Author: Yasmine Elsisi

I honestly don’t have much to say about this visit other than that they were really cool. We’ve seen so many artists at this point, and while their work was interesting, it was similar to what I’ve seen before in places like Dark Matter. I loved how professional their work was, and their vibe was really cool. Working in a place like that seems fun.

Idea:

The video is composed of different parts of our experience in this class, including the making projects, vistits, meditation and Berlin. The U2 was an important part of this experience, so each stop was used to show a different part of our journey in this class.

Implementation:

I recorded a video from our residence to campus in the U2 and using Davinci Resolve, I cut parts of the video and replaced them with pictures of some of the making projects, videos of the artists work (including a soundtrack from Otis). I added a recording of the professor guiding the meditation and then videos I took of Berlin and our class photos. The music at the beginning is a collage of the street musicians and the U-Bahn sounds that signaled the next stop.

Final Results:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ej7k-FAH_cuuYREq0nD46xdenf2NKo_z/view?usp=share_link

I think so far this may have been my favorite visit. I loved how passionate he was while explaining the meaning and science of his project and I also find these topics interesting. I didn’t fully understand how data effected the movements or how that was supposed to send a message to the audience, but I still liked that the process was scientific and that he interpreted dull looking numbers and scientific concepts into something more attention grabbing. 

Robert’s art was really interesting, the first video he showed us made me think that it would be a cool intro to a show or movie about something horror or suspense related, because it sort of tells a story but it’s quite vague. The last artwork, with the AI was also really interesting, and the images themselves were drawn more clearly so it was less abstract than the first.

He mentioned being consistent with his work and developing it further so that it becomes new art, and it’s interesting that we just had a reading talking about that.

The fear that your art isn’t considered art or acknowledged is something I don’t really understand. I thought art was universally defined as some form of expression-of anything- or of nothing and just something pretty at the very least. Do artists want recognition for inspiring a certain feeling in their audience? If not, I don’t see why their work being labeled as a “craft” instead of art should be an issue. Whether you make a pretty vase or an ugly one, you probably want people to appreciate it, but it can be liked without being recognized as an inspiring work of art. 

My point is that what differentiates recognition between art and craft or just something aesthetic is whether the artist intended to evoke a specific emotion or perception. Otherwise, what does it matter? Your work doesn’t have to be classified as art to achieve recognition, money, or fame. 

I guess that’s what the author was implying when discussing the repercussions of following established notions of ‘art’. Nowadays, anything can be considered art, but really good art is rare and hard to find. Good art isn’t something you come across easily; it should be unique and compelling enough to make you stop and look.

I really appreciated the technical aspect of their work and how they utilized advanced software, some of which I have used before. It was interesting to see all the different possibilities for using these tools that I hadn’t considered before. I would have liked to see more of the process behind their artwork and possibly view more of their projects if they had them available at their studio.

This reading discussed how perfectionism can hold us back and emphasized that to produce good work, you must create a lot. The process of creating is the best way to learn which direction to take with your work. I found the phrase “whatever you have is what you need to produce your best work” particularly resonant. It’s easy to create a list of things you need to learn or become before you can start, but this phrase offers an interesting perspective: your best work isn’t a fixed point to be reached but something that evolves and grows with you. Although I’m not trying to be an artist, I found this reading motivating. Many of the ideas presented can be applied to life in general.

I think it was interesting that Harshini was saying that the art in your head will never materialize in front of you the way you envisioned it, so you just have to keep making art even if it’s not the outcome you imagined. In Art & Fear, the reading assigned to us the day before, the author was discussing the same thing. So far, her work was probably my favorite, it was more focused on the final result rather than the experimentation that gave these results, and I think that it’s more satisfying to create art this way, whereas some of the other visitor’s art was the experiment or the process itself.