Contemporary Art

NEW SITE www.POSIECURRIN.com

2011-05-25T13:51:00.000-07:00

Please visit my new site www.posiecurrin.com
thanks!

THE 'N WORD.' Maybe Nostalgia isn't just for grandmas and ordinary people.

2008-04-30T09:20:00.000-07:00

Nostalgia: a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. Origin: late 18th century, acute homesickness. from Greek nostos 'return home' + algos 'pain.'

I was surprised to find out during a critique session last week that there seems to be a general understanding among art teachers and students alike that nostalgic imagery and themes are off-limits (or maybe just too bourgeois) and should be avoided as a general rule of course. This sentiment was again reiterated by a student during a group discussion of Shelby Davis' work, who mentioned something to the effect that some of the subject matter verged on giving him a stomachache and he wondered if it wasn't getting too sentimental and saccharin to make a successful impact and suggesting that the approach might be somehow "too easy." Some of you may remember that Marc Voge from Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries thoughtfully responded that it is in fact really hard to make sincere art work that comes from a deeply personal place, especially in the contemporary art world which shares a general aversion to such approaches. He pointed out that after 9/11 there has been a surge of soul-seaching done by artists, which has led to much re-prioritization of what is most important and often exploration of more sentimental subjects and the nature of humanity. I think that this is also behind the return to craft movement that began around the same time, with both artists and non-artists returning to hand work and past traditions as a way of comforting themselves in the aftermath of tragedy and coping with the rampant fear. Someone once told me that there are actually acupressure points in our fingertips that relate to the heart chakra and aid in healing grief, which I like to think might explain the knitting and needle work revival that sprung up after 9/11 and continues today.

Nostalgia is actually a really complex aspect of human existence. Contained within it are a mesh of conflicting emotions, including melancholia, joy, pain, and disappointment. The subjects of loss and memory processes are also contained within nostalgic themes by default. And, these topics are explored in depth by scholars dedicated to photo theory, such as Roland Barthes. Much of this theory explores the idea that every photograph has some degree of melancholy affect in that the instant the image is captured it has already died; the moment is now the past, yet there is an attempt to hold on at the same time. These ideas are also extended to work that references photos or uses photographic processes in its production. Similar ideas about memory function are also explored in the study of Latin American Literature and the discussion of the existence of the phenomena of Realismo Magico (Magical Realism), in which the Jungian ideas of the collective unconscious actively come into play. I'm posting this to suggest that it might be useful to reconsider a prescribed reaction to specific emotional themes in art. Maybe they don't speak to one's personal aesthetic or maybe the general cynicism abundant in contemporary themes is clouding our vision, but an outright dismissal of any topic or exploration is limiting and verges on being dogmatic.

Here are just a few recent articles that explore some of the varied approaches and discussions about the subject of nostalgia in contemporary art:

Blast from the Past, ArtNews, January 2008

Air Kissing: Momenta Art, review, ArtNews, January 2008

Beauty Knows No Pain, Art Journal, Summer 2004

The Sentimental Image in Contemporary Art

Art 21: Season 4, Episode 1: Romance

Discussion with Stephen Hendee in Las Vegas

2008-03-15T17:26:00.001-07:00

Click to Play

This is part of a conversation I had with artist Stephen Hendee. Stephen is a sculptor, installation artist, and also teaches at the University of Nevady Las Vegas.

The main topics of our conversation were the performative, the oppositional, and social practice in art.

Interview with Richard Reynolds

2008-03-15T00:25:00.001-07:00

Click to Play

Richard started the website: guerillagardining.org this site connects illicit gardeners all over the world. I consider him to be a social practice artist. He doesn't claim that, he has a lot of interesting commentary on the role of art, people, communities, and what motivates us, I hope you will listen.

Interview with Posie Currin

2008-03-11T19:22:00.001-07:00

Click to Play

Bethany Hayes and Katy Asher, two first-year PSU MFA students, interview fellow second-year student, Posie Currin, about her art practice.

relevant link for interview with Kevin

2008-03-06T08:05:00.001-08:00

This American Life, always an inspiration. Here's an episode that Kevin and I looked to in considering our interview format (a one-way conversation collected from a series of telephone messages). enjoy.

The Yesmen

2008-02-24T16:36:00.000-08:00

This is interesting. BNETTV, capitalized on this opportune moment in Calgary, Canada, where they happened to witness Yesmen antics, and they got an interesting interview out of it.

________________
With Bill Moyers:

________
On BBC:

________________
Ice Age petition:

____________
Gay Divorce

inspiration

2008-02-24T15:34:00.000-08:00

Wow! It turns out, I do have posting access.

Here's the stuff I tried to share in class:

16 Metaphysics Babaji Consciousness Metaphysical Papaji, posted by MetaphysicalSciences

Re: 6 Now Is A Good Moment, Suffering Is In Mind, Monkey Min, posted by ractalfece

My Legal Struggle with University of Metaphysical Sciences, posted by ractalfece

This One is Copyrighteds, posted by ractalfece

AWW Seminar Final Presentation Schedule

2008-02-24T14:27:00.000-08:00

Final presentations for the Interview Project:

February 27 Laurel & Avalon
March 5 Cyrus; Vanessa & Steve
March 12 Eric & Damien; Katy & Bethany; Rebecca & Sandy; Varinthorn

Presentations should be 15-20 minutes. If the interview is longer than this, you should present selections that give a good idea of the scope, accompanied by an overview. Turn in a copy of the interview (cd, dvd, or print form) and a brief reflection summarizing your approach, influences, process, outcome (due last class meeting).

Artists Who Write Seminar Update for 2/27

2008-02-24T13:53:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday, Feb 27, we will meet at 5 pm in AB330 for Laurel and Avalon's presentation of their Interview Project on Joel. Afterwards, we will go to Reed to hear Kianga Ford speak (6:30, Elliot Hall) in conjunction with the Working History exhibition in the Cooley Gallery. Please let me know how many people can drive.

Regarding Last Week's Reading

2008-02-23T08:37:00.000-08:00

Lo and behold, Night School at the New Museum today announced its next seminar, Martha Rosler/Art and Social Life: The Case of Video Art

Interesting website

2008-02-20T13:20:00.000-08:00

Hi all,
here are interesting website that I think related to the article, For an Art Against The Mythology of Everyday Life.
http://www.newdream.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Rosler

http://www.freegans.org/
http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$artistdetail?ROSLERM

NY Times article

2008-02-19T10:02:00.000-08:00

The Futile Pursuit of Happiness
By JON GERTNER
Published: September 7, 2003

If Daniel Gilbert is right, then you are wrong. That is to say, if Daniel Gilbert is right, then you are wrong to believe that a new car will make you as happy as you imagine. You are wrong to believe that a new kitchen will make you happy for as long as you imagine. You are wrong to think that you will be more unhappy with a big single setback (a broken wrist, a broken heart) than with a lesser chronic one (a trick knee, a tense marriage). You are wrong to assume that job failure will be crushing. You are wrong to expect that a death in the family will leave you bereft for year upon year, forever and ever. You are even wrong to reckon that a cheeseburger you order in a restaurant -- this week, next week, a year from now, it doesn't really matter when -- will definitely hit the spot. That's because when it comes to predicting exactly how you will feel in the future, you are most likely wrong.

A professor in Harvard's department of psychology, Gilbert likes to tell people that he studies happiness. But it would be more precise to say that Gilbert -- along with the psychologist Tim Wilson of the University of Virginia, the economist George Loewenstein of Carnegie-Mellon and the psychologist (and Nobel laureate in economics) Daniel Kahneman of Princeton -- has taken the lead in studying a specific type of emotional and behavioral prediction. In the past few years, these four men have begun to question the decision-making process that shapes our sense of well-being: how do we predict what will make us happy or unhappy -- and then how do we feel after the actual experience? For example, how do we suppose we'll feel if our favorite college football team wins or loses, and then how do we really feel a few days after the game? How do we predict we'll feel about purchasing jewelry, having children, buying a big house or being rich? And then how do we regard the outcomes? According to this small corps of academics, almost all actions -- the decision to buy jewelry, have kids, buy the big house or work exhaustively for a fatter paycheck -- are based on our predictions of the emotional consequences of these events.

Until recently, this was uncharted territory. How we forecast our feelings, and whether those predictions match our future emotional states, had never been the stuff of laboratory research. But in scores of experiments, Gilbert, Wilson, Kahneman and Loewenstein have made a slew of observations and conclusions that undermine a number of fundamental assumptions: namely, that we humans understand what we want and are adept at improving our well-being -- that we are good at maximizing our utility, in the jargon of traditional economics. Further, their work on prediction raises some unsettling and somewhat more personal questions. To understand affective forecasting, as Gilbert has termed these studies, is to wonder if everything you have ever thought about life choices, and about happiness, has been at the least somewhat naïve and, at worst, greatly mistaken.

The problem, as Gilbert and company have come to discover, is that we falter when it comes to imagining how we will feel about something in the future. It isn't that we get the big things wrong. We know we will experience visits to Le Cirque and to the periodontist differently; we can accurately predict that we'd rather be stuck in Montauk than in a Midtown elevator. What Gilbert has found, however, is that we overestimate the intensity and the duration of our emotional reactions -- our ''affect'' -- to future events. In other words, we might believe that a new BMW will make life perfect. But it will almost certainly be less exciting than we anticipated; nor will it excite us for as long as predicted. The vast majority of Gilbert's test participants through the years have consistently made just these sorts of errors both in the laboratory and in real-life situations. And whether Gilbert's subjects were trying to predict how they would feel in the future about a plate of spaghetti with meat sauce, the defeat of a preferred political candidate or romantic rejection seemed not to matter. On average, bad events proved less intense and more transient than test participants predicted. Good events proved less intense and briefer as well.

Gilbert and his collaborator Tim Wilson call the gap between what we predict and what we ultimately experience the ''impact bias'' -- ''impact'' meaning the errors we make in estimating both the intensity and duration of our emotions and ''bias'' our tendency to err. The phrase characterizes how we experience the dimming excitement over not just a BMW but also over any object or event that we presume will make us happy. Would a 20 percent raise or winning the lottery result in a contented life? You may predict it will, but almost surely it won't turn out that way. And a new plasma television? You may have high hopes, but the impact bias suggests that it will almost certainly be less cool, and in a shorter time, than you imagine. Worse, Gilbert has noted that these mistakes of expectation can lead directly to mistakes in choosing what we think will give us pleasure. He calls this ''miswanting.''

''The average person says, 'I know I'll be happier with a Porsche than a Chevy,' '' Gilbert explains. '' 'Or with Linda rather than Rosalyn. Or as a doctor rather than as a plumber.' That seems very clear to people. The problem is, I can't get into medical school or afford the Porsche. So for the average person, the obstacle between them and happiness is actually getting the futures that they desire. But what our research shows -- not just ours, but Loewenstein's and Kahneman's -- is that the real problem is figuring out which of those futures is going to have the high payoff and is really going to make you happy.

''You know, the Stones said, 'You can't always get what you want,' '' Gilbert adds. ''I don't think that's the problem. The problem is you can't always know what you want.''

gilbert's papers on affective forecasting began to appear in the late 1990's, but the idea to study happiness and emotional prediction actually came to him on a sunny afternoon in October 1992, just as he and his friend Jonathan Jay Koehler sat down for lunch outside the psychology building at the University of Texas at Austin, where both men were teaching at the time. Gilbert was uninspired about his studies and says he felt despair about his failing marriage. And as he launched into a discussion of his personal life, he swerved to ask why economists focus on the financial aspects of decision making rather than the emotional ones. Koehler recalls, ''Gilbert said something like: 'It all seems so small. It isn't really about money; it's about happiness. Isn't that what everybody wants to know when we make a decision?' '' For a moment, Gilbert forgot his troubles, and two more questions came to him. Do we even know what makes us happy? And if it's difficult to figure out what makes us happy in the moment, how can we predict what will make us happy in the future?

In the early 1990's, for an up-and-coming psychology professor like Gilbert to switch his field of inquiry from how we perceive one another to happiness, as he did that day, was just a hairsbreadth short of bizarre. But Gilbert has always liked questions that lead him somewhere new. Now 45, Gilbert dropped out of high school at 15, hooking into what he calls ''the tail end of the hippie movement'' and hitchhiking aimlessly from town to town with his guitar. He met his wife on the road; she was hitching in the other direction. They married at 17, had a son at 18 and settled down in Denver. ''I pulled weeds, I sold rebar, I sold carpet, I installed carpet, I spent a lot of time as a phone solicitor,'' he recalls. During this period he spent several years turning out science-fiction stories for magazines like Amazing Stories. Thus, in addition to being ''one of the most gifted social psychologists of our age,'' as the psychology writer and professor David G. Myers describes him to me, Gilbert is the author of ''The Essence of Grunk,'' a story about an encounter with a creature made of egg salad that jets around the galaxy in a rocket-powered refrigerator.

Psychology was a matter of happenstance. In the midst of his sci-fi career, Gilbert tried to sign up for a writing course at the local community college, but the class was full; he figured that psych, still accepting registrants, would help him with character development in his fiction. It led instead to an undergraduate degree at the University of Colorado at Denver, then a Ph.D. at Princeton, then an appointment at the University of Texas, then the appointment at Harvard. ''People ask why I study happiness,'' Gilbert says, ''and I say, 'Why study anything else?' It's the holy grail. We're studying the thing that all human action is directed toward.''

One experiment of Gilbert's had students in a photography class at Harvard choose two favorite pictures from among those they had just taken and then relinquish one to the teacher. Some students were told their choices were permanent; others were told they could exchange their prints after several days. As it turned out, those who had time to change their minds were less pleased with their decisions than those whose choices were irrevocable.

Much of Gilbert's research is in this vein. Another recent study asked whether transit riders in Boston who narrowly missed their trains experienced the self-blame that people tend to predict they'll feel in this situation. (They did not.) And a paper waiting to be published, ''The Peculiar Longevity of Things Not So Bad,'' examines why we expect that bigger problems will always dwarf minor annoyances. ''When really bad things happen to us, we defend against them,'' Gilbert explains. ''People, of course, predict the exact opposite. If you ask, 'What would you rather have, a broken leg or a trick knee?' they'd probably say, 'Trick knee.' And yet, if your goal is to accumulate maximum happiness over your lifetime, you just made the wrong choice. A trick knee is a bad thing to have.''

All of these studies establish the links between prediction, decision making and well-being. The photography experiment challenges our common assumption that we would be happier with the option to change our minds when in fact we're happier with closure. The transit experiment demonstrates that we tend to err in estimating our regret over missed opportunities. The ''things not so bad'' work shows our failure to imagine how grievously irritations compromise our satisfaction. Our emotional defenses snap into action when it comes to a divorce or a disease but not for lesser problems. We fix the leaky roof on our house, but over the long haul, the broken screen door we never mend adds up to more frustration.

Gilbert does not believe all forecasting mistakes lead to similar results; a death in the family, a new gym membership and a new husband are not the same, but in how they affect our well-being they are similar. ''Our research simply says that whether it's the thing that matters or the thing that doesn't, both of them matter less than you think they will,'' he says. ''Things that happen to you or that you buy or own -- as much as you think they make a difference to your happiness, you're wrong by a certain amount. You're overestimating how much of a difference they make. None of them make the difference you think. And that's true of positive and negative events.''

Much of the work of Kahneman, Loewenstein, Gilbert and Wilson takes its cue from the concept of adaptation, a term psychologists have used since at least the 1950's to refer to how we acclimate to changing circumstances. George Loewenstein sums up this human capacity as follows: ''Happiness is a signal that our brains use to motivate us to do certain things. And in the same way that our eye adapts to different levels of illumination, we're designed to kind of go back to the happiness set point. Our brains are not trying to be happy. Our brains are trying to regulate us.'' In this respect, the tendency toward adaptation suggests why the impact bias is so pervasive. As Tim Wilson says: ''We don't realize how quickly we will adapt to a pleasurable event and make it the backdrop of our lives. When any event occurs to us, we make it ordinary. And through becoming ordinary, we lose our pleasure.''

It is easy to overlook something new and crucial in what Wilson is saying. Not that we invariably lose interest in bright and shiny things over time -- this is a long-known trait -- but that we're generally unable to recognize that we adapt to new circumstances and therefore fail to incorporate this fact into our decisions. So, yes, we will adapt to the BMW and the plasma TV, since we adapt to virtually everything. But Wilson and Gilbert and others have shown that we seem unable to predict that we will adapt. Thus, when we find the pleasure derived from a thing diminishing, we move on to the next thing or event and almost certainly make another error of prediction, and then another, ad infinitum.

As Gilbert points out, this glitch is also significant when it comes to negative events like losing a job or the death of someone we love, in response to which we project a permanently inconsolable future. ''The thing I'm most interested in, that I've spent the most time studying, is our failure to recognize how powerful psychological defenses are once they're activated,'' Gilbert says. ''We've used the metaphor of the 'psychological immune system' -- it's just a metaphor, but not a bad one for that system of defenses that helps you feel better when bad things happen. Observers of the human condition since Aristotle have known that people have these defenses. Freud spent his life, and his daughter Anna spent her life, worrying about these defenses. What's surprising is that people don't seem to recognize that they have these defenses, and that these defenses will be triggered by negative events.'' During the course of my interviews with Gilbert, a close friend of his died. ''I am like everyone in thinking, I'll never get over this and life will never be good again,'' he wrote to me in an e-mail message as he planned a trip to Texas for the funeral. ''But because of my work, there is always a voice in the back of my head -- a voice that wears a lab coat and has a lot of data tucked under its arm -- that says, 'Yes, you will, and yes, it will.' And I know that voice is right.''

Still, the argument that we imperfectly imagine what we want and how we will cope is nevertheless disorienting. On the one hand, it can cast a shadow of regret on some life decisions. Why did I decide that working 100 hours a week to earn more would make me happy? Why did I think retiring to Sun City, Ariz., would please me? On the other hand, it can be enlightening. No wonder this teak patio set hasn't made me as happy as I expected. Even if she dumps me, I'll be O.K. Either way, predicting how things will feel to us over the long term is mystifying. A large body of research on well-being seems to suggest that wealth above middle-class comfort makes little difference to our happiness, for example, or that having children does nothing to improve well-being -- even as it drives marital satisfaction dramatically down. We often yearn for a roomy, isolated home (a thing we easily adapt to), when, in fact, it will probably compromise our happiness by distancing us from neighbors. (Social interaction and friendships have been shown to give lasting pleasure.) The big isolated home is what Loewenstein, 48, himself bought. ''I fell into a trap I never should have fallen into,'' he told me.

Loewenstein's office is up a narrow stairway in a hidden corner of an enormous, worn brick building on the edge of the Carnegie-Mellon campus in Pittsburgh. He and Gilbert make for an interesting contrast. Gilbert is garrulous, theatrical, dazzling in his speech and writing; he fills a room. Loewenstein is soft-spoken, given to abstraction and lithe in the way of a hard-core athlete; he seems to float around a room. Both men profess tremendous admiration for the other, and their different disciplines -- psychology and economics -- have made their overlapping interests in affective forecasting more complementary than fraught. While Gilbert's most notable contribution to affective forecasting is the impact bias, Loewenstein's is something called the ''empathy gap.''

Here's how it expresses itself. In a recent experiment, Loewenstein tried to find out how likely people might be to dance alone to Rick James's ''Super Freak'' in front of a large audience. Many agreed to do so for a certain amount of money a week in advance, only to renege when the day came to take the stage. This sounds like a goof, but it gets at the fundamental difference between how we behave in ''hot'' states (those of anxiety, courage, fear, drug craving, sexual excitation and the like) and ''cold'' states of rational calm. This empathy gap in thought and behavior -- we cannot seem to predict how we will behave in a hot state when we are in a cold state -- affects happiness in an important but somewhat less consistent way than the impact bias. ''So much of our lives involves making decisions that have consequences for the future,'' Loewenstein says. ''And if our decision making is influenced by these transient emotional and psychological states, then we know we're not making decisions with an eye toward future consequences.'' This may be as simple as an unfortunate proclamation of love in a moment of lust, Loewenstein explains, or something darker, like an act of road rage or of suicide.

Among other things, this line of inquiry has led Loewenstein to collaborate with health experts looking into why people engage in unprotected sex when they would never agree to do so in moments of cool calculation. Data from tests in which volunteers are asked how they would behave in various ''heat of the moment'' situations -- whether they would have sex with a minor, for instance, or act forcefully with a partner who asks them to stop -- have consistently shown that different states of arousal can alter answers by astonishing margins. ''These kinds of states have the ability to change us so profoundly that we're more different from ourselves in different states than we are from another person,'' Loewenstein says.

Part of Loewenstein's curiosity about hot and cold states comes from situations in which his emotions have been pitted against his intellect. When he's not teaching, he treks around the world, making sure to get to Alaska to hike or kayak at least once a year. A scholar of mountaineering literature, he once wrote a paper that examined why climbers have a poor memory for pain and usually ignore turn-back times at great peril. But he has done the same thing himself many times. He almost died in a whitewater canoeing accident and vowed afterward that he never wanted to see his runaway canoe again. (A couple of hours later, he went looking for it.) The same goes for his climbing pursuits. ''You establish your turn-back time, and then you find yourself still far from the peak,'' he says. ''So you push on. You haven't brought enough food or clothes, and then as a result, you're stuck at 13,000 feet, and you have to just sit there and shiver all night without a sleeping bag or warm clothes. When the sun comes up, you're half-frozen, and you say, 'Never again.' Then you get back and immediately start craving getting out again.'' He pushes the point: ''I have tried to train my emotions.'' But he admits that he may make the same mistakes on his next trip.

Would a world without forecasting errors be a better world? Would a life lived without forecasting errors be a richer life? Among the academics who study affective forecasting, there seems little doubt that these sorts of questions will ultimately jump from the academy to the real world. ''If people do not know what is going to make them better off or give them pleasure,'' Daniel Kahneman says, ''then the idea that you can trust people to do what will give them pleasure becomes questionable.'' To Kahneman, who did some of the first experiments in the area in the early 1990's, affective forecasting could greatly influence retirement planning, for example, where mistakes in prediction (how much we save, how much we spend, how we choose a community we think we'll enjoy) can prove irreversible. He sees a role for affective forecasting in consumer spending, where a ''cooling off'' period might remedy buyer's remorse. Most important, he sees vital applications in health care, especially when it comes to informed consent. ''We consider people capable of giving informed consent once they are told of the objective effects of a treatment,'' Kahneman says. ''But can people anticipate how they and other people will react to a colostomy or to the removal of their vocal cords? The research on affective forecasting suggests that people may have little ability to anticipate their adaptation beyond the early stages.'' Loewenstein, along with his collaborator Dr. Peter Ubel, has done a great deal of work showing that nonpatients overestimate the displeasure of living with the loss of a limb, for instance, or paraplegia. To use affective forecasting to prove that people adapt to serious physical challenges far better and will be happier than they imagine, Loewenstein says, could prove invaluable.

There are downsides to making public policy in light of this research, too. While walking in Pittsburgh one afternoon, Loewenstein tells me that he doesn't see how anybody could study happiness and not find himself leaning left politically; the data make it all too clear that boosting the living standards of those already comfortable, such as through lower taxes, does little to improve their levels of well-being, whereas raising the living standards of the impoverished makes an enormous difference. Nevertheless, he and Gilbert (who once declared in an academic paper, ''Windfalls are better than pratfalls, A's are better than C's, December 25 is better than April 15, and everything is better than a Republican administration'') seem to lean libertarian in regard to pushing any kind of prescriptive agenda. ''We're very, very nervous about overapplying the research,'' Loewenstein says. ''Just because we figure out that X makes people happy and they're choosing Y, we don't want to impose X on them. I have a discomfort with paternalism and with using the results coming out of our field to impose decisions on people.''

Still, Gilbert and Loewenstein can't contain the personal and philosophical questions raised by their work. After talking with both men, I found it hard not to wonder about my own predictions at every turn. At times it seemed like knowing the secret to some parlor trick that was nonetheless very difficult to pull off -- when I ogled a new car at the Honda dealership as I waited for a new muffler on my '92 Accord, for instance, or as my daughter's fever spiked one evening and I imagined something terrible, and then something more terrible thereafter. With some difficulty, I could observe my mind overshooting the mark, zooming past accuracy toward the sublime or the tragic. It was tempting to want to try to think about the future more moderately. But it seemed nearly impossible as well.

To Loewenstein, who is especially attendant to the friction between his emotional and deliberative processes, a life without forecasting errors would most likely be a better, happier life. ''If you had a deep understanding of the impact bias and you acted on it, which is not always that easy to do, you would tend to invest your resources in the things that would make you happy,'' he says. This might mean taking more time with friends instead of more time for making money. He also adds that a better understanding of the empathy gap -- those hot and cold states we all find ourselves in on frequent occasions -- could save people from making regrettable decisions in moments of courage or craving.

Gilbert seems optimistic about using the work in terms of improving ''institutional judgment'' -- how we spend health care dollars, for example -- but less sanguine about using it to improve our personal judgment. He admits that he has taken some of his research to heart; for instance, his work on what he calls the psychological immune system has led him to believe that he would be able to adapt to even the worst turn of events. In addition, he says that he now takes more chances in life, a fact corroborated in at least one aspect by his research partner Tim Wilson, who says that driving with Gilbert in Boston is a terrifying, white-knuckle experience. ''But I should have learned many more lessons from my research than I actually have,'' Gilbert admits. ''I'm getting married in the spring because this woman is going to make me happy forever, and I know it.'' At this, Gilbert laughs, a sudden, booming laugh that fills his Cambridge office. He seems to find it funny not because it's untrue, but because nothing could be more true. This is how he feels. ''I don't think I want to give up all these motivations,'' he says, ''that belief that there's the good and there's the bad and that this is a contest to try to get one and avoid the other. I don't think I want to learn too much from my research in that sense.''

Even so, Gilbert is currently working on a complex experiment in which he has made affective forecasting errors ''go away.'' In this test, Gilbert's team asks members of Group A to estimate how they'll feel if they receive negative personality feedback. The impact bias kicks in, of course, and they mostly predict they'll feel terrible, when in fact they end up feeling O.K. But if Gilbert shows Group B that others have gotten the same feedback and felt O.K. afterward, then its members predict they'll feel O.K. as well. The impact bias disappears, and the participants in Group B make accurate predictions.

This is exciting to Gilbert. But at the same time, it's not a technique he wants to shape into a self-help book, or one that he even imagines could be practically implemented. ''Hope and fear are enduring features of the human experience,'' he says, ''and it is unlikely that people are going to abandon them anytime soon just because some psychologist told them they should.'' In fact, in his recent writings, he has wondered whether forecasting errors might somehow serve a larger functional purpose he doesn't yet understand. If he could wave a wand tomorrow and eliminate all affective-forecasting errors, I ask, would he? ''The benefits of not making this error would seem to be that you get a little more happiness,'' he says. ''When choosing between two jobs, you wouldn't sweat as much because you'd say: 'You know, I'll be happy in both. I'll adapt to either circumstance pretty well, so there's no use in killing myself for the next week.' But maybe our caricatures of the future -- these overinflated assessments of how good or bad things will be -- maybe it's these illusory assessments that keep us moving in one direction over the other. Maybe we don't want a society of people who shrug and say, 'It won't really make a difference.'

''Maybe it's important for there to be carrots and sticks in the world, even if they are illusions,'' he adds. ''They keep us moving towards carrots and away from sticks.''

Jon Gertner is a contributing writer for Money magazine.

Readings for Artists Who Write 2/20/08

2008-02-18T20:11:00.001-08:00

Assigned readings for this Wednesday 2/20 are:

Martha Rosler, "For an Art Against the Mythology of Everyday Life," Decoys and Disruptions, MIT Press, pp. 3-8. Copies are in the four class binders.

Rosler, "In, Around and Afterthoughts (on Documentary Photography)," pdf available at unitednationsplaza reading room (scroll down to bottom of page).

Those students who have not led readings this term may submit a short written summary of any of the unassigned readings on the syllabus.

Audio Interviews

2008-02-13T16:27:00.000-08:00

One format that Bethany and I might use for Posie is that of podcast or webcast:
such as Fresh Air or Radio Lab

Interview from Vogue

2008-02-13T15:35:00.001-08:00

Hi: This is sort of my interview format for Vogue.

Kate's Interview

2008-02-12T15:41:00.001-08:00

Hey -- We're thinking that our format will be something like the beginning of this Julie Mehretu piece. We like the idea of showing clips of Kate's thoughts mixed with shots of her work and pieces of her going out and gathering things that will eventually be a part of her show. -Steve and Vanessa

Google notebook

2008-01-28T14:51:00.000-08:00

Some interesting artist interviews.

V Notebook

I will start posting the links directly to this blog next time.

Pat's Pdf's on the Web

2008-01-23T10:14:00.000-08:00

Hi all -- You should be able to download any or all of the pdf's from the cd Pat gave us here. Yippee!

Some Links for Seminar

2008-01-21T15:22:00.000-08:00

I will add links to this post as I come across them... Post is labeled "seminar links" (hint-thought, if everyone else wanted to label their links the same way it would be easy to search)

Suzanne Lacy, Statement and Bibliography
http://www.cla.purdue.edu/waaw/Cohn/Artists/Lacystat.html

Art and advocacy
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/sl1.html

tHis tHanksgiviN'

2007-11-22T17:14:00.000-08:00

hUngry..... and and...iNvoCatioN

one two...one two.

2007-11-22T17:08:00.000-08:00

i mEt this giRl wHen i was ten years oLd...

in it to win it.

yOu know them staKes is hiGh.

2007-11-22T17:03:00.000-08:00

viBe... viBaratioN

Readings for Avalon's presentation 11/15

2007-11-13T18:47:00.000-08:00

Sorry to not get these out sooner. Look at the pieces in the pdfs below. I'll be sharing even yet another pdf as well. Sticking to my tendency to be contrary (this time to myself) I won't be giving much in depth "context" to San Keller's work. Instead I'll be presenting him to you through my research and from my direct experiences of his work and from anecdotes he shared with me when he visited Portland. There is some overlap in these pdfs but that's ok.

www.likeyou.com/brigitteweiss/San_Keller_DOK_e.pdf

http://www.martinrudolf.com/SanKellerCatalogue.pdf

Also the music page we created:

http://myspace.com/actionsofsan

And San's Memosan game:

http://www.zimmerfrei.li/memosan/index.php

Readings for Thursday 11/15

2007-11-12T13:28:00.000-08:00

I e-mailed the articles that I'd like you to read for Thursday's class. If you didn't receive them and would like me to resend them, please let me know. In addition to the readings, please familiarize yourselves with the content of the two shows we'll be discussing: Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution and Global Feminisms: New Directions in Contemporary Art via the web-sites linked here.

Thanks,
B

Links for Next Thursday

2007-11-10T11:56:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone is enjoying the reading on memes. The middle article is kinda dense, but lays a lot of good groundwork. Feel free to skim that one if you want.

Here are some examples of internet memes and viral marketng. Enjoy.

all your base
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4AuN6pN1kY

super mario
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZpD0btOZx8

amateur
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Rlc2XTbPA8

flying toasters
http://www.screensavers.com/afterdark/

dancing hamster
http://www.hampsterdance.com/classorig.html

blingee
http://blingee.com/

wassup?
http://www.aeonity.com/ab/soundboards/television/wassup-commercial.php

lol cat
http://lolcat.com/

kikomon
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/kikkoman-e

spinning leek
http://dojo.fi/~rancid/loituma__.swf

birdy nam nam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PqvDwBOp9Y

cartoon network bomb scare
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_Mooninite_Scare
http://zebbler.com/friends/ATHF/ATHFZebblerMission1websm.mov
http://www.adultswim.com/tools/img/cards/home/012907/012907_covers_04.jpg

ok go
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv5zWaTEVkI

dancing baby
http://www.burningpixel.com/Baby/BabyMus1.htm

christmas ringtones!
http://www.monstertones.com/ringtones/artists/christmas-ringtones.html

Thursday Readings

2007-11-04T13:33:00.000-08:00

Read this:
TRUTH IS A VIRUS: Meme Warfare and the Billionaires for Bush (or Gore) by Andrew Boyd

and this:

Affirmative Action; Tom Vanderbilt on The Yes Men

and this for a definition and history of Culture Jamming:

Culture Jamming on Wiki

If you want to find out more on The Yes Men and The Billionaires For Bush, peruse the list "Culture Jamming Organizations or People."

Extra if interested:
This Wikipedia article explains Internet Memes

Some other stuff of possible interest, not mandatory:
Activism in the Information Age, The Yes Men on Bill Moyer
Tactical Media (both tactical and media are links)
Google Bomb
Flash Mobs
Thing.net
Dow v. Thing A Free-Speech Infringement That's Worse Than Censorship
Hactivism

Thursday Readings

2007-11-02T11:46:00.000-07:00

We'd like you to read the following article on the conservation of new media. Then check out the bamfa and variable media sites to get an idea of what and how this issue is being handled...

http://artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=1170

http://bampfa.berkeley.edu/about/avantgarde

http://www.variablemedia.net/

Browse some of the following sites...just play around and look at how artists are using new media in different ways...

http://www.deborahoropallo.com/

http://yoonlee.info/wst_page5.php?idx=12&file=images/untitled6web.jpg&&ID2=E5UoTs

http://010101.sfmoma.org/

http://blogs.walkerart.org/newmedia/category/new-media-art/

www.camilleutterback.com

http://www.uwec.edu/newsreleases/06/oct/1002SUPERvision.htm

http://rhizome.org/editorial/fp/blog.php/184 / http://artonline.jp/07.html

http://rhizome.org/object.php?47180

Your meeting today 11/1

2007-11-01T09:43:00.000-07:00

Dear MFA group,

If you need a computer and projection for your meeting tonight, I will be in the lecture room at 5:30 where you can gather and show any relevant visuals.

I hope you all received the email I sent out last week outlining the expectations for your oral presentation, written materials and final questions. Your final grade will depend on completion of these projects.

Please let me know what resources or specifics you need as you prepare for the end of the term, or if you have any questions.

-Molly

Class at 5:30 PM on 11/1/07

2007-10-30T10:05:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder - we agreed to meet earlier this week so that we'd be free to walk down to Igloo w/ Damien and still have time for other 1st Thurs. festivities.

Damien's Readings for 11/1

2007-10-25T14:13:00.000-07:00

My talk is basically visiting my gallery space, IGLOO. So I am asking you to do 2 things:

1. Read about one artist in particular in the show, Ryan Trecartin (links below).

2. Think of a gallery/project space/collective in Portland that operates with low budget or no budget. I want to identify a variety of artistic venues and current themes of presentation. Can be anything from yearly shows, stores, homes, trailers, screenings: just a physical presence is necessary (not primarily web based). Share it with the class

Ryan Trecartin links:

Trecartin's process is founded upon a fluid yet orchestrated interaction between the artist and a group of collaborators - his friends, family, fellow artists, and various acquaintances he meets on the internet. These collaborators create and respond to a scripted variety of characters, themes, phrases, settings, and even vocal accents provided by Trecartin, who directs, stars in, and videotapes the resulting scenarios. Filmic segments then serve as raw material that the artist meticulously arranges and edits by digitally manipulating each frame and by intercutting and layering an assortment of synthetic imagery. The final work articulates a next-generation vision of contemporary culture and collaboration that collapses video, internet, television, performance, digital technology and sound into one unique manifestation, culminating in an entirely new mode of the medium.

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/ryan_trecartin.htm
http://www.artforum.com/inprint/id=10046
http://filmbrats.com/editorials/ryantrecartin.html
http://www.artintheage.com/post.php?m=2&x=117&y=2007
http://www.iglooart.blogspot.com

Reading list for Thursday November 1st

2007-10-25T12:37:00.000-07:00

Hi all, here is the reading for next Thursday. All these readings can be accessed from http://homeworkproject.org/
I hope you'll find this site exciting an want to explore it (and its various links) however I have three specific reading requests;
I'd like you to read the introduction on the home page, and check out artwurl http://www.artwurl.org/
In particular I'd like you to read “Who's Teaching Who?” which is number 61 in the interview section of artwurl. And lastly I'd like you to scan the Artists, and Summerschool sections, please choose one artist, or project you find there, and bring something to share about her/him/it/them to class, either your thoughts on what you read, or some information you found would be great.

Two last things, if you have time please look at “Set” #44 in the artists projects section of artwurl. If we have time I'd like us to play this game. artwurl requires flash 7+ to open, if this is a problem let me know and I will cut and paste the contents into emails.

Venice Biennale artist links

2007-10-25T10:29:00.000-07:00

This is a resource, not for any particular reading or lecture. I dont' know how to create a folder of artists links so I'm making this post. If there's a better way to share these links please do it or let me know. Also, I don't know how to make these hyperlinks in the posts window.

Links for every artist in the Venice Biennale (a few could not be found):

http://www.ikon-gallery.co.uk/currentExhibitionsIgnasiAballi.htm
http://www.criee.org/abdessemed.php
http://www.alterazionivideo.com/
http://www.diacenter.org/alys/
http://www.postmedia.net/alys/alys.htm
http://www.elanatsui.com/
http://www.mariangoodman.com/anselmo/
http://www.opendemocracy.net/arts/morocco_2888.jsp
http://www.zonezero.com/exposiciones/fotografos/vigo2/basilico.html
http://www.25books.com/25_books_all_detail.php?book=2224&cat=1&PHPSESSID=54ef0bd2f8e24f7e328bc80d5c24ae52
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/buren_daniel.html
http://www.lucabuvoli.com/
http://www1.uol.com.br/bienal/23bienal/paises/ipbr.htm
http://www.sophiecalle.net/
http://www.paolocanevari.com/
http://www.christiancapurro.com/
http://www.skor.nl/PanoramicPortraits/Manon/index.html
http://www.portikus.de/ArchiveA0033.html
http://www.whitechapel.org/content.php?page_id=675
http://home.att.net/~artarchives/iran_tone.html
http://www.landfallpress.com/drake.htm
http://www.valieexport.org/
http://www.leonferrari.com.ar/
http://www.textilita.com/2006/02/angelo-filomeno-embroidered-art.html
http://www.shanghart.com/artists/yangfudong/default.htm
http://www.shugoarts.com/en/fujimoto.html
http://artscenecal.com/ArticlesFile/Archive/Articles2002/Articles0402/CGainesA.html
http://www.ganahl.info/
http://enconstruccion.org/recentwork/
http://www.pica.org.au/art04/Gladwell04.html
http://www.shermangalleries.com.au/artists/inartists/artist_profile.asp?artist=gladwells
http://www.felixgmelin.com/
http://www.gutov.ru/works.htm
http://www.galerialeme.com/artistas_bio.php?lang=ing&id=13
http://www.lyleashtonharris.com/
http://www.feldmangallery.com/pages/artistsrffa/arthill01.html
http://www.jennyholzer.com/
http://www.icp.org/site/c.dnJGKJNsFqG/b.2041585/k.9804/Marine_Hugonnier.htm
http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/276.html
http://www.whitney.org/www/2006biennial/artists.php?artist=Huyghe_Pierre
http://www.mariangoodman.com/Huyghe/
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/museo/6/jacir/
http://www.kimjones.com/
http://www.ilya-emilia-kabakov.com/
http://www.gagosian.com/artists/yz-kami/
http://www.galleriaastuni.com/eng/artista.php?id=39
http://www.nga.gov/gemini/essay5.htm
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/martin_kippenberger.htm
http://www.paletteartgallery.com/artistbiography.asp?artistid=41
http://www.artswithoutborders.com/ArtsNet/artistrev.aspx?strper=548&pageno=1&ps=0&title=Riyas%20Komu
http://www.speronewestwater.com/cgi-bin/iowa/artists/record.html?record=6
http://www.tolarnogalleries.com/rosemary-laing/
http://www.projetoleonilson.com.br/site.php?idio=2
http://www.artnet.com/galleries/Exhibitions.asp?gid=216&cid=79566
http://www.artnet.com/galleries/Exhibitions.asp?gid=216&cid=79566
http://www.nalinimalani.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_McQueen_(artist)
http://www.documenta12.de/uebersichtsdetails.html?L=1&gk=B&level=&knr=37
http://www.designboom.com/snapshot/gallery.php?SNAPSHOT_ID=8&GALLERY_ID=321
http://universes-in-universe.de/car/venezia/eng/2007/tour/int-exhib/img-33.htm
http://joshuamosley.com/
http://www.oscarmunoz.com/
http://www.ndmoa.com/PastEx/Disappeared/OscarMunoz/index.html
http://www.ndmoa.com/PastEx/Disappeared/OscarMunoz/index.html
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/murray/index.html
http://www.artnet.com/artist/12306/elizabeth-murray.html
http://www.wexarts.org/ex/2003/zoran_naskovski/
http://www.oktobarskisalon.org/47/pages/naskovski.html
http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/artistInfo/artist/3205
http://www.nyss.org/nozkowski/
http://www.odilidonaldodita.com/
http://www.cca-kitakyushu.org/english/project/ohanian_project.shtml
http://www.airdeparis.com/parreno.htm
http://www.perjovschi.ro/
http://www.2ndthought.net/raymondpettibon/gallery.htm
http://www.goethe.de/kue/bku/thm/kab/en2132118.htm
http://theamericanservicemenandwomen.com/0110list.html
http://www.lablaa.org/blaavirtual/todaslasartes/genera/gene21.htm
http://www.artbrain.org/gallery3/rhoades.html
http://www.gerhard-richter.com/home/index.php
http://www.chtodelat.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=category§ionid=17&id=139&Itemid=128
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/rothenberg/index.html
http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_works_140_0.html
http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/artistInfo/artist/67548
http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/artistInfo/artist/43758
http://www.whitechapel.org/content.php?page_id=3005
http://galerie-herrmann.com/arts/samba/
http://www.barbarakrakowgallery.com/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/353
http://contessanally.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html
http://nedkosolakov.net/content/index_eng.html
http://www.artnet.com/artist/15935/nancy-spero.html
http://int.kateigaho.com/oct03/anime-tabaimo.html
http://www.comum.com/elainetedesco/
http://www.artnet.com/artist/708416/philippe-thomas.html
http://www.e-flux.com/shows/view/4278
http://www.michaelsteinbergfineart.com/artists/Trouve/trouve.html
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/walker/index.html
http://www.artseensoho.com/Art/LEOCASTELLI/weiner97/weiner1.html
http://www.adaweb.com/project/homeport/
http://www.gagosian.com/artists/franz-west/
http://www.sophiewhettnall.com/
http://www.dvirgallery.com/pages/artists/pWolberg/index.htm
http://www.shugoarts.com/en/yoneda.html
http://www.chenzhen.org/
http://www.shanghart.com/artists/yangzhenzhong/default.htm
http://www.shanghartgallery.com/galleryarchive/artist.htm?artistId=44

Eric's Readings for Thurs. 11/01/07

2007-10-25T03:04:00.000-07:00

1.
Claire Bishop's article, The Social Turn: Collaboration and its Discontents, discusses aesthetics and activism in social/collaborative art. It can be read here. You may need to generate a username and password...it's free though.

2.
Leisure Arts discusses their take on Bishop's text here on their blog. At the bottom there are a few "links to this post." I would like you to read at least one of those.

3.
Lastly, if you are confused about what exactly social practices is, you can read this.

Reading Materials for Thurs. 10/18

2007-10-17T22:55:00.000-07:00

Locative Media and Performance:

I will be asking for the class's reflections and thoughts on some of the content found in the following links. I know that there is a bit to be seen here.

Here are some contextual and historical sites to visit. Never heard of an ARG or a Derive? Check those wiki-links out. Now you know what an ARG is, but can't really figure out what it would be like to play one? Look at the Cruel 2 be Kind video. And, please, take some time with Blast Theory and Christian Nold.

Alternate Reality Games (ARG)
Alternate Reality Game - Wikipedia - look at the definition, similarities and differences to other forms of entertainment, and basic design principles

Games:
B.U.G. - Big Urban Game - this is an example of how a city used the concept of an ARG to develop some urban planning strategies
Cruel 2 be kind video - This video sums up the spirit of this game pretty well. No use of locative media, but its purpose/meaning is relevant in terms of thinking about walking, games and participants' experiences of place. Designed by amazing thinker Jane McGonigal.

Walking:
Songlines - Walking as a way of telling history or relating to your culture isn't such a "modern" idea, but perhaps a colonialized one.
Derive - Wikipedia - a philosophy on walking designed by Guy Debord, related to Situationists ideas about people's relationships with the city
Manifesto for a New Walking Culture - browse it. Lots of pretty pictures and short quotes here. I recommend: 5 of Hearts, A of Spades, 3 of Hearts, 6 of Clubs
Richard Long - Sculptures - One of the first artistic walkers I learned about.
Lone Twin Interview - Just check out the little blurb under "Lone Twin, impractically optimistic". These guys walk telephone poles in straight lines through cities.

Examples of Artists using Locative media (such as cell phones with GPS, or specially created hand held devices with GPS) in performances:

Blast Theory
http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/ -
Home page for Blast Theory, a collaborative group of artists working with locative media. I really like " Can You See Me Now" and "Uncle Roy All Around You".
Day of the Figurines - look at the home page for this game to see the basic summary of this game. Uses cell phones which are mobile media, but does not rely on geo-location.
The Presence Project: Gabriella Giannachi - a participant's reflections on participating in this game, along with a phone photo of where she is each time the game contacts her. Dates of note (for browsing): 28/9/2006, 9/10/2006, 18/10/2006 or 20/10/2006

Other Locative Media Artists
Biomapping - Christian Nold recently had a show at Southern Exposure in SF, as well as in other cities across the globe. An interesting way to link participants' experience of place, the practice of walking, mapping, and the use of locative media.
Locative Media in the Wild - A group of students' explorations using GPS software

Class Schedule and Notes

2007-10-17T20:36:00.000-07:00

Each of us will present individually or in small groups. Presentations will be 1 hour each. Each presentation will be supplemented with research/reading material given to the class at least a week prior to the actual presentation. It is crucial for everyone to do these readings. Please don't shirk or you'll make Eric mad and he might start docking your pay (maybe that's only for the studio people, but I'm sure he'll think of something for all you social folks!)

The schedule is as follows:

October 18 --

-Jerry Saltz article
-Look over http://www.biennale-de-lyon.org/bac2007/angl/
-Katy will present -- readings will be posted by tomorrow -- please look over as much as possible prior to class

October 25 -- *Class starts at 6:00*

-Meeting with Molly at side entrance of PAM, followed by walk-through of museum

November 1 -- *To accommodate 1st Thursday, class will go from 5:15 to 7:15 at which point we will head over to Igloo with Damien*

-Sandy
-Eric
-Damien

November 8 -- *Class starts at 6.00 with Molly*

-Laurel
-Rebecca
-Vanessa

November 15 --

-Cyrus
-Avalon
-Bethany

November 29--

Individual presentations to art history class

The "Noughties"

2007-10-16T22:49:00.000-07:00

The September issue of Artforum includes in its fall preview info about the Lyon Biennial 2007, titled "The 00s: The History of a Decade That Has Not Been Named." Curators Stephane Moisdon and Hands-Ulrich Obrist promise "a history and geography manual in the form of a game" and artists have designed a "set of strategies" to define the decade. Curators' texts on the website (http://www.biennale-de-lyon.org/bac2007/angl/) may give some ideas for structure and content.

Some food for thought

2007-10-16T12:02:00.000-07:00

Hello MFAs,

I look forward to seeing your project come to fruition and I think your ideas are leading you in a good direction as you narrow and refine your approach to format and content. As you are thinking about the past 10 years of contemporary art making and using the recent international art shows as a point of departure you can consider several perspectives that are defining our art today. You have mentioned some of these in your brainstorming, too:

Choices and influences of artist
Position/responsibility of the curator and new curatorial practices
Role of the critic
Evolving venues (museum, public space, international forums, art fairs) and impact of new audiences
New mediums

I have some articles to which I will post links in the next day or so. Stay tuned....

I'll look forward to meeting with you on the 25th at 6pm at the Museum. -Molly

Content Ideas

2007-10-14T11:22:00.000-07:00

Here are the ideas from the group regarding different kinds of content we'd like to learn about in the class:

-- What is Global Art?

-- Global Art - what's showing internationally right now? (non-eurocentric/american, more globalized/international)

--Global art/Diversity

--Cross pollination between art and life

--Generosity in art

--Locative media and performance

-- Internet/new media

--Non-academic movements, outsider art

--Current feminist concerns in art

--Comics (their relation to contemporary art & performance)

--Comics and animation

Structure Ideas

2007-10-14T11:07:00.000-07:00

These are the structural or activity based ideas from the cards. (I kind of think that its possible that some of these are about allowing the structure/activity, such as field trips/research to define the content):

-- Each week we lecture on Genres in art today, each of us picking 1 artist (and resources about that artist) a week. (for a total of 11 artists/week)

-- We read the Phaiden Cream series

-- Current Events - look at publications, internet/magazines

-- E-flux, magazines, biennale, internet

--Study E-flux postings online, research and write about them

--Field trip

--Physically go to galleries/museums for discussions

--Field trip to Portland gallery based reactions/discussion

--Study the Contemporary Collections/exhibitions at PAM, SAM & Yerba Buena

--Present on: What have our personal experiences done art-wise for our contemporary art histories?

--Connect the Dots - Create a wall map showing what we study and the connections between them

Brainstorming Recap

2007-10-14T10:56:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd fill in the Eric, Laurel and Cyrus (who were in Regina with Harrell) with a little more info about the brainstorming process we did during class last week.

We each individually brainstormed a list of ideas about what the ideal art history class would look like for 5 minutes.
We then each read our list to the rest of the group.
We each picked our 3 clearest ideas and wrote them on cards.
We all stood around a table and put the cards on the table, and then started to group the cards together. For example, there were three people who were interested in learning about global trends, so we put those cards in a group.

Looking at the cards, it seemed like people had suggested two different types of information about this 'ideal' art history class. Some people suggested different structures for how the class period would happen, and other people suggested content ideas. And, it seemed like some people were suggesting different structures as the content of the class.

From what I can tell, we didn't quite agree on either structure or content. It seems like these two things are what we will be trying to suss out during our Wednesday evening meeting after the visit to the library.

Friends!

2007-10-12T10:48:00.000-07:00

We've invited everyone to join this blog in hopes that you will all contribute anything you have to have to offer. We would love suggestions for artists, topics, critics...anything you think might further us in our study of contemporary art from 2000-2007.

Welcome to our club.

2007-10-12T10:33:00.000-07:00

Meeting 1:

7.30 pm, October 17, Multnomah County Library following anxiety lecture...we will proceed to a nearby locale from there to plan for the term.

Meeting 2:

6.30 pm, October 18, Rm 330 -- Read Jerry Saltz hand out for class and bring 1-2 other articles pertaining to the subject to discuss.

Meeting 3:

6.00, October 25, Portland Art Museum, Side Entrance -- Meet Molly for update and join rest of class for Art Museum tour.