Wonder Women :: Art & Technology

I attended as many events as possible during Wonder Women - I had a great time at all of them, but Leah's workshop was the most fun. Leah guided us through the basics of working with the LilyPad which is her elegant response to the arduino (an avr based micro-controller) --- the arduino is very familiar to those who have worked with electronic engineering--- the standard square with a bunch of electronic components laid out in the most efficient manner--- I italicize efficient because that seems to be an idea that commonly divides the art world from the engineering. Here is a picture of the efficient arduino.

Leah has taken this microcontroller and made something that is, perhaps, more accessible. She has broken the traditional rules of engineering and made something that is less efficient and more aesthetically sound with more intuitive interactions. Here is a picture of the Leah's LilyPad --

What I found really great about Leah was her passion for DIY (Do it Yourself)! She was very interested in empowering people to take control back from corporations and to no longer depend on them to fulfill your needs. Instead of buying an expensive light up biking jacket, Leah encourages you to make your own using something like the LilyPad--- What is really great is that throughout the time Leah was staying in Minneapolis I saw her around town sporting her own Light Up Biking Jacker--- She is a person of action- and someone I really admire---

Leah is great at documenting her work and helping people like ourselves jump into the world of DIY! Her website can be found at-- LINK TO LEAH'S WEBSITE

she has a wonderful collection of links for materials at LINK TO MATERIAL'S SITE

and you can buy your own LilyPad at BUY A LILYPAD!

Posted by Benjamin Faga at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I attended "Moving the Moving Image," a panel discussion on 3/13 at the Walker Art Center. The event brought together Steina Vasulka, Christianne Robbins, and Amy Youngs -- three artists who work with video.

Steina Vasulka showed one of her pieces that combined black and white footage of violinists with footage of a "concert" in which a violinist controls an animation on a screen by moving the bow and the instrument in different ways. I thought that the first segment of the piece was particularly jarring. The way that Vasulka warped the sounds and the images was disorienting. It was strange to see a bow, always stick-straight in the real world, waver back and forth like Jell-O. The part with the electronic violin was very interesting. I kept thinking to myself "I wish I could try that!" I'm a string musician, so I thought it would be fun to manipulate the images on the screen like the performer was doing.

Next was Amy Youngs. One of the pieces she discussed was the one of the ones at the Nash Gallery. In that piece, she combines webcams of peoples pets into a montage. The video is then projected on the floor, and visitors to the word take furry platters and try to "catch" the images on their platter to see them better.

Last was Christianne Robbins. She read a very long paper she wrought about ideas of time and space. Even though it was maybe too long for a panel discussion, I found some of the things she mentioned to be very interesting. She talked about how nowadays people can be completely immersed in their cars as they drive to work. Their cars become alternate realities where they have their music, their cell phones, and their coffee. Her work involved setting up a camera on a California highway and taping the cars as they drove past.

The three artists took very different approaches to using video. Vasulka's was highly interactive; the user could directly manipulate the video. Furthermore, in the black and white segments, Vasulka deliberately altered the image and the sound to create something completely different. Youngs work involved simply capturing others' videos and then interpreting them in new ways by making a moving collage. The audience could interact with the video after it was displayed. Robbins's approach was very different. She simply pointed the camera and something at let the film roll. There were no actors. There was no commentary. It was simply a means of capturing real life.

I enjoyed seeing the artists and listening to them talk about their work. It was cool to actually be able to hear them explain their thought processes and the creativity that drives their work.

Posted by teich024 at 04:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, I wasn't able to go to any Wonder Women event, which is sad. I can also tell you that the state of Iowa roads is sad as well: pot holes, pot holes everywhere!

Anyway, the Walker lecture isn't up online yet, but as everyone had much to say about Amy Youngs in class, I decided to look up her work online and even found a video of her discussing her work (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6807617610545253312&q=amy+youngs&total=1013&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0).

I think hers is the work I've most connected to in this class...probably from the moment she mentioned 4-H (okay, I'm a bit biased toward fellow 4-Hers)! But even the fact that some of it was entirely functional, such as her compost table, made it more relatable and less standoffish than I find most art to be; I'm interested in composting, so this really caught my eye on her website (http://hypernatural.com/art.html).

And then I looked at her other new, collaborative work--an indoor hanging garden fountain that grows "edible and ornamental fish and plants in a constructed, indoor ecosystem"--and got really excited! There's a video, pictures, and full how-to at the website.

I find that this kind of art, art that moves toward a goal and has a concrete purpose while still being visually stimulating, resonates with the farm girl in me. It reminds me of that phrase: "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without," because the entirety of Youngs' work seems to center around sustainability.

I really regret not being able to go to the lecture, but I am glad that I was able to look through some of her work and truly enjoy what I saw. Maybe I'll start an indoor hanging garden fountain of my own...someday.

Posted by hurl0063 at 04:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I could only make it to Amy Youngs' lecture on Wednesday, so I didn't get a chance to compare her work to the work of other artists. Youngs' work is really interesting to me though; I love her concept of working with a combination of technological and organic materials and trying to get people to interact with nature in different ways. I was glad that she didn't seem to take herself too seriously, but I would have liked a slightly more serious and intellectual discussion of the ideas behind her work. It almost felt like she had geared her presentation to a younger group of students; maybe it was just nerves. The best discussion happened during the question and answer session.

She talked about the aspect of failure in her work, which I thought was sort of charming--my favorite example of this was the hermit crabs refusing to move into the "shells" she had created for them, and then the glass shell being too heavy and flipping the crab over. She also talked about sustainability in her work, and how sustainable it actually is, and problems that arise with that idea of sustainability based on where one lives. I was especially interested in the question about us controlling nature and nature controlling us, but she didn't seem to have much to say about that which surprised me. One of the things I found refreshing about her is that she doesn't jealously guard her originality; she wants people to make their own version of her pieces if they want to, and she is willing to talk about her process and all the things that went wrong along the way.

I really enjoyed seeing the videos of her work. One of my favorites was the piece with the worm couch; it was so great to see people interacting with it so enthusiastically. I also liked the cricket call piece because of its sense of humor. One of the ones I hadn't seen before was the piece where the weather dictated the way copper sculptures formed, and I thought it was a really interesting idea, plus the sculptures were beautiful. Overall I liked her presentation and her demeanor, I just wished she had gone a little further into the meaning of her work according to her.

Posted by lips0037 at 07:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I attended the panel discussion at the Walker with Steina Vasulka, Christiane Robbins, and Amy M. Youngs. Honestly, I didn't particularly find myself grasping what the artists were attempting to do with their work. Vaulka's work was the most interesting I felt, mostly because the innovation of moving images with the use of sound at varying frequencies is an innovative concept. I suppose I was most intrigued by this because it shifts the control of the image slightly away from the artist to create something that is above them in a way by allowing technologies to discover patterns that did not previously exist. While the idea is good, I didn't really like the application of it. As a spectator, I did not find myself feeling moved by the images I saw. Robbins work seemed short of the mark as well. Her use of the camera to act as an eye observing the movement of cars on a highway was, again, an interesting idea, but I felt bored after a while just watching the a flat highway with the occasional car driving by, or the images cycle of the gas stations cycling over and over. In terms of it being a commentary on the impact of cars on the environment, I made that connection quickly, but then I had no where to go with it. Clearly burning fossil fuels is bad, but the piece stops there and simply becomes mundane movement. I felt stuck in the lurch watching it.

And then there were Amy's crickets. Watching those crickets barely moving around their fish bowl made me feel very dull with only tiny lurches in my brain chemistry when the screen images moved in response to the chirp of the cricket. And hey, maybe that's intentional. Moving the spectator to boredom can raise a lot of interesting questions and thoughts. For me, I found myself glad that I was not a cricket stuck in a bowl with minimal changes in scenery.

Instead, I'm a human frequently stuck in a car watching electronic billboards change as I drive by. It is good to examine boredom.

Posted by remu0019 at 08:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I attended the Regis Center presents: Amy M. Youngs discussion, and I was amazed at how interesting her presentation ended up being. I didn't automatically connect her to the piece that was in the Sparks fesitval (where she blended together peoples' faces and made them look like insects), and I liked that she didn't put all of her emphasis on that piece. It was so refreshing to see an honest artist who didn't try to overhype the meaning behind her work or sound overly sophisticated. I also liked how honestly she answered the question in regards to P.E.T.A. calling her about cruelty towards crickets. But enough about her personality and on to her art!
It was so interesting to see her integration of techology with nature. Her crickett house was probably my favorite piece, just because it was humerous to see this little insects crawling around in such a posh house, while the person viewing the art appeared on the TV screen or talk to the cricketts on the phone. I also really liked how a lot of her art served a purpose of helping the environment. The worm table, although a little unappealing, was a brilliant idea, and really showed her full immersion into nature and technology working harmoniously.
My question about her art was how much of the meaning she gives to the audience, or in other words, to what extent does she explain her art. Her answer was that she does give a detailed description of what's going on in the art (for instance, she said there were worms in the worm box who were making all those noises), but she doesn't like to write up a huge elaboration on what people should think about the art.
In conclusion, I'm really glad that I attended this presentation. Not only did I get to see all of her great artwork, but I also got to meet the artist and find out more about her personality and where her ideas come from for her art.

Posted by fjest003 at 05:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I attended the panel discussion for Moving the Moving Image at the Walker Art Center on Thursday night and was very surprised at the experience I got. It was my first time being to the Walker, and although I didn’t have much time to walk around I thought it was a really cool museum and I plan to go back again to see the rest of it. I didn’t really know what to expect from the panel discussion and I thought it was really interesting to hear what the three artists had to say about their work.
Steina Vasulka showed her video that incorporated violin music electronically controlling images on a screen. This was something I’ve never seen before and I’m not sure if I enjoyed the sounds produced from playing the instrument, but the fact that the bow by itself as well was on the strings could produce moving images was amazing. It was surprising that she took clips of herself playing from many years ago and used it in this video. I guess this shows how as technology advances old works can be turned into new ones. I also was surprised that she doesn’t do many live performances unless special requests are made – I think it would be a completely different experience to see it done on stage instead of on video.
Amy Youngs shared a few different works including a video of the goldfish-bowl style cricket home she created that projects a grass-level view of a cricket’s world onto the glass, moving the image every time a cricket chirps (and not by any other type of noise). I thought this was really creative and a funny idea. She said that she wasn’t sure if the cricket’s really enjoyed it and she didn’t note any increase in their chirping, but it would be really amusing to watch this as a human. She also spoke about her work that is currently on display at the Nash and I was glad she did because I didn’t understand it prior to hearing this. She explained that the video projected on the floor is of various animal web-cameras that she found on the internet. She was interested in the idea of video camera usage being so widespread now that there are a number of them set up just for the purpose of watching househould/zoo pets and animals. The cages with the fuzzy looking pillows are supposed to be picked up by the viewer and held with the flat side up to view the images projected on the floor. This actually makes the video images clearer as you move it around to the different tiles.
Christiane Robbins showed her video of a foot-level view of the interstate that captures car and truck wheels speeding by every now and then. She spoke of her relation to being a frequent traveler and an understanding of time and space.
When Dr. Jane Blocker, the panel mediator, questioned the artists about relating their seemingly different works, it was interesting to hear the similarities that were found as well as some differences. Youngs and Vasulka found that neither uses a view-finder when using a camera to record images while Robbins preferred this method. It was interesting to find that the artists and Blocker had a somewhat difficult time agreeing on the role of the viewer in experiencing the art – whether the viewer plays an active role in experiencing the art or whether it is a passive event in watching the video installations. Despite this they all agreed on the importance of taking new perspectives into account in order to develop a better understanding of the world around us.

Posted by beckx214 at 11:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I went to the panel discussion at the Walker which was Moving the Moving Image with three wonderful artists. It was very interesting to hear about what each woman was doing: Steina Vasulka with her violin, Amy Youngs and her crickets, and Christiane Robbins with the project focusing on air pollution. Each one had something unique to say, something new I had never heard of before. And each had a very different approach to their work. It was interesting that what the projects were doing or what the artists were trying to say was very different, but they were still quite similar in some ways. The last person with a question that night said that they all three had a strong connection to the space in and around their work, and I agree with that, though it is hard to explain how. I'm still not even sure myself if I can define space, and the artists themselves were a little reluctant to elaborate on that point as well. It is a tricky concept, but the way the woman explained it made perfect sense.

The work I connected with most is Christiane's because the way she is using technology is, in my opinion, the only one of the three who were expressing a politically charged viewpoint, and one that I side with. She had a computer program that allowed her to view gas stations along the road in California and updated air quality reports for the same place and the information overlaid. It's kind of hard to explain, but the message she tries to get across is that the air quality of that area is poor because of the amount of people who use it everyday on their commute to work in L.A. It was a powerful message to me. However, I got very powerful messages from the other two women as well. I really thought that what they were all doing is wonderful, innovative art.

Posted by Kari Volkmann at 03:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Blendie is amazing, but I've decided very picky as well. I tried discreetly growling at it, but it was quite indifferent to my semi-hidden affectations. I think it prefers full blown PDA, and I'm just not that into it. Anyway, I think the video of the artist wooing Blendie was awesome, and I have to say almost better than her brilliance in recreating the machine to respond to sound. The blender itself was merely technology, but the video made it art for me. Also, why wasn't there a video of her with the vacuum. That was endlessly frustrating for me not to know how she turned it on, pun intended.

Posted by Kari Volkmann at 02:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)