Research_01

Artists – John Baldessari, Bruce Nauman, René Magritte

• long and vague titles
• mixed media
• viewing things with different angles, dimensions
• displays a collection of ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things
• open-ended, making you wonder and be bit a more imaginative for a while
• playing with reality and illusion, constant shifting back and forth
• contradiction, allusion
• provocative, surreal

To me, I’m most impressed about how they reminded me of everyday objects/events, also to view them in different way. Simply altering of angles, locations, combinations, scale, or colors seems to be enough to create big conflicts.

Literature – I LOST MY NOTEBOOK! So to be finished… T_T

Book to read: Philosophy of Nonsense, The Intuitions of Victorian Nonsense Literature.

And this is a part I’m fond of in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland:

“Who are you?” said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, Sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several times since then.”

“What do you mean by that?” said the Caterpillar, sternly. “Explain yourself!”

“I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, Sir,” said Alice, “because I’m not myself, you see.”

Subject Matter Projects

Sensory Masks – Lygia Clark (super related<3)

Sensory masks were gas mask-like hoods, that had herbs and aromatic seeds at the end of the “nose” or small mirrors at the location of the eyeholes. Thus the senses of the people that wear them are cut off the external world and a different vision is provided. However, there’s a darker side to the work as well; the masks could be seen as an entrapment, an imprisonment and prohibition of contact with the outer world.

These artifacts force us to rediscover the meaning of our routine gestures, to turn inwards. These objects help to experience rather than to been looked at.

Maxence Parache, Hyper(reality) – Maxence Parache

It uses a Microsoft Kinect to scan your physical environment and display it inside a virtual-reality helmet, so you can rotate the visual angle any way you like, with an Arduino-powered glove equipped with force sensors. In other words, you’re still able to physically interact with all the “real stuff” around you, but you can also pan your “mind’s eye” around the scene separate from your own body, just like you would in a video game.

A Way To Go – Studio AATOAA

It is like a grey squirrel balanced on a branch, fearless. It is a game and a solace and an alarm, a wake-up call to the hazards of today. At a moment when we have access to so much, and see so little, Way to Go will remind you of all that lies before you, within you, in the luscious, sudden pleasure of discovery.

Bonus: Bla Bla.

Augmented Hand Series – Golan Levin, Chris Sugrue, and Kyle McDonald

It is a real-time interactive software system that presents playful, dreamlike, and uncanny transformations of its visitors’ hands. Our investigation takes a position of exploration and wonder. Can real-time alterations of the hand’s appearance bring about a new perception of the body as a plastic, variable, unstable medium? Can such an interaction instill feelings of defamiliarization, prompt a heightened awareness of our own bodies, or incite a reexamination of our physical identities?

mushroom. intervention. systemic.

First thought after reading “Unruly Edges: Mushrooms as Companion Species”, “Arts of Inclusion, or, How to Love a Mushroom”, and the interview with Oliver during weekend is that, I kind of found the purpose of a project, what can I do about it and what’s the possible future of a project. As an artist, I can start from

"love"

, start from developing deeper and knowing thoroughly about what I love, and then gradually, with the creative interventions, I can bridge worlds between public and the field where my passion lies.  Quoted from Anna “… my stories tell how advocacy for mushrooms can lead to projects for democratic science and publicly inclusive wellbeing.“, I’m inspired to search what I’m crazy about and immerse myself in it. Before that, I don’t really understand the goal of this class now I’ve found it. It’s not about just trying to use fungi in your projects and trying to involve Led, motor, Arduino, but trying to intervene this mysterious field with your point of view. Then as a messenger, you expose the rarely-knew info and make it connect to the public.

Thus, simplifying and more comprehensive project update:

Idea

• One line description: See the world through fungus.
• I want to build up connections between fungus and people, and further take fungus as a bridge to connect people with the world beyond fungus. Thus being aware of what fungus is, what fungus does, how does it affect the planet.
• The idea is playing with the notions from “Mycelium Running” by Paul Stamets,
  • “I see the mycelium as the Earth’s natural Internet, a consciousness with which we might be able to communicate. Through cross-species interfacing, we may one day exchange information with these sentient cellular networks. Because these externalized neurological nets sense any impression upon them, from footsteps to falling tree branches, they could relay enormous amounts of data regarding the movements of all organisms through the landscape.”
• One particular thing I’d love to highlight is fungus’s decomposing ability. It is the key of the nutrient cycling system, and also degrade or remove toxins from the environment.
• So yes, it’s a project with eco-friendly aspect and hope people will be more aware of the environmental issue.

Content

• Upon a box of soil, are 5~8 mycelium lights hanging and changing between bright and dim gradually.
• In the background screen, playing the collage of the mycelium activities(growing, moving, etc) video footages, representing fungus’s daily life.
• Once  someone comes near(detected by ultrasonic sensor), the mycelium lights speed up changing, and forming a pattern of spreading. Also, the screen’s content turns to show the interactions between fungus and humankind, including foraging, pollution, infection, bio-chemical etc.
• If time permits, the soil will be pushed by the solenoids beneath, amplifying fungus’s awareness of us.

Materials

• Mycelium Lights * 5~8
  • wrap mycelium(post-blender) around balloons, and poke the balloons once mycelium eats all the materials
• Wood sticks * 4
• Wires hiding in flax ropes
• Wood base
  • soil in wood box
  • ultrasonic sensor attached
  • solenoid beneath(if time permits)

Also about the case study, one thing interests me that most of the projects from reading and from Oliver, all have certain degree of public influence, and create new behavior. I wonder how many artist originally had this kind of visions and how many artist eventually made it and change the real world? Or are they actually all make it through but just in different level? And how can we keep our vision and passion vivid and lively?