FINAL POST

             This semester I studied Chiam Soutine. He was a Expressionist that, toward the end of his life, leaned more toward Abstract Expressionism. For the final project I wanted to create something reminiscent of his work, but seen in a new way. He went through a couple of different phases. I of which was landscapes and another was panting the carcasses of animals. I used both of these phases to make my piece. I wanted to use a part of the animal that he did not paint, the fur. I also wanted to create a landscape that I was familiar with, the Appalachian Mountains. I wanted to use his techniques of thick lines to create my piece.
              For me, the focal point is red and then the eye should travel through the zig zags and to the blue on the bottom. I used small and large strokes with thick amounts of paint to create the fur like texture for the background. I wanted to use 3 different colors and techniques to look like 3 different animals. The color scheme I used was complimentary and compound. I used mostly muted colors like black, brown, and grey. But I also used red, blue, and whit to brighten it up.
              The connotative meaning of this is a little sloppy and muddy. The denotative is nature and bringing out a childhood memory of mine. When I was younger, I went on a camping/hiking trip to the mountains and I thought it was so beautiful. The Ideological meaning is really that the world and nature is beautiful and need to be preserved. It is really important to me that people preserve the environment.
       
               I think this class has really opened my eye to different perspective of art and how it can be interpreted in many different ways. I am a biology major and a lot of time my professors want me to create graphs that are new and exciting and I really think the data visualization can really help me in the future. The only thing I would change is laying out the schedule from the beginning. I know not having an exact layout makes it more flexible, but I really like knowing what I have to do when, even if it is really far in advance. Thank you for all of you criticism and praise to make everything the best it could be.  

"We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning."

          For the denotative analysis I wanted it to be chaotic. The focal point is the man in the middle and then the eye goes around in a spiral out toward the words. I used the ink to mute the colors photo shop print out. Then I cut out some of the print out and glued it in color over top of the ink. This was used to make the cutouts pop out more. I wanted the ink to serve as a fog over the colors.

          For the connotative analysis, I chose this quote because it seemed to be really relevant to the direction the world is going. I feel as though everyone is so connected to social media and their phones. You go to a restaurant with people now and everyone is on their phones. I wanted to convey that through this piece. I wanted the viewer to see that we have completely lost the use of proper language. People now completely only use slang or abbreviations. I find myself, even in spoken language, only using the abbreviations and not the full words. We no longer use capitals or punctuation. We are always looking for a shortcut and don't want to do the work. It has even been seen that, in school, kids are having more and more anxiety when they do not have their phones so, in some schools, teachers are allowing their students to keep their phone on their desk, as long as they do not use it, so they still feel connected. This is why we have lost much of the meanings of our world.  

Light City

It was really cool to see this huge festival come to Loyola. I think my favorite piece was the foil in the box office. It sort of reminded me of a chandelier or a fire.

I like how the foil reflects the light and makes it bounce off the walls of the little hole in the wall. I really liked that it was sort of a smaller scale so it really makes you stop and look and see what is inside. I also really liked the "L" in front of humanities. The flashes of all of the different colors really caught my eye. I like that it showed Loyola Pride.

Postmodernism

INTRO

• In pre-modernism it was not uncommon to have never encountered someone who had differing beliefs or looks
• In postmodernism different is embraced
• Everything now is sort of mixed together
• artists--> not afraid to take a risk
• Realism--> bourgeois, historical novel
• Modernism--> dissatisfaction with the world
• Postmodernism--> dislocation and fragmentation of language communities
• blur of reality

JEAN BAUDRILLARD

• Disney allows you to simulate life
• Shows you what really draws people in
• Disneyland conceals the real America
• False reality

Frederic Jameson

• changes in composition is more evident 
• shoes--> status of the world
• Symbolic or raw material

                 

Kubler

In this article I found a lot of times in which I could connect my other classes to be able to understand his point more clearly. In the analogy about scientists not being able to discuss their research with one another because they were not in the same school of thought and how artists from different schools have completely different takes on things, I could really see what he was trying to say. I am a Biology major and I have taken a very wide range of classes. I have never taken a class in Neurology and I never plan to, but I love Microbiology. These are two very different types of Bio that do intersect at some points, however, if someone tried to talk to me about Neuro I would have no idea what they were saying. This is sort of the same with comparing artists from different eras and movements. They are doing and expressing very different thoughts and emotions. They are using different techniques and playing off different experiences.
I could also connect the collectivist identity. I think sometimes it is lost on people that the artist usually had an intention behind what they were doing. They knew what they wanted you to feel when you looked at their work. We spend a lot of time trying to figure that out. Sometimes with success and sometimes not. I think the most important thing is to try and relate to the piece as best as possible. You have to try to think about the emotions behind it and that is what brings us all together with it.

Data Visualization

This is a concept that I think I have always been aware of, but I never considered it in this context. I am personally a visual learner and a Biology major so when I am reading a research paper one of the first things I do is look for a graph or picture representation. But if you really think about it, what I am looking at is a visualization of the words on the page and I am drawn more and more engaged to the research now. This is what the video was saying. People are more interested when a visual is involved. They are able to understand and interpret better.

I really liked the cartography. The map of flight pattern was really cool because it looked like an outline of the United States, but it technically was not.

I also really liked how the data looked like it was moving. It looked like it was actually telling a story and made you want to learn more and look at it more. It does not look like it all has meaning, but when you put it into context it allows the viewer to really experience.

Whitescape

This is a white plastic bag in front of a white wall. The first image is just the regular overhead light. Seeing the 2 whites in this it is apparent that the bag looks a lot brighter while the wall almost looks cream. The second picture I added the flash of my phone and it made the wrinkles in the bag more noticeable while making the wall look even more of a cream.