Site-- Naomi

For my site specific I really want to focus on the dying bird population around the wind turbines. I went to school for a while for wind technology and one of the worst problems environmentally was the effect that they have on birds and bats. Around 140,000 to 328,000 birds and bats are killed a year just because of their migration patterns into these turbine blades. Although this was a known problem there really isn't much done about it. I want to bring awareness to the fact that its happening. I would make the dead birds, probably out of wax, and take a mold of it. I want to do as many as I can in just plaster. I want to keep them white because it matches the turbine color and follows the irony that they cant see the blades or are literally sucked into the blade while its moving. I think it would be easier and get the point across more with just dead birds. the bat population also hurts but it might confuse the audience. I think the photos of this will be the important part. Itll be hard to get the actual wind turbines and birds in scale to them but since most sites you have to have permission I think distance shots will help. Ill also be in contact with my old professor to see if I cant arrange to go on a site to take picture.

Alex- Site Specific

 

 

For me, this space I will be installing in has a lot of memories attached to it. This was a place I was able to explore and discover things growing up. I was able to touch and respond to this landscape. Having the tactile experience of this environment has left an impression on me and definitely my artwork. I want to portray the different experiences I've had with this environment through touch. I would like to cast a lot of plaster fingers that I paint in different playful colors or one uniform color. I would install them under a bridge that crosses over the river by my parents house. I want the fingers to look like they are touching the horizon line from the vantage point of standing in the river. It would represent my impression on the landscape, but also letting the horizon line layout how I install the fingers to show the relationship of my touch and the land itself. 

I am still trying to figure out the best way to convey with relationship in a playful way. I think colored fingers would be fun and something I would enjoy making, but I also don't want to be too literal? I know I want to run with this idea, but I'm still toying around with the idea of the fingers and what else I could do in this space as well. 

Aubree’s Site Specific Installation

Aubree’s Site Specific Installation

Bubble steps

Images:

Sketch of “poem layout”

Normal pyramid:

Bubble pyramids:

K

Mind Map of Concept and Memory:

Context:

It was late August, the grass was green and full like a carpet. The summer had been a challenge but we were back in town. Preparing for the semester to start we tried to enjoy every moment we could. Coopers first birthday was less than a week away. We went to the park and had dinner in our favorite spot, I don’t remember what we ate. 

     Cooper was happy that night, full of energy and excitement, responding to the light buzz of sounds drifting over from the other people enjoying the beautiful dusk weather. Cooper loved bubbles. Perhaps it was their softness, or subtle iridescence that captures his interest. Whatever it was, he wanted to touch it. So, that night, in the magic of the setting light, he walked. Once he did it once he did it again and again. His first uneasy steps quickly steadied. With his goal in mind he chased the bubbles back and forth. The bubbles seemed like magic to him. There is still a magic about them, to me.

     We take this liquid, and we force it to stretch around this wand and force enough air at it until it breaks away from us and becomes units of floating iridescence. After they mesmerize the inevitably pop. Their fleeting beauty parallels our existence in several ways. The ephemerality of their making and their temporary nature is something that cannot be escaped. Our only option is to keep our eyes open and try to enjoy it as long as we can.

     Watching a child grow is much the same way. They change and take risks and learn. There is an iridescent energy about them, never just one color. Each moment is ephemeral, never being repeated or captured perfectly.

What I’m doing and why:

     My pyramids are my way of examining. With this installation I plan to examine concepts of memory, ephemerality, symbolism, and communication.  I don’t remember everything of that moment or evening, but I remember Coopers mesmerized, determine face. I remember the light, and the way the grass felt. I want to respond to this memory, taking my pyramid form and softening it and giving it an an iridescent surface to resemble the surface of a bubble. Laying them in the grass where Cooper took his first steps. Accompanying this piece will be a translated poem about the moment and space.

Update: The “Bubble” Pyramids are out of the kiln and I will be going to the park this weekend to see them in the space.  I have also make an extra 20 pyramids that are not finished yet but will be if there aren’t enough for the space.  I’ve been thinking about the best way to to the performance aspect of the piece.  I think will video the performance from an angle that obstructs a clear view of what’s going on.  But my thoughts are still in the works.  Here are some pictures of the pyramids!!!

Ismael Dominguez - Site Specific

For the site specific piece I am interested in getting back into ceramics and doing some slipcasting as well as integrating processes that maybe seen more as “craft” in an artistic way. For the site specific I plan to take a mold of a mannequin head that I then plan to cast in slip and clear glaze and then finish a small section of the face with a mirror surface. This head will be suspended in a handmade tubular fishing net out of a cotton cord. I plan to use this cord so that I can dye it later and add a little more to the finished piece. The concept of this piece is that anyone could hang this in an environment that has greatly influenced them and the surroundings will be reflected in the mirrored face. I think that this piece would be more migratory in that it could be placed in several places and still have the important connection to its surroundings. This is more of a question, but I was also thinking that I could project my home video onto the piece once it is hung in its environment and it would have another quality to it. I’m just not sure if this would be too much and take away from the piece rather than add to it.

Emily's Sight Specific

Sight Specific-

The public library has always been a special place for me where my imagination grew and parts of my personality were formed. So for me it was an obvious decision to do my sight specific there. My hope is to make 2D blob characters of many different colors that anyone can project a character onto. Each character will be walking towards the books in a bookshelf and pop into the 3D realm. Once there, the characters will come across an open book with a small object. The object will be related to the genre of book in that section of the library. So for an example the SciFi section will have an aluminum hat that the little character will then put on thus changing them like how a good book always changes me. <3

Virgil Morrison-Materialistic idea

For my Materialistic Ideas, I want to focus on the idea of multiples and possibly using lights to amplify shadows. I really want to revisit a piece from a long time ago. It was basically a roman/Greek popup book. I cut out almost every picture in the book and made it feel like it was coming alive. I want to take this idea and make it larger and fill it will a considerable amount of insects, coming out of one central spot, whether that be from a book or a crevasse. I want my viewers to feel overwhelmed because of the fact that for every 1 human on earth there are 200 million insects That's the equivalent of 400 lbs. of insects per acer of land. I want my insects to be very flat and not very detailed in the since that all my cut outs feel like shadows, but once the viewer approaches them, they can see that they are all separate entities. I would also like to incorporate sound, as well as some sweet or putrid smells that would attract certain kinds of insects. If I were to incorporate these smells, I would use flowers and carnivorous plants such as the Venus fly trap or Corpse flowers.

The inspiration of this idea comes from Carlos Amorales’s piece Black Cloud which has been continuously growing since 2007. It started at 30,000 then grew to 45,000 black paper moths in 2009. I think its effective how he chooses these very white pristine spaces to install his moths on. It really makes each moth stand out and the simplicity and lack of detail on the wings is interesting because it relies so much on form to portray what is being seen.

Black Cloud 2009

Carlos Amorales

 He was born in Mexico City, Mexico in 1970 and received his education in the two different academes in the Netherlands.  He was trained as a painter but then realized he didn’t have much interest in painting. He now explores varies types of media from painting to digital to performance art. He gets a lot of his influence from his heritage and has “changed his name to Amorales meaning ‘without morals’. He did this because it portrays his work and makes him stand out from his father who was a pioneer of conceptual art work in Mexico” (Freize). Many of his piece and ideas come from explaining language through different means of art work. Other pieces of his are Life in the Folds 2017, La Langue des Morts(Language of the Dead) 2012, and Amorales vs Amorales 1997.