E-book: GREEN.

(4/1) Personal Objectives & New Opportunities for Interest Driven Arts Learning

In Kylie Pepper's article, I was struck by the emphasis on the distinction between Arts with a capital A and arts with a lowercase a. The number of opportunities for learning increases greater when we redefine what "arts" are: if it includes games, blogs, photographs, videos, music, learning will no longer have the stigma of rigidity. As an educator, I think I will always struggle with making learning enjoyable, especially when teaching digital technologies. In line with my personal objectives, I hoped to master the technological basics of each program / medium, and truthfully did have trouble learning how to use each program. Only when I was motivated by my own creative vision, and sincere enthusiasm to use that tool to make a project about a topic I actually enjoyed, was I involved to master the steps. The hunger to learn came from within instead! Going through this experience myself, I believe will help me relate to my future students.

Today there are many famous YouTube, Instagram, Blogger stars in their teens and the level of video and photo editing prowess they all display is remarkable. Even programs like Scratch have produced amazing games, and allow for collaboration and creativity. I have actually read Tavi's fashion blog before and her blog's aesthetic is truly remarkable. Interest-driven art (with a lower case) is a something I hope to encourage in my future classrooms, especially since the Internet (and having a computer) is a relatively low-cost entry method into the world of the arts. Sometimes traditional Arts supplies can be limiting (for instance, oil paints are extremely costly), whereas downloading most programs online are free--this provides access to lower income students and allows them a platform to express themselves creatively.

(4/2) Digital Collage

Personally, I have little experience with Photoshop. After looking around the internet and watching some tutorials, I created this "colorful building". I used Google Images to source for these photographs and illustrations of government housing blocks (HDBs) and traditional shophouses which are in Singapore, where I am from. A little background: 80% of the population in Singapore lives in these HDB flats that are heavily subsidized by the government, and shophouses are a typical pre-war structure where families have their own shop on the first floor, and live upstairs. There is stigma in Singapore against living in these, but I actually find their architecture quite charming and wanted to up the vibrancy of these buildings. I decided to make my own colorful interpretation of "what it means to live in Singapore". During class, I struggled quite honestly to make just a singular rainbow: and decided to take the idea of a generic clipart rainbow and give it an organic, lighter touch. I layered, clone, played with opacity, imposed different filters, and even used some brush tools to give it a more dreamlike effect since this is my imagined landscape.
This is in line with my personal objective of being able to learn more about new technologies, to be honest I had to watch a tutorial to simply figure out how to place an external image from Google Images onto my photoshop piece. A lot of trail and error and experimenting, but I am surprised to find that it is possible to give a computer generated piece of art a more delicate look.

(3/3) On/Off Experiment Art Project

My artistic response to my self imposed ban of liking on Instagram are my handmade "likes". I started thinking about whether I simply liked so many posts due to the minimal amount of effort that is needed to "like". All it requires is a simple tap on my phone and I could show my friend or acquaintance or complete stranger my affection and acknowledgement. I decided to hand make likes. Utilizing traditional craft materials of paper, a ruler, pencil, pen, scissors, glue, and a craft punch, I made these likes. It took more time and effort to create each like: I had to measure, cut, trace, stick, hand write, using my hands in a more involved manner. I went to a physical store to get the supplies and made 20 actual likes:

work in progress

final product

I think that physically receiving one of these likes, whether it be via snail mail or handing them to friends in person, would make the recipient feel more special due to the extra care required.

(2/3) On/Off Experiment

For my on/off experiment, I decided to quit liking things on Instagram for as long as I could last. Like a typical millennial, I can’t imagine life without social media. My default applications when I check my phone in the morning and before I sleep are text, email, Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook. I’m a huge Instagram user, just because I enjoy the low commitment nature of it, it’s just looking at images and truthfully doesn’t require much thought or beyond a few seconds worth of attention on each image. I think it’s in my personality to just be one of “likes-everything” types, I like my close friends posts without even really looking closely, I have been called out on this by my best friend who referenced a photograph on her Instagram that I had liked but forgotten the content of. I also tend to like random images of food, crafts, funny quotes, or suggested posts in my feed. When I have a glass or two of wine, my frequency of likes increases exponentially! 

I stopped liking things and felt extremely uncomfortable. I was thinking to myself, would my friends think I don’t like them anymore? Or would my acquaintances forget that I exist as a person? The first day, I got through without liking anything, but then the problem arose that I wanted to post a picture on my Instagram. I posted one and my friends and even other random users started to like it. I was beginning to feel guilt because of the like-for-like culture, that it’s supposed to be a collaborative, friendly social media platform and me not ‘liking’ someone’s posts back would be considered rude. By the end of the second day, I couldn’t take it anymore. The third morning when I woke up, I was back to my usual ways—liking away. 

(1/3) eEtiquette Quotes

just because you can delete a sent email or a snapchat can disappear, doesn't mean that it's trace isn't still somewhere in the "cloud" !

reminds me of how my fiancé absolutely hates when i use my phone -- it's actually impossible to multi-task with a phone and chatting at the same time.

one of my personal pet peeves is when people type or text in all caps, i find it very aggressive and aesthetically unpleasing.

(4/4) Douglas Rushkoff’s Program or Be Programmed?

Firstly, I was struck by how Internet in its infancy stages, or simply just a few decades ago, was described by Rushkoff as a totally different platform as we view it today. Connecting via a phone line feels like such an antiquated memory, and to call going online “an intentional act” (4) is counterintuitive with the way we live presently—always online. While Rushkoff refers to deeply considering what we say as a luxury, I tend to think that part of the charm and appeal of the internet is that there is a lack of deliberation and consideration. For instance, most people today can type and text faster than they can handwrite with a pen on paper. This increased speed allows for free flow thought without censorship and pause. This may be frowned upon as ‘word vomit’ for a more formal setting such as school or work, but for communication with friends and family, it is a valid and valuable mode of authentic self expression.

On the flip side, I do agree with Rushkoff that there are absolutely negative impacts of this increased speed of communication. His point that our human nervous system lives in the present, but technology is timeless, making it impossible to keep up, resonates with me.(29) 

While Internet didn’t change from asynchronous to synchronous, it still exits outside of time, but our response today is different: we get affected, and because of the increasingly high speed, it causes anxiety. Personally, I do believe we can still retain our autonomy by being selective in when to use our phones or laptops, and who to respond to. Rushkoff argues that we are unable to do so as our culture and society has grown accustomed to always being connected. I think that studying the millennials and recent generations will provide an alternative contrast. For them, they do not know a lifestyle of not being connected, and perhaps they will not feel this anxiety and need for adjustment and to go offline. I’m curious to read more on the role of technology with regards to children who were born into a world where Internet always existed.

(3/4) New Museum

I have selected the New Museum, established in 1977 and located in LES, as it is one of New York City’s newest museums and alternative space, and entirely dedicated to contemporary art. The very definition of ‘contemporary art’ means that incorporates the present, the art of today by living artists of the 21st century. Naturally, such an institution will seek to represent new media and technologies, and aims to present such art in a way that will do the work justice. In 2003, they moved into a few building with facilities to adequately showcase and document art mediums beyond traditional painting and sculpture to highlight film, video, photography, performance. Just from browsing their website, they have a tab dedicated to online art, called ‘First Look: New Art Online’ that exhibits numerous Internet Art projects. 

Under the New Museum umbrella, in 2014, the museum launched an initiative called NEW INC. NEW INC is a cultural incubator, especially a giant “maker space”, similar to our classroom! It is eight thousand square feet large, and their fabrication equipment includes: basic prototyping labs, HP Z830 machines for high processing and graphics, MakerBot and Ultimaker 3D printers, laser cutters, physical computing tools, and a Canon equipment suite with cameras, projectors, and large format printers. NEW INC runs a 12-month program for artists to have access to this creative ecosystem while receiving business and entrepreneurial advice, pushing them to invent new forms and practices. One example is how a recent fellow, Sougwen Chung, created drawing robot D.O.U.G, as shown below:

Another relevant initiative under the New Museum is Rhizome. Founded in 1996 by artist Mark Tribe, it is the leading international born-digital art organization. It serves not only as a listserv, but also facilities, commissions, and exhibits digital art. Yearly, they have a conference called ‘Seven on Seven’ that pairs seven artists with seven technologists, challenging them to make a collaborate and create something new and revolutionary. For instance, last year, artist Ai Wei Wei who was strangled advised against entering the United States at the time, collaborated with Jacob Appelbaum to create a piece called Panda-to-Panda. This work featured twenty stuffed animal pandas that had the stuffing removed and replaced with shredded Snowden documents and an SD card with unknown contents. A documentary on this project can be viewed here: (https://vimeo.com/130467553)

(2/4) Dan Flavin

American artist Dan Flavin (1933-1996) is one of the most important Minimalist artists of the 20th century. He pioneered using fluorescent light tubing to create art installations, which he called “propositions”. At the time, most did not see light as a valid art material, compared to traditional materials of paint, pencil, and clay. Yet Flavin limited his materials to utilize only these commercially available light fixtures in only standard sizes, shapes and colors—items that were typically found in the local hardware store. Flavin was clearly inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s use of found objects, known for his ground breaking Fountain, 1917, which is actually a urinal. Using this commonplace “technology” of a fluorescent light, Flavin created ‘high art’ installations. The light itself would transform and “sculpt” the exhibition space. He started out making figurations of fluorescent tubes along corridors and corners. In the 1990s, institutions began to give him bigger spaces where he could experiment with light and space. In 1992 he filled the Guggenheim Museum with light fixtures that played off the openness of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture, pictured below:

Sources:

https://www.artsy.net/artist/dan-flavin

http://tmlarts.com/dan-flavin/

http://www.theartstory.org/artist-flavin-dan.htm

(1/4) A Little About Me

Hi everyone, I'm Stephanie. I'm born in Australia and grew up in Singapore. For undergrad, I entered Brown pursuing a bachelors in International Relations, with a concentration on race and identity. I soon added another major, Studio Art, for as long I can remember, I have always loved making and creating art. Art, to me, is a limitless platform of self expression and social commentary. My primary interest is using commonplace materials to create something beautiful, and thus of 'value'. My senior honors thesis was an installation project where I hand drew with pencils, pens, and markers the same mark (of a heart) over and over again on printer and tracing paper. All these materials were purposefully inexpensive, and my idea is that after it was installed into a singular white gallery room, the end product was a comfortable, zen environment. An environment so leisurely and luxurious that it forces us to acknowledge our privilege-asking ourselves to explore the arbitrary values we place on consumer goods.

Throughout college, I always knew I wanted to work in the art world, I had done internships at the Whitney, Christie's, and the Venice Biennale. Reality was that I needed a full time, paying job and I started working as the gallery assistant in an UES antiques gallery. Over the past four years, I moved to a sales role, while still trying to create art in my free time. Truthfully, my time in the commercial art world was all consuming, and I began to question my love for 'the arts'. My mother has been running a kindergarten for the past 25 years, and I've always worked for her during summers. Thus, I'm looking forward to merging my interest in art with education!

With regards to technology and art, I confess that I have little background knowledge. My personal educational experience was very traditional, I think this was very much a conscience of my instructors at the time. From K-12, instructors by definition are always older in age than their students. Kids these days are exposed to technology from a young age, and thus are probably more technology apt that their older counterparts, their teachers. I think an important point that was raised in the first class is that the only barriers of entry to 'technology' are self imposed, and that it is all about one's personal mindset. Teachers have the power to modernize and learn about this expansive, constantly evolving space of new media and technologies. I'm eager to learn about new techniques, new machines, and new interdisciplinary ideas in this course.