The Unsorted BBS Collection/thegreatunsorted.tar/thegreatunsorted/texts/term_papers/artprop.txt

Text File | 1994-07-19 | 17KB | 334 lines

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          ARRoGANT                CoURiERS      WiTH     ESSaYS

Grade Level:       Type of Work           Subject/Topic is on:
 [ ]6-8                 [ ]Class Notes    [A proposal for an       ]
 [ ]9-10                [ ]Cliff Notes    [advanced art project.   ]
 [x]11-12               [ ]Essay/Report   [                        ]
 [x]College             [x]Misc           [                        ]

 Dizzed: 07/94  # of Words:3,200  School: co-ed public   State: NY
─────────>─────────>─────────>Chop Here>─────────>─────────>─────────>─────────
        First off, I need to propose my theme that will
encompass the majority of my art works in my stated media.
Out of painting, print making and sculpture, I am choosing
to work with the latter for two main reasons.  One, I'm not
that great at capturing visual ideas on the somewhat
two-dimensional surface of paper or canvas.  Adding to that I
thought that sculpture would allow me to have a greater
release of creativity as my work can explode into the third
dimension with many added features.  After pondering upon
ideas for a theme, I hit upon four major factors that I want
to incorporate within my work.  Firstly, I want it to make a
definite immediate visual contact with the viewer through
use of thought provoking forms and features.  Next, I may
wish at times to incorporate audible stimuli to further draw
the viewer into my work.   Thirdly, I want some interaction
of the sculpture with the viewer, so that they can make a
more intimate contact with the piece through tactile and
kinesthetic action, so that they thus may "get into it" more
and begin to experience some of the passion & feeling that I
put into my work as it is thus conveyed to and impressed
upon them.

    As a title theme for my year's work I have come up with
"Multifaceted Interactive Involvement With The Electro-
Magnetic Spectrum."  This includes many different forms of
radiation, light and waves.  I am also integrating sound to
give an added flair.  Some practical project examples that I
intend to carry through and actually construct can be found
in ideas 11 and 12.  As my topic theme is fairly limiting,
this is quite challenging, but great, as it allows me to
create many different forms of work, all tied in to a common
specific point.  I thought it also might be interesting
though if I deviated slightly from the main theme and as a
secondary little theme chose something to do with the people
in the class surrounding me.  There are six in total,
including myself and the teacher.  There are six sides on a
cube and this gave rise to idea for a project.  The final
result of this co-relates to idea number 9.  Soon after,
idea 10 followed as I got to thinking about the "average"
student of art.  This can also include the teacher, because
no matter what level we are, we still may always learn more.





    One thing I seem to find is that by working around the
late night/early morning period, my creative juices just
seem to flow better and I get a lot more productive work
done.  Also I need many special tools and thus maybe I will
spend the majority of my project time in my room where I
have all the things I need all around me.  That way I can
also work in bits and pieces, working whenever I get the
inspiration to do so.  This way, my art will benefit in the
fact that it was made in the most fruitful portions of my
labour.  It can also be made more enjoyable this way, if I
know I don't have to work within a structured time on the
project.  Maybe the time I spend in the classroom can be
spend on finishing touches with paint and other items that I
don't have available to me in my room.  Also I can do
sketches and drawings of improvements and modifications to
existing proto-sketches.

    I have had considerable difficulty finding a main
mentor, first of all because I think my style is fairly
obscure, and I also use such a variety of materials, that I
couldn't seem to locate an artist that I could relate myself
and my work to.  By a twist of fate, while looking through
Canadian Art magazines, I came across an article titled "The
Body Electric."  This article describes Jana Sterbak,
originally native to Czechoslovakia, she came to Canada in
1968 at the age of 13.  She has been educated in New York
and Vancouver, having also lived there and now shifts
between Montreal and Toronto, where she frequently exhibits
her work.  In a way she reminds me of Van Gogh in that she
creates her work for herself, and then attempts to impress
the vigor and zest that she feels with her work upon others
in an enthusiastic way.  She utilizes many different forms
of materials, and likes to use electricity to her advantage
to bring some life into the piece.  One piece of her work
that I really enjoy is entitled "I want you to feel the way
I do."  This sculpture, while seemingly relatively simple,
is associated with a lot of strong feelings of the artist,
and through her work she is attempting to impress them upon
you, the viewer.  As you approach the piece, a motion
detector senses your movement and activates the power to the
projector and the nichrome wire that encircles the wire mesh
frame.  The projector shows a message on the wall that
helps convey the feelings of the artist while the nichrome
wire surrounding the wire mesh heats up like a toaster,
giving off a wave of heated air towards the viewer.  If this
doesn't draw your attention to the piece, not much else
will, and it serves it's dual purpose quite well.




    Another mentor, Rockne Krebs, who was born in 1938, has
used different gas lasers to produce another much admired
piece, called: "Day Passage."  This work uses several red
helium/neon and blue/green argon lasers and mirrors which
the many beams are bounced off of and reflected from the
mirrors to create a large constantly changing light show in
a L-shaped corridor.  While this artist had the assistance
of the corporation Hewlett-Packard for this project, this
work was done in 1971, before I was born, but technology has
advanced so significantly since then that I could put
together a low cost similar light sculpture without any
additional help.  In fact, I have already designed an
interactive light sculpture whereby the spectator may alter
the laser light forms through the manipulation of controls
on a panel.

    Next, another artist with a similar style to mine is
Sebastian, a Mexican born in 1947.  Like myself he is
interested in the production of transformable sculptures
that the viewer can manipulate to change configurations
within the piece.  Now that I really look, I see that there
are many possible mentors, and that I can be quite choosy.
But I might as well detail the styles and works of some
other artists whom I find encompass at least one aspect of
my personal style.  Robert Irwin was born in 1928, and
enjoys using light and shadow forms in his work.  In 1968,
he created an untitled piece that effectively hides a
plexiglass disk within the shadow patterns of light and
colour that are projected on the wall through the use of
four lights to provide illumination from behind the disk.

    Len Lye was born in 1901, and thus is either quite old,
or has passed away since the book that I consulted was
published.  He was interested in exploring movement through
art, and created several pieces that either moved through
the turning of cranks by spectators or by electrically driven
motors.  At the age of 64, he created a kinetic sculpture
with stainless steel wire mounted in a wood base.  The base
rested on a motor, and rocked gently back and forth creating
the effect of grass blowing in the breeze.  Thus, the
composition is entitled: "Grass."  These artists combined,
make use of sculpture that uses sound, light and movement to
go a new direction in art.  This could be described,
together, as Kinetic Intermedia, and so I believe I have at
last found my niche in the art world.



    Here are some random ideas for projects:

1.  An interactive laser system, whereby users may control
various beams of light through the manipulation of motors
and mirrors, to create their own personalized light art
form.

2.  A light box with many different openings and cut-outs,
allowing projection of various light and shadow forms and
their interaction upon each other.  -Possibly add color
filters and a creative surface upon which these light forms
are to be projected, creating a greater contrast and giving
rise to many imaginative patterns and pseudo-three
dimensional light sculpture.

3.  Is a true three dimensional light sculpture actually
possible using our current technology?  Sure maybe with
multi-million dollar real time holographic laser projection
systems, but is it possible to create a compact photon form
relying on using scrap parts and ingenuity?  Would it have a
definite projection surface, or could it be visualized in
plain air space, maybe relying upon condensed carbon dioxide
vapour in which to carve traces and impose visual phenomena
upon?

4.  A fiber optic (just thought of: possible sculpture
title: "Fiber Optrix") sculpture, through which many
different wavelengths of light could coarse, in either a
steady or a variable frequency oscillation pulsed state.
Could incorporate a fixed or variable speed motor to vary
the rotation of the whole piece of work.

5.  Robot head.  Either purchase a department store
styrofoam wig display head, or make one from clay? (probably
too heavy for purpose, but could be hollow), or by wadding
and taping newspapers into the form of a head.  Then
transform it through such methods as silver metallic spray
paint or aluminum foil, to give it a metallic base, and
adding found objects such as electronic junk to create a
dazzling three-dimensional sort of surrealistic artwork.
Some of the electronics could be functional, and provide
even more exciting visual, audible or kinetic effects.

6.  A sound sculpture made by collecting various materials
and objects that produce different sounds.  The work could
then be arranged as to be visually attractive, and could be
sort of "played" by the viewer, somewhat like a music
instrument, or could be electrically operated upon the
viewer arranging some sort of built in puzzle that is a
piece of the art.

7.  "Self Recycling Energy Light" or something.  Needs a
better title, but could use the idea of a small light that
draws its power from the current produced by a solar cell.
The solar cell could be "generating" current from the light
that was falling upon it from the lamp.  So this is sort of
a perpetual motion sculpture drawing upon an impossible
concept.  Maybe incorporate something as to convince the
viewers that it is really working.  eg. When they cut off
the light path from the light source to the solar cell with
their hand, the light goes out.  When they withdraw their
hand, the light returns.  But this kind of defeats the
concept, as even the simplest theory of this would show that
the light would require an external source to start up the
process.  Anyway, I'll spare the details, but the point of
all this, is trying to brainstorm as many ideas for projects
as I can, no matter how trivial or complex.  Then later, I
can review them, and either discard them or build upon them
to create a viable project design.

8.  Some sort of novel supreme interface, where there is no
physical sculpture at all, but merely a hookup that allows
the viewer to connect themselves to it, and adjust the
controls for maximum overall visual effect.  Would provide
visual phenomena without the use of photons as it directly
stimulates the optic nerves via self-structured neural
impulses coupled either inductively or conductively.
Similar in theory to what researchers have call "flashing of
the brain," in which we may thus produce intricate colour
fractal like patterns in the form of phosphenes.  Maybe aid
the work with a powerful audio soundtrack to assist in
visualization of desired objects.  This is probably the
highest form of visual medium, because it paints extremely
detailed pictures in your mind with your own imagination.

9.  A sort of modified "Rubix Cube", with the six faces of
the people in class pasted on each of the six sides.
Although this does not quite fit into the main theme, it has
aspects of it, as it is certainly multifaceted, and allows
interactive involvement as the viewer may pick up the
sculpture and turn and rotate the columns and rows in each
of the three dimensions.  (See figure 3, attached)

10. The pictures of the six people in the art class
transferred onto acetate or similar, so that they may be
projected onto a screen through the use of an overhead
projector.  Now we have pictures one through six, and they
may be layered down on the projection surface one at a time
until they all are aligned with and over each other, thus
showing a combined image of the six of us.  Here many common
physical characteristics blend, and we see what might just
be the "average" student in our class.  As this idea is not
very time consuming, it could be combined with idea nine as
well as a possible third idea to create one project.

11. This "Interactive Digital Sculpture" or IDS for short,
relies on the effect of human body capacitance to vary the
frequency of a tone as the user molds the mountain-like
form of a putty-like substance.  This incorporates a device
similar to that made by RCA in the 1930's to produce eerie
effects for movies and concerts.  I have thought about what
substance to use inside the elastic form, so that it would
be sort of like those stress buster nurd things you see in
some stores now-a-days.  I would want it to slowly creep
back into its original form after handling.  Several things
came to mind as a filler, including: silicon, not unlike
that used in breast implants, a mixture of cornstarch and
water to form a colloidal suspension, play-do, to even
mashed potatoes.  Perhaps I shall settle with some form of
putty as the others are either impractical in their cost, or
they may rot.  Although I know some art isn't made to last,
maybe mine could only last the length of time it took the
filler material to go bad.  The attached sheets will enable
you to visualize the final product.

12. This sculpture gives the illusion of a rotating ellipse
around a cylindrical form.  The mechanism is hidden from
view through the usage of a clever backdrop, and the motor
which controls the "fall rate" of the ellipse has a variable
speed control.  Refer to attached sheets.

13. A sort of "cyborg" robot form, constructed with mixed
media.  The materials intended to be utilized will include:
circuit boards, chicken wire, wire, styrofoam, plastic,
aluminum foil, paper, and anything else useful that I may
find lying around.  Some enamel and spray paints will also
be applied in the finished product.  This sculpture may or
may not move, but most probably will include some aspect of
electricity.  Refer to attached sheet.

14. A spherical or elliptical bottle filled with
multicoloured undulating globular spheres, similar to that
of a lava lamp of time past.  In this modification to the
original design, the globules will change color through the
use of colour filters, and the light which provides
illumination to the bottle will have a variable frequency
rate from approximately one to sixty hertz.  It should be
noted that a frequency above about fifty-five hertz gives
way to flicker fusion, and the lamp appears to be constantly
on.  Possibly an audible beat could accompany the light
pulses.

15. A high-tech futuristic weapon, sort of like those
constructed for use by the army corps in the movie "Aliens."
Would be mixed media, including PVC piping to give the
effect of the multi-barreled weapon.  Now I know how to put
those spent CO2 cartridges to good use.  Some silver and
black spray paint would finish off its appearance, to look
futuristic, but heavily used.

END.