Medium Specificity

 Medium Specificity Artist’s Statement

            Within the artistic medium of photography, I have often found photographers exalting the everyday.  I’ve often seen pictures that try to portray the beauty of ordinary objects or situations simply by offering unique angles or some dramatic lighting.  I personally really enjoy this element of photography and the idea of turning the mundane into a visually interesting form. 

            In an attempt to celebrate this aspect of photography, I attempted to take pictures of various foods in a circular container all from the same angle, all with the same lighting. I didn’t shape the food or anything; I just placed each individual item in the same spot and took the photo.  My hopes were to have someone who came in with no knowledge first look at it and wonder what it is.  Once they realized that it was just a container of food that they probably use frequently, I would hope it would sort of surprise them or make them chuckle to see such an ordinary and common thing from a strange angle. 

            I also wanted to show to the best of my ability, the beauty that can be found in extremely minute things.  For instance, the various textures of the foods I photographed, and the way the light bounced off of it to create interesting shadows and such.  I photographed quite a few different foods, but then picked the ones I thought looked more interesting.

            Whether or not these actually are interesting is up to the viewer.  I can honestly say it was interesting to me because I actually was sort of doing this before I even decided to do it as my project for this assignment.  I don’t mean that I was taking pictures of foods.  That’s not a hobby of mine or anything, but I was having a delightful snack of Oreos and milk.  Like any sane person would, I let the Oreo float in the milk for a minute and contemplated life, because that’s what you do when eating Oreos and milk.  I started to watch how the milk dissolved the Oreo, and how it seeped through the intricate designs on the surface of the cookie.  I honestly found it pretty mesmerizing and wanted to take a picture of it… a few minutes later I started doing it with other foods to see if they might look interesting, and they did, at least to me.

            With the resources we have today, you can Google Image search pretty much any ordinary object and find a large reserve of crappy pictures of that object, but sprinkled throughout there will be an interesting one here and there.  What comes to mind as an example of this to me though, is actually the documentaries Planet Earth and Life. While these are not collections of still photography, and definitely go beyond the everyday, they have everyday things in them like certain plants, or even bugs that we have all seen.  And yet, you could take several freeze frames from these documentaries of simple objects and they would look beautiful.

            As part of our reading this week, we looked at a picture in the book of a model’s picture before and after, and the notes the artist took on how to make her beautiful from the before to the after.  If my project here was commenting on anything, it would be that you don’t actually necessarily need to alter things to make them interesting or pretty. 

Textual Poaching

Artist's Statement: 

I couldn’t really narrow down the part of myself I wanted to represent to a single trait like gender, race, age or religion, so I settled on a little bit of a combination.  I am a white, 18 year old, male Mormon, who is also shy.  I know we weren’t looking for personality traits really, but those parts of my identity kind of add up to me being shy and that played an important part in the thought process that played into this piece of mine. 

            I searched for an old style portrait painting, because that’s the feel I wanted to go for and that’s how I feel people view me initially.  I’m pretty reserved, and there’s nothing outwardly special about me here in Provo, which is filled with young white male Mormons.  I feel quite plain sometimes, and wanted the portrait to sort of convey that.  I found the one I liked best and unfortunately it was a portrait of Mozart.  I am not comparing myself to Mozart, and one must admit, he looks a little weenie-ish in the painting.  I know that in context it makes sense, but in modern day it can be kinda’ funny.

            Anyway, the idea is that though people see me as a very plain, simple, even possibly uppity, and a little weenie-ish.  However, as shown in my poaching, there’s another side to me that is unexpected by most.  I’m goofy, and definitely a little crazy, or at least can be.  That is my own interpretation of my work, however if someone was hung up on the portrait being Mozart, I guess you could say that one side of me is ambitious and profound (not really) while the other is a bit silly (much more likely). 

            In all seriousness, my main goal was to take an image that was very proper and alter one side of it to look fun and silly because I feel those are the two sides of me despite the fact that my white, male, Mormonness often makes people only see the former.  
When I read the reading for this week I was pretty sure I was going to end up using something from Star Wars or some other media franchise I like because it talked about things becoming real when they're loved.  I agree with everything the article said, and making those things your own in a way, but I had no real knowledge of this piece before I textually poached it to be honest.  
 An influence I had was the work of Fernando Botero, an artist who repaints famous paintings, except the subjects in his versions are really fat.  His most famous is the fat Mona Lisa.  He has his statements and reasons, but one element to me is that it really is pretty funny and silly.  It makes you think hard about a famous piece of art in a new way, and I kind of aimed to do that.

Movement Manifesto

The Manifesto:

Good art makes uses illusion to present the familiar in a new way.

It takes what you think you know and turns it on it’s side.  

The whole purpose behind this kind of art is to make us tap into our creativity which allows us to invent and create new things.  When we see such common processes in a new light, it helps us to view our whole world at a different angle.  This helps us make unobvious connections that we may not have seen before.

Art that presents the everyday in a new light takes us into new ways of thinking.  It makes us see everything we know (or think we know) in new angles.  It can be created with all types of mediums, as long as it makes us rethink our views of the world.

The main goal of good art is to take what we see as familiar and flip it, mix it, and recreate it.

A Story:

Rachel walked down the street of her neighborhood, concealing a package of Girl Scout cookies for her grandma under her sweatshirt.  It was dangerous to be walking around that area with any possession someone might deem worth taking, and Girl Scout cookies are definitely on that list.

            Rachel tried to block out the constant wail of sirens and sad people, sounds that eventually morphed into one strange entity.  Sometimes Rachel wanted to stop and look at the more curious graffiti amongst the sea of it, but she’d been taught not to linger too long anywhere in Pinewood Acres. 

            The sun began to set on the horizon as Rachel finally came to the winding road at the end of the block.  If she could just make it to the end of the road where her grandma lived before dark, she would be okay.  She picked up her pace just to be sure. 

            Rachel had reached the halfway point and everything was going smoothly.  Suddenly the next few streetlights ahead of her went out with a few bangs and flashes of sparks.  Rachel jumped, but quickly collected herself.  She could see the light pass the shadows, and decided to keep moving as quickly as she could.

            After a moment or two, someone spoke to Rachel out of the darkness, “Ya’ know… you shouldn’t be walking around here in the dark at this hour.”

Rachel frantically looked, expecting to see a scary man, but the voice belonged to a calm and normal looking guy, no older than 17.  His face was charming somehow, and Rachel was no longer afraid.  Abandoning her cautious attitude she replied, “You’re probably right. I’m trying to get to my grandma’s house in Paradise Grove.  I know this road will take me to it eventually but is there a faster way?  What with it getting late and all, I’d like to get there as quick as I can.”

            “Yes, I do,” said the boy as he took a step forward. The wail of sirens suddenly got louder and the boy hesitated.  He then spoke, “There’s a trail off the road here that goes through the park and eventually hooks back up with the road right before Paradise.  It’s faster ‘cuz it’s a straight shot.”

            “Thank-you!” said Rachel, and she gave the boy her most dazzling smile.

            “No problem,” he said, “see ya’ ‘round.”

Rachel took the shortcut and made the rest of her journey without any other delays or distractions.  When she got to her grandma’s the house was dark.  Rachel knocked on the front door and it fell open.  She moved inside slowly.  “Grandma?” she called, “Grandma, are you here?”

            Suddenly Rachel felt one hand cover her mouth, while another grabbed her hair.  She struggled to get away, knocking over pots, pans and picture frames.  The hand was removed from her mouth for a moment, and she was able to let out a short scream before it was stifled and she was forced to the ground.  It was then that she saw her attacker to be the boy from the street.  “Shh,” he said.

            Rachel looked past the boy to see her grandmother’s bedroom door open.  Behind it, lay her grandmother on the floor unmoving.  Rachel began to let out stifled sobs.  The next thing she heard was a bang so loud, her ears rang.  She looked up to see a man in a blue uniform standing in the doorway with his gun raised.

            “Ma’am are you alright?” said the officer. 

“Yes, but my grandma...”

Rachel looked to see her grandmother rising from the ground.

“I think she’s okay,” said the officer after tending to Rachel’s grandma. “How’d this guy know to come here? Do you know him?”

“No, but I accidentally told him.”

“Jeez kid…” said the officer, “Didn’t you ever read Little Red Riding Hood?”

A Picture:

The Artists' Statement:

            Good art makes us think. That is the purpose of all of our classmate’s manifestos.  But in our specific manifesto, we tried to show how good art should make you think of what you think you know in a different way.  Our goal was to start a movement that has people flipping what they think they know.  We want art to be challenging and creative.  We want it to inspire.  We want it to twist your thoughts.

Our Manifesto’s main objective is to take something most would consider ordinary or commonplace, and to see it in a new light by flipping it on its side.  One of the ways we thought of to do this would be in a story in which your expectations are upset.  I tried to do this with my Little Red Riding Hood story. Whether or not I succeeded is up for debate since it probably wasn’t hard to see what the story was early on.  Nonetheless, the story adheres to the criteria laid out in the manifesto.  Little Red Riding Hood is a story we all know, and for a time, this story is unrecognizable (or at least it was supposed to be) though it is completely based on Red Riding Hood, and follows the same plot line nearly identically.  This could be done in a number of ways through story.  For instance, The Matrix, takes a look at what everyday life might really be. 

Kind of like the piece by DJ flood, while trying to define what we were trying to create, we had to search for other artworks that match our movement.  The interesting thing is that the art we found through research defined our manifesto as much as our manifesto defined the pieces we created.

There were a few ideas I bounced around in my head before settling in on the person dunking a basketball. I considered turning a person leaning back on his/her chair against a wall so that it looked like the person was on the wall and leaning against the ground.  I also thought back often to a piece I was shown in the drawing class I took last semester where a person photo shopped the metal base of a light bulb underneath a hand that was making the shape of the “light bulb” that wasn’t actually there.

The mind is a tricky thing.  Much like the light bulb example mentioned above, my drawing is an illusion.  Not only did I change the way we normally see someone hanging on a rim in preparation to dunk a basketball, but I was also quite particular in the style I used to create the piece.  In the real world, very few things have an actual outline.  Really we see texture, shape, depth and contrast and from there we create assumed lines in our brain.  My piece was based off of contour line drawings where thicker lines suggest minimal shadow.  I did the background using only line, again because of the illusion line drawings are.  I can make things look rather realistic and create textures and portray depth, but in this piece, there is a deliberate lack of such things and yet we accept an image, flat though it may be.