It took forever to get to Farmlab because I went during the middle of the week. There were very many cars on the highway going to and from Farmlab. Apon my arrival, I was confused on where I was supposed to go until I saw a car filled with some plants and flowers. I continued my journey to find what was called "Farmlab", and then came across another car filled with plants and flowers (as located above). I then continued to explore the "Not a Cornfield" project. I then became more confused as to where it actually was. There was no one around to explain to me where I was or what I was even looking at. As I walked along the sandy path, hoping to see something exciting, I came across what had once been the "Strawberry Flag". So I took a couple of pictures of that. I enjoyed the outside nature around me because it was something I would not have normally done. And it was also a beautiful day, which it made that much better! But overall, I don't think I was able to get the whole concept of Farmlab. I was very confused the whole time and was under the impression that this place was abandoned. During my visit, all I saw was some wildflowers, bees, an irrigation system, a park ranger, and two joggers. I wish I was able to appreciate Farmlab more for what it has to offer. But I would like to thank my God, my creator, and my Lord Jesus Christ for offering the opportunity to be one with Farmlab.
Allan Kaprow was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey on August 23rd, 1927. He continued to stay in New Jersey throughout his childhood but then went away to college in New York. He attended New York University between the years of 1945 and 1949, where he received a Bachelors Degree in Philosophy and Art History. During his time at the University, Kaprow also spent some time studying at the Hans Hoffman School of Fine Arts in New York as well during the years of 1947 to 1948. After receiving his Bachelor's Degree, Kaprow completed his Graduate coursework in Philosophy in 1950. Kaprow then went on to receive his MA in Art History from Columbia University. He graduated there in 1952. Later on in 1957, Allan Kaprow studied musical composition with John Cage at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan.
Allan Kaprow's career began took off once he enrolled himself in the Hans Hoffman painting school. He expressed an interest in Abstract Expressionism and also paintings that involved incorporating collages assemblage. At Hoffman, Kaprow began to develop an expressive, high spirit style of action paintings, based on real landscapes and figures. During Kaprow's time at Hoffman, he began to create environmental works that demanded audience participation. This was influenced by John Cage. The environmental works involved an integration of space, materials, time, and people. More and more of Kaprow's environmental works eventually led to the development of happenings (a term introduced in 1959), which is what Kaprow is most well known for today.
Allan Kaprow's groundbreaking happening was introduced at the Reuben Gallery in New York in the fall of 1959. This happening was called "18 Happenings in 6 Parts". Most of the influence that helped with the happening came from an essay Kaprow wrote the year before called "The Legacy of Jackson Polluck". In this essay he demands "concrete art", which is the use of everyday materials that we use. Those materials include paint, chairs, food, lights, smoke, water, and etc. This is where Kaprow first expresses the term "happening". Stating that craftsmanship and performance should be forgotten and perishable materials should be use more in art. Allan Kaprow would describe a happening as "a game, an adventure, a number of activities engaged in by participants for the sake of playing." In the most simple words used, Kaprow states "events that happen". Kaprow did not want there to be any sort of structure when it came to his happenings. He wanted no distinction between the audience and the performers. It would be the viewer's reaction that would decide his art piece. Kaprow wanted each happening to be unique in a way that could not be recreated.
The Happenings first started as scripted events. It was with the help of John cage that Kaprow synthesized his training in action paintings of Cage's scored and performed events, that produced the first successful happening. This happening created an interactive environment that manipulated the audience to fully experience 20th century art. During the happening, the performers and audience would follow queues given to experience the art. These queues included a program and three stapled cards, which provided instructions for the audiences participation. The performance was divided up into six parts. Each part contained three happenings which would all occur at once. The beginning and end of every part would be signaled by a bell. One other instruction that was given to the audience was that when one part was over, you had to change seats and move to the next of the three rooms available. Each room was displayed with a semitransparent plastic sheets painted and collaged with references to Kaprow's early work. The whole idea of the happening was to involve the audience in which they moved together to experience elements such as playing toy instruments, a woman squeezing an orange, sweep the floor, climb a ladder, and painters painting. Each audience member was instructed how long he or she had to do this for. These happenings were never rehearsed and the participants did not know what they would be doing upon looking at the cards.
Above is a photo of Kaprow's notebook that displayed how he envisioned the happening of "18 Happenings in 6 Parts" to look like. When Kaprow first introduced to people the idea of happenings, it was very interesting because he would ask people to come participate in something they had no idea what to expect. In the late fifties, for an artist to ask an audience to watch people performing pedestrian activities was a racial innovation. It was later said that Kaprow's happenings seemed more like a "free-for-all complete with nude girls, film projections, audience participation and clouds of dry ice and marijuana." Others believe Kaprow's early happenings were in fact a sophisticated synthesis of visual art and theater.
As Allan Kaprow continued to create more happenings, they became less scripted and had more everyday activities involved within the performance. One other famous happening that Kaprow created involved bringing people into a room containing a large abundance of ice cubes, which the audience had to touch, causing them to melt and bringing the piece full circle. This happening was entitled "Fluids".
There are still many happenings that occur today due to the inspiration of Allan Kaprow. Back in 2008, the Los Angeles County Museum recreated Kaprow's "Fluids". During three days, about twenty rectangular enclosures of ice blocks, measuring about 30 feet long, 10 wide and 8 high, are built throughout the city. Their walls are unbroken and they are left to melt.
Some of Kaprow's most famous happenings occurred during the years of 1961 and 1962. He would take students or friends to a specific location and perform a small action(happening). These happenings were more spontaneous. Kaprow wanted these happenings to be more creative to the audience. He encourage the audience to make their own connections between ideas and events. In the words of Allan Kaprow, "And the work itself, the action, the kind of participation, was as remote from anything artistic as the site was." It was very rare for Kaprow to record any of his happenings because he wanted to make them a one time occurrence.
Then in 1961 Kaprow created an "endlessly mutable environment" entitled "Yards". It was a chaotic mountain of black rubber tires with dangling light bulbs that flicker on and off (or switch from white to red). There were also body bags stuffed with Vaseline-covered mannequins, two mirrored walls and an enigmatic spoken commentary. The purpose of this was to invite visitors to walk over or rearrange the tires at will. This was another one of Kaprow's ways to bring art and everyday life closer together.
Then in 1964, Kaprow created his next piece of work entitled "Household". This photo was taken near a dump by Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. At 11:00 AM that day, men and women gathered together to build a wooden tower of trash and a nest of saplings and string. A smoking, wrecked car was brought in where the men covered the car with strawberry jam. While the women were inside the nest, they would screech, wanting to be let out to lick the jam off the car. While the women continued to lick the jam, the men destroyed the nest. The men then returned to the car to slap white bread on top of the jam and eat it in this way inside. The women then went to the tower in retaliation to destroy what the men had built.
The meaning behind this happening was to show the violence and tension that exist between man and woman in society. Violence, which drives us apart, can also pull us together.
Allan Kaprow continued to produce other great works throughout his lifetime. Sadly he passed away a couple years ago on April 5, 2006.
Marina Abramovic is a performance artist who was born on November 30, 1946. Abramovic believes she is the "grandmother of performance art". Marina received her education from the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade from 1965-1970. Abramovic then continued her education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, SR Croatia in 1972, where she completed her post-graduate studies. She then taught at the Academy of Fine Arts at Novi Sad. This is where Abramovic started working on her first solo performances as an artist. Troubled times during her childhood did not make Abramovic's performances easy for her to manage. Growing up, Abramovic's father was a commander in the military and mother was a major in the army. This left Abramovic with strict rules to follow, which meant being home by 10 o clock every night until Marina was 29 years old.
Most of Marina Abramovic's famous pieces of work come from her collection of Rhythm. In Abramovic's first performance, Rhythm 10 (1973), she explored elements of ritual and gesture. Marina used twenty knives and two tape recorders to play the Russian game in where you jab knives in between your fingers in a rhythmic way (5-finger fillet). She would use one knife until it stabbed her finger, then would continue on to the next knife. She had cut herself each time, but would record the outcome for each knife. The whole idea for this piece was for Abramovic to consider the state of consciousness of a performer. "Once you enter into the performance state you can push your body to do things you absolutely could never normally do."
Abramovic continued on with her Rhythm projects, completing Rhythm 5 (1974), Rhythm 2 (1974), and Rhythm 0 (1974). All of Abramovic's performances include something that has to do with the body. Some performances dealing with contact of the body such as pain or discovering a state of consciousness. Some of Abramovic's most recent pieces include Seven Easy Pieces (November 2005). On seven consecutive nights for seven hours, Abramovic recreated the works of five artists first performed in the 60s and 70s. These performances were physically exhausting, requiring a lot of mental concentration. Most recently, the Museum of Modern Art held a major performance recreation of Abramovic's work in March 2010.
Jeffrey Shaw is famous for his works that have the use of interactivity and virtuality. His works have been displayed in many museums and festivals worldwide. Before Shaw became a famous artist, he was born in 1944 in Melbourne, Australia. He then went to the University of Melbourne where he studied Architecture and Art History. After completing his education, Shaw started to travel the world. He studied sculptures in Italy and also in London. He then traveled to Amsterdam, Netherlands where he participated in a project called "Sigma Projects", with several other artists as well.
While Shaw was away studying, he founded and co-founded several productions and events. Those included the Artist Placement Group in 1967, the Eventstructure Research Group in 1968, Javaphile Productions in 1977, Founding Director of the Institute for Visual Media at the ZKM/Zentrum (Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany), and lastly the founding co-director of the Center of Interactive Cinema Research in Sydney Australia.
The idea of Shaw's work is to expose a viewer in visually stimulated spaces and make them see virtual reality.
When I traveled to the campus of UC Irvine, it was somewhat difficult to find to the Beall Center. It was difficult to find because it was in the middle of campus and it was not that big. The first thing I noticed before I walked in was this sign so I knew I was in the right place.
I continued to walk into the Beall center and saw a piece of work entitled "Biomorphic". I had no idea what to think of the work standing in front. It looked like a body that hung them self. As I got, the work started to inflate. After watching Biomorph, I read the wall plate off to the side that described what I had just seen in front of me. Biomorph was short for Biomorphic Wall, that would eventually form an abstract grid that recalls molecular patterns.
The next blown up figurines I saw was a piece of work entitled "Birds". It was interesting to watch this set inflate because each bird would inflate at different times and look as if they were flying by waving its wings. There was a total of six "birds" that would inflate back and forth as you would continue to walk through the center. This one was my favorite because it was the easiest to tell what the work was being focused on. It was also the most interesting because of the different timings that each bird would inflate.
The next creation I came across was a piece called "Inner Space". This one I could not figure out right away. From what I can remember, I think this one was supposed to resemble a space ship of some sort. It was supposed to resemble a space ship when it was completely inflated. This piece took the longest to inflate and it looked as though it did not get blown up all the way but then compared the photo I took and another photo taken from the UC Irvine Beall Center website and saw that we had captured somewhat of the same picture. Meaning that it was inflated all the way in what I saw.
After watching the three pieces of work inflate before my eyes, I expected to see more. As I turned the corner to see if there was, but this was it. I asked a student who was working the front door if there was anymore but he said no this was all for the inflatable bodies. I was a bit confused at first because when Glenn had mentioned this place was "small", I did not expect for it to be this small!
While I was at the Beall Center for Art and Technology, it was interesting to see that people had come up with the idea that figures that inflate is art. I have looked at art in all different ways and appreciate when someone puts forth the effort to display a good piece of work. I enjoyed watching and also learning about the expanding and contracting of the various configurations that I stood before.
Harold Cohen has accomplished so much in his lifetime. He is most famous for his program AARON, a Cybernetic Artist. It all started in London where he studied painting at the School of Fine Arts. Shortly after in 1968, Cohen started teaching in the Visual Arts Department at the School of Fine Arts in London. During Cohen's time in London, his work was widely displayed in many different areas. Many events were international shows. Cohen represented Great Britain in the Venice Biennale, Documenta 3, Paris Biennale, and the Carnegie International. Most of his exhibit work is displayed regularly at the Robert Fraser Gallery in London.
In the late 1960s, Harold Cohen left London traveled to the United States, particularly San Diego, California. Cohen came to San Diego with a well established international reputation as an English painter. He was invited to the University of California San Diego as a visiting professorship. He took the offer so that he could because he was interested in computer programming and particularly in the field or artificial intelligence. After this offer, he never would return to London. A couple years later, Cohen was then invited as a Guest Scholar to spend two years at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Stanford University. During his time spent at Stanford University, Cohen studied the process he is most famous for to this day. His work consisted of "building a machine-based simulation of the cognitive processes underlying the human act of drawing." This then sparked the program that Cohen now calls AARON. It is a program that produces "freehand" drawings in museums and science centers in the United States, Europe, and Japan. A museum that we are all familiar that you would be able to see this program, AARON, would be at the Los Angeles County Museum. Many other museums that include Cohen's work would be the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Brooklyn Museum, the Tate Gallery in London, and the IBM Gallery in New York. There are also science centers that exhibit Cohen's work. Some including the Ontario Science Center and Pittsburgh's Buhl Center to name a couple. As you can see, Cohen is very well known internationally by the way his work is displayed across the world. Cohen now has his own permanent exhibit located in Boston at the Computer Museum and also represented the United States in the Japan World Fair in Tsukuba in 1985.
Not only is Harold Cohen an artist, he is also a very well known writer as well. Cohen has delivered invited papers at a number of different conferences. Some including the College Art Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the International Joint Conference of Artificial Intelligence, and the Tokyo Nicograph Conference. Cohen has also produced a number of published writings. His first one being "What is an Image?" in 1979. Then came several more in the twenty years following.
Both pictures above display the plotting pen controlled by AARON. This intelligent machine, stated in the photo above, creates a hard copy of the artists original artwork. It took Harold Cohen nearly thirty years to perfect the program and to have the latest CyberArt advancements. But AARON is not just any ordinary sceensaver. The program was productized by Kurzweil CyberArt Technologies Inc. It is said that "AARON is the first fine art screensaver to utilize artificial intelligence to continuously create original paintings on your PC." Not only can AARON be considered a screensaver, it could even be a robot, the first robot in history to paint original art. Early efforts in creating AARON, can from Cohen studying a computer and how well it could produce a piece of artwork. At the time, the plotting pen from AARON could only produce what looked liked scribble, or something that could amount to a childrens' drawing. Over time, as Cohen had more time to develop his work, this kind of technology is able to mix its own paints, creates striking artwork and even washes its own brushes. AARON can make drawings about anything it knows about, but it actually knows very little. For example, people, trees, potted plants, and objects such as tables, boxes, and decorations because these figures are the most simple. AARON mainly controls itself, but with a little help from Cohen. "I don't tell it what to do. I tell it what it knows, and IT decides what to do." Early developments of AARON produced outlines of scribbles. Now AARON is able to construct a range of "core figures" to replace the scribble, and is smart enough to know that it shouldn't always draw the entire outline.
In a Question and Answer that Cohen participated in, he was asked the question "When you first began programming your robot and moving away from painting yourself, what was the reaction of other artists?" He answered by stating that he is unsure how other artists felt. He knew not everyone was going to like his work, but surprisingly got much feedback on how well he was doing. But then there is also the argument that AARON is not real artwork and it does not come from an artist that actually feels and owns the work he or she is creating. Another question I felt stood out to me was when Cohen was asked "The paintings we saw AARON created were all portraits of people. Does AARON also paint landscapes, animals, or other subjects?" Cohen responded by stating AARON will paint as much as it knows. Cohen often wonders if he should tell AARON more things so that it is able to produce more drawings. But came to the conclusion that it would not be any better for AARON to know how to do more, but simply do things it already knows better.
"I wrote it to discover what an independent (machine) intelligence might do, given some knowledge of the world and some rudimentary physical capabilities. And, in the process, to have IT teach ME about possibilities I hadn't imagined. I'd be happier if AARON's work in the future were LESS like human work, not MORE like human work."
Stated above is a quote from Harold Cohen describing what AARON is and what he would like it to do in the future. I feel as though this can be considered art but at the same time it could not be. The reason I feel it could not be considered art because you do not have physically have an artist actually sitting in front of a canvas, using a brush and paint to produce their artwork. Instead you have a robot painting a portrait that a human being designed it to do. On the other hand, I think that it can be considered art because an artist did create the robot program named AARON. I feel that artists are all about creating or designing something different when it comes to art, so how would this be any different. So I feel that it is art because it is something unique and different that no one has created before.
Erwin Redl was born in the year 1963 in Austria. In Vienna, Austria, Redl studied to be a musician and also received his Bachelors of Art at the Music Academy. He then took his schooling over the United States, where he received his Masters of Fine Arts at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Redl now currently lives in New York. Erwin Redl is most famous for using LED(light emitting diode) lights in an artistic way. Redl takes his art both two dimensional as well as three dimensional. After looking at some of Redl's pieces, I never thought to consider this art. I just figured that it came with designing the building.
Redl is famously known not only in just the United States but also in other countries around the world. He became very well known after Matrix VI(first picture above) that is displayed on the front entrance to New York's Whitney Museum of American Art in 2002. Another work of Redl that came before Matrix VI was Matrix II(second picture above). This is one of Redl's most popular pieces of work and has a dimension of 36 ft x 26 ft x 12 ft. Matrix II has been displayed in many different countries including Germany, France, South Korea, and Austria. One other piece of work that has become famous within the United States is Redl's work called Nocturnal Flow(photo below). You can see Nocturnal Flow at the Paul G. Allen Center in Washington. The piece Nocturnal Flow is made up of 10,000 LED lights that cover a eighty-five foot floor to ceiling wall.
