Monday, March 22, 2010

Seeing

Last week we presented our sculptures we made out of our found objects. I made a sculpture of a hummingbird carrying a person in a jazz dance position to symbolize “freedom to express yourself” or “freedom of expression.” My found objects consisted of gum wrappers, plastic tv dinner containers, and granola bar wrappers. There was a lot of variety and styles that people use to make their sculptures such as film strips, nature, trash, mesh netting, and lots of other found objects. The whole class tried to interpret what message each sculpture was trying to send. Some of us had similar perspectives and others had very different perspectives. This emphasizes that art is constantly open to interpretation and no interpretation is right or wrong.

We also had a reading from an excerpt from The Object Stares Back by James Elkins. In the reading, Elkins explores the complexity of seeing rather than merely looking. Elkins described vision as the act of hunting and is a process where one seeks to possess what is observed. Although vision is an incomplete process because one cannot see everything all at once it’s impossible. Elkins mentioned in the reading that there are three objects that can’t be seen: the sun, genitals, and death. Although the act of seeing itself is simple, the different ways of seeing and certain aspects such as the media influence what we see is complex. Perhaps not everything is meant to be seen or maybe we unconsciously chose things we want to see and things we don’t want to see.

Questions to consider:

1) In what ways is vision a web of self definition?

2) What is the connection between visual comprehension, linguistic reference, and anatomical reference?

I wanted to know more about how blindness could be a necessary component of sight.

There are different types of blindness such as color and legal blindness where people need special assistance. Complete blindness is know as NLP (no light perception) Those who are blind that have light perception only have the ability to tell light from dark and the general direction of a light source. The way most people who are blind use sight is replaced by sense of touch such as reading Braille for signs, books, and other objects. There are many objects and technologies blind people use to accommodate for their “lack of perception”

Project 2 proposal:

I’m doing my research project on Tony Oursler. His art covers a range of mediums working with video, sculpture, installation, performance and painting. The fields he works in are mainly video, performance, and installation art.

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