Fowler Museum

"Dancer"

For my last event visit I decided to stay close to home and visit the Making Strange exhibit at the Fowler Museum that I have seen so many advertisements about on campus. When I first got there the museum was very quiet and I soon realized I was the only visitor! It was nice to explore its entirety on my own and not feel like I had to rush from piece to piece to accommodate other observers.

The actual Making Strange exhibit was a bit jarring on first entry. It was dimly lit with many oddly dressed mannequins around and a man’s voice was playing in the back corner in a sort of eerie tone. Mannequins have always scared me a little bit but after looking at a few of them I began to understand Vivan Sundaram’s intentions with Gagawaka. Her structural garments made of recycled material were stunning and very Avant guard. I quickly moved on to Postmortem because it seemed the more scientific of the two exhibits.

"Second Spine"

The Postmortem portion of the exhibit was comprised of many different mannequins, tailor dummies, anatomical models, and wooden props. The way each structure was put together was a bit crude and represented the human body in a bit more disquieting way than a typical mannequin. One piece of a dancer combined a mannequin, clothing from Gagawaka, and an anatomical breast in a way that was quite disturbing. It showed the rawness of humans when you peel back their layers.

My favorite piece was a simple dressform combined with the spine of a skeleton model. To me it felt as though it was exposing a more human, emotional center of something or someone who was very closed off. This piece is most definitely about discovering something below the surface and getting to know someone on a deeper level.

"Large and Small Shelf Objects"

Sundaram’s integration of different types of anatomical models together was quite beautiful. He combined hands with skulls and spines and recreated parts of the human form with other parts of the body. The manipulation of anatomical models in this exhibit is masterful and immediately connects the viewers to the art, because it is almost a representation of themselves. Overall I don't think it was the most scientific exhibit I have seen, but I enjoyed the pieces very much.

Me in the Center Court Yard of Fowler

Hammer Museum

Gridwork Trees

After hearing that the Hammer Museum had Ping-Pong tables and free admission, plus it is across from my favorite pizza place, I knew I had to go there. On May 14^th my boyfriend and I went to the hammer museum and explored Charles Gaines’s exhibit Gridwork and The Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio most in depth.

Gridwork Tree

Gridwork was the most directly scientific related exhibit I have visited so far. It featured images of trees projected onto a grid and then numbered and painted in a grid pattern. From a distance the trees look simply like colorful projections, but up close the intricate nature of the art was stunning.  This technique attempted to capture the fractal nature of the tree and compose it of its smaller building blocks rather than simply looking at it like it was just a single structure. There were numerous of these projections and I thought them all to be very aesthetically pleasing as well as also having an eye toward mathematics and science.

Dancer Projected on Graph Paper

Another similar piece was the same concept of projecting an image on graph paper but this one incorporated human movement. The dancer is captured in photography, then her image and her shadow are plotted on the graph paper. This technique really captures the motion of her body and an idea more simplistic yet incredibly elegant in its representation of the human body.

Learning Hub

Learning Hub Model

Although this had less to do with science, The Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio exhibit really captivated me. The futuristic architecture incorporated many advanced technologies and it was really fascinating to imagine a future society comprised solely of these fantastic buildings. My favorite was a University Learning Hub comprised of fifty-six tutorial rooms in a cluster-based arrangement to promote connections among users and foster a spirit of openness.

After exploring all the exhibits I spent some time in the Hammer Museum’s signature attraction, their spinning chairs. They were incredibly fun and a good way to let off some stress. Overall I liked the Hammer museum and would recommend it to another student. There are also some more classical art exhibits that had some very beautiful pieces.

Me in The Spinning Top Chairs

Kathy High Exhibit

FMT Video with Projected Images Behind it

On May 6^th I attended Kathy High’s exhibit Waste Matters at CNIS on UCLA’s campus. Although I had trouble finding it, I was pleased to arrive and see I had the exhibit to myself and could explore freely. 

I began by watching the short video about fecal microbial transplant and gut biomes. At first I was taken aback by this video because I had not actually looked at what the exhibit was exploring. I quickly noticed the glass jars of feces behind me and everything was put in perspective. The video itself was informative on c dif bacteria and microbial therapy, but at some points the edits on the video felt very sarcastic. Sometimes when a scientist would be detailing a procedure, cartoon animated grass would begin to grow out of the lower half of the screen, nearly eclipsing the scientist’s face. Often silly names were assigned to serious procedures and I didn't quite understand the projected images of a toy robot that pooped out colored balls behind the television.

Digital Imaging of Internal and External Biomes

After the video concluded I spent some time looking at the digital pictures of The Re-mediator Series in collaboration with Oliver Kellhammer. I understood the intention of the piece; imaging the microbial process from the internal to the external environment, but I didn’t like them much. Each image seemed as though its pieces were placed together rather than well integrated, which seemed odd to me seeing as the exhibit was about integration and interspecies love.

Glass Jars of Feces with David Bowie Imitation Photography in the Background

The glass jars full of feces preserved in honey were striking because of the shape of the container and the shadows cast on the stands but I thought placing human feces in an art exhibit so plainly was a bit crude and taking the theme of the exhibit too literally.

Me with Kathy High Posing as David Bowie

After reading Kathy High’s letter to David Bowie I liked the general idea of the exhibit better. Her attempt to catch his attention was admirable and I liked that her own Crohn’s disease was motivation for her art. Overall I don't think I enjoyed the exhibit as much as I expected to. Typically I like art that uses many different mediums but much of the exhibit felt disjoint to me with the sculpture, photography, digital imaging, video, and projection. Although I wasn't crazy about the exhibit, It was nice to explore art that was so integrated in the artist’s life.

LACMA

Stairways Just Outside of Resnick Pavilion

Just before Mother’s Day, my mom flew to LA all the way from Boston for a surprise visit.  When she arrived I was giddy with excitement and eager to take her to LACMA because she loves to visit local art museums on all of her trips. We went in the morning at the beginning of May and had a wonderful time exploring all of the diverse exhibits.

I intended to attend James Turrell’s exhibit “Breathing Light” because of its relevance to the Southern California Light and Space movement, but unfortunately that exhibit only allows about 8 visitors at a time and the wait was a few hours! Despite not getting to see this popular show, I found two pieces that particularly struck me.

"The Jugglers" by David Hockrey

The first was a piece donated to the museum in honor of its 50^th anniversary called The Jugglers done by David Hockrey. It presents eighteen digital videos, synchronized and presented on 55-inch screens. It played vivid imagery of about 10 jugglers performing all different types of juggling related activities. I was so captivated by this piece because of its business and my own personal inability to focus on one juggler at a time. The art incorporates technology in a unique way; rather than aligning all the images perfectly, they were slightly offset. Not only does this piece use technology in its presentation, to me it felt as though it was commenting on technology in the current culture. So many people nowadays use technology as their soul source of entertainment and focus a lot of their perspective on screens, as represented by the long landscape of many screens in the piece.

Red Concave Circle

The other piece that was particularly striking was also donated in honor of the 50^th anniversary of LACMA and is called Red Concave Circle by De Wain Valentine. It is a cast polyester resin and about 7 feet tall. I saw it and immediately thought of our math and art unit, specifically about perspective. It is shaped in a way that refracts light going through it and makes objects look much further away that they actually are. The piece was especially eye-catching because of its enormous size.

I spent a fair time exploring exhibits that don't pertain to this class and my mom and I especially liked Larry Sultan’s photography. I would definitely recommend LACMA to another student because of its wide variety of artwork.

Me Behind "Red Concave Circle"

Me by the Very Famous LACMA Lampposts

Space and Art

Copernicus and His Heliocentric Theory Research

The first major endeavors into discovering the world of space started in 1512 when Copernicus published his heliocentric version of the universe. He worked out the system in mathematical detail and explained to rotation of the heavens. Before the 1600s, the sky was a mystery a left most people confused and curious, but in 1611 when the telescope was invented, it opened up a new area of exploration and triggered a still flourishing fascination with space (Vesna, pt.1).

Artists, writers, scientists, and people with simple curiosity have always been pondering space and its vast capacity for surprises. In 1865 Jules Verne described what he imagined weightlessness on the moon would be like (Vesna, pt.1). Nearly 100 years later this sensation was felt for the first time by Nuri Gagarin, the first human in space (Vesna, pt.4). The organization of life from the atomic level all the way into the depths of space has a unique alteration of great activity and relative inactivity that is quite artistic simply in its nature (Eames).

Makrolab

Makrolab is an ambiguous form of sculpture and architecture designed by Marko Peljhan. It is both a laboratory and a living space with four functional zones: a kitchen, a workspace, a dormitory, and bathrooms. Mounted in desolate environments, Makrolab looks as if it is a meteorological research center or a stranded space station. This remote location was designed by Peljhan to intervene into radio and telecommunication circuits to test the conditions under which transmission technologies operate and under which the relations between communicating individuals can be empowered. As a performance artist, Peljhan hosted artists, writers, scientists, and hackers for research in climate, telecommunications, and human and animal migration under strict conditions of isolation (Coded Utopia). His designed lifestyle mimics what astronauts lost in space might experience.

Dragon's Commercial Space Craft

More recent developments in space travel have influenced all types of popular culture from fashion to many television programs and movies. Planet Stories, The Jetsons, Lost in Space, Star Trek, and many more popular programs are quite prominent in our daily lives (Vesna, pt.6). Space X recently launched Dragon, the first private commercial space craft to successfully attach to a space station. The development of commercial transport of astronauts in space is only the first step to many more artistic and creative endeavors in space (Vesna, pt.5)

Ahmed, Waseem. "Artist of Year: Makrolab." Artist of Year: Makrolab. N.p., 25 Feb. 2013. Web. 28 May 2015. <http://allartistfor.blogspot.com/2013/02/makrolab.html>.

Brahe, Tycho. "Copernicus." Development of the Heliocentric Solar System. Medieval Astronomy, n.d. Web. 28 May 2015. <http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/NatSci102/NatSci102/lectures/copernicus.htm>.

Eames Office. "Powers of Ten." YouTube. YouTube, 1977. Web. 28 May 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0>.

Unknown. "CODED UTOPIA." Continental Drift. Word Press, 27 Mar. 2007. Web. 28 May 2015. <https://brianholmes.wordpress.com/2007/03/27/coded-utopia/>.

Unknown. "Dragon." First Private Space Craft to the Space Station. SpaceX, 2015. Web. 28 May 2015. <http://www.spacex.com/dragon>.

Vesna, Victoria. "Space Pt1." YouTube. YouTube, 29 July 2013. Web. 28 May 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZIqTR332l8#t=34>.

Vesna, Victoria. "Space Pt4." YouTube. YouTube, 30 May 2012. Web. 28 May 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5ClKO6AJPo>.

Vesna, Victoria. "Space Pt5." YouTube. YouTube, 30 May 2012. Web. 28 May 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnSUHMXBmdg>.

Vesna, Victoria. "Space Pt6." YouTube. YouTube, 30 May 2012. Web. 28 May 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYmOtFjIj0M>.