visual impact, like john said, there still more and more questions about that is technology means losing humanity?  No~~~Like john’s comments, contemporary media practice involves a rigorous investigation of, and engagement with continually evolving technologies, the digital arts program encourages people to combine an understanding of the theoretical discourses of new media and visual arts with strong technical sophistication, a rich sense of visual design and an ability to articulately express themselves as artists. I agree with this explanation about digital art, they all are the processing of art, using digital technology as an essential part of the creative process. From my own view, I think that the most special significant of digital art is using the digital technology to transform the traditional art work to raise a new level. I am not saying that traditional art work is not good enough, but you can’t deny that, digital technology made these art works play a different effect and give them a new colorful life~~~~

In fact, when we don’t pay close attention to ‘digital media’, it has already appeared around us. Facebook~~~yeah! Like Tyrras said in the class, her friends in Facebook is around 500, but, actually maybe just 9 in the real life! I know it’s just a joking. But I think that the virtual world of the Internet always let us have an illusion that we are in the good fellowship with others than we thought. Thereby, maybe, you have a question that is digital media means hiding the truth? From the video we saw on class—Can you see me now, we can get the answer. This fantastic video is about the collision when real life versus virtual world. It’s an interesting video, at first time I didn’t figure it out, but when I saw it at second time, I understand the purpose of this activity. When virtual world meet real life, the reality in real world can not be ignored. Digital media is not hiding the truth and reality, to a certain extent, it’s facilitates real. (I knew ‘facilitate’ can’t express what I really mean here, but I can’t find more suitable words~~) It is worth mentioning that when I saw the Feng Mengbo’s photo, I was shocked by his special and creative ideas. He explained the politics in China in the fun way. I like his thought about art, which is using the elements of popular culture, such as vedio games, into the creation of new digital art. At the same time, this special skill help him to express his opinion about politics. I was inspired by his idea that using the digital and new media to show the different themes. I always think that art is a whole life thing, there will be a lot of art works, we should not limit the art in a regular field, constrain the themes of art and the media of art.

The other good creative idea is thought of by David Byrne. He took the devices which can’t make sounds by themselves, but when they were put together, they can cause vibrations of building elements, resonate, oscillating, making the building itself to become a very large musical instruments. After I viewed the whole site, I don’t know how to answer the question which Tyrras gave to us—who is the artist here? I only want to say that David Byrne and the participants, both of them are indispensable. Without David Byrne, this fantastic idea had not begun, not to mention the future artistic works. Without the participants, those all the devices and design are empty and abiosis. Because the participation of both, creative ideas combined with the different participants’ various inspirations, feelings, emotions and moods, these are all mixed together can wipe out the amazing spark. And I also think that this work in terms not pushing boundaries between the performance and the artist but to blend them together. Each participant’s performance appears to be independent, there is no connection between them, but the existence of these art work which all because of the organization from David Byrne. The various audience get the different feeling from the different participant’s creative works. To an artist, a lot of different and wonderful resonances mean the biggest praise.

The artist Paul Pfeiffer which Tyrras introduced to us is a visual artist, at least it seems to me like that.  I remembered Pfeiffer said that many of his works invite viewers to exercise their imagination or project their own fears and obsessions onto the art object. But when I saw his art work, it’s not easy for me to understand what thing he really wanted to show us without explanatory note. Like in the ‘Corner Piece’ it’s confused when I first see, but after I saw his explanation, I understood how he thought.  The contradiction between a kind of heroism and the empty of the loser, at the same time, that individual seems almost to get swallowed up by the spectacle itself. When those contrast emotion appearing on one screen, Preiffer used digital technology to deal with the picture, making the protagonist fuzzy and using the expression on the audience to illstrute what happening. Using the digital technology to present art works, there is no doubt that it’s a good form to interpret art!!

Photo can tell Story

How do you think about photos? I don’t know you, but when I saw a photo, yeah, like Tyrras said, I think it means true. I believe that everything I saw is real, because I can think the sounds which I listened to is unreal, the feeling which I felt is unreal, but nothing can escape into my eyes. Through the Craig’s presentation, I changed my opinion. (by the way, I like this nice guy, I enjoy his talking speed and witty humor, I also enjoy his photos which he showed to us in his Facebook~~~~). Nowadays, in the modern technological society, everything can be an illusion, even if it is something you see. In the Errol Morris’ "Photography as a Weapon", I never thought that even international event photo can be trickery. When I saw on July 10, a photograph of four Iranian missiles streaking heavenward, I was deeply shocked by this. This is my first time to see clearly ‘lie in photo’. When it comes to the political dimension, just like Hany Farid said: If you want to trick someone with a photograph, there are lots of easy ways to do it. You don’t need Photoshop. You don’t need sophisticated digital photo-manipulation. You don’t need a computer. All you need to do is change the caption. After I have read this passage, my truest response at first time is that I used to think software such as Photoshop is only for little girls like me to entertain with friends, unexpectedly, for political purposes, those greedy politicians also used Photoshop. Suddenly, I felt like Ps my own photos having a political significance~~hahahaha~ okay, go back to my topic, which point is inspire me is that when I saw the photo which after artist editing, I felt that the artist imitated the behavior of politicians to PS photos from an arts perspective to entertain the public while ironically laughing at those politicians’ greedy purposes, which is creative.

Through the Craig’s presentation, I also find an interesting thought, which is when people saw a photo, most of them like to imagine these photos’ stories by themselves. I remembered one sentence: You have your fear, which become reality, and then you have Godzilla, who is reality. Interesting view, uhhhhh~~Like, among the materials which Craig showed to us in the class, one photo made a deep impression on me—Ezra Stoller’s Manufacturer’s Trust Company, at first sight, I thought that oh my god, this is the library in UO, how deluxe! But when I saw the title, I laughed out of sound. I wanna say that the pictures is an illusion, partly because Photoshop software, partly because our assumption. We always want to try to understand the story in the photo by our own experience.

In our Tuesday lecture, when I saw the product which made by JR, I was deeply shocked by the photos and stories. I never heard this guy before, but when I saw his video, I was attracted by his creativity, vision, leadership, and persuasion. When I listened to Tyrras to introduce his background, stunning work, tough and even a bit dangerous working environment, looming and dashing figure, all of these, let my curiosity instantly had reached the top. When I saw those people's eyes in his shot, which instantly sent out my soul. Each eye is a living life, and some told uncomfortable, some in eyes of fear, some expressed hunger, some of them told the peace and love. In his view, I remembered that he said such a sentence, the general meaning is that his photos didn’t have any specific meanings, but in a general sense, all his work is about social justice and creating connections between different people. Whether it’s posting shots of Israelis and Palestinians with the same profession on the walls between the countries or putting up those shots of African and Brazilian women’s eyes in Cambodia, he’s compelling people to think about other people. Therefore, when I saw these eyes in second times and third times, I try to imagine them as giant eyes. Because the photos which in JR’s shooting, they all have moving stories, as well as the stories behind the heroes are strong on the pursuit of happiness, these all the behavior which belong to gaint. Whereupon, the most different point between JR and other artists is that JR’s work transcended language, borders and politics-which is precisely the point. Through the eyes of JR, I've seen that the warm, happy, positive side in some developing countries. I feel that I have established relationships with their instant. Just one thing I don't understand, why did he put his works on the building and then copy to enlarge? do you have any special significance?

         Comparing to JR, there is less sense for me when I saw the products which made by Alfredo Jaar. I knew him that his ‘The Gramsci Trilogy’ and ‘The Rwanda Project’ have great significance, but when I look at his work, there is no a lot resonances. But one of his work--“Let One Hundred Flowers Bloom” leave me an impression. Because this photo is talking about China. Although it is a reflection of China in the past which not good enough, the moral of this piece is also interesting. He explained this photo, which is conveyed to us that intellectuals may die – they may be cancelled – but will never die. As a Chinese, I deeply appreciate his positive impact of this piece conveys to me. His profound work, some I don't quite understand, but this works, I am much agree with and appreciate his thoughts and ideas. Through this photo I know the story and his minds.

         There is one thing I really want to mention is that thanks so much for Tyrras. Because almost every class, you introduced some art works which related to China. They are positive side, creative side and even the gloomy side in China, these all make me enjoy. As Chinese, I am very happy to have an opportunity to know more about China through the eyes of Westerners.