Installation Proposal

I want to make wire birds that will be hung in trees around the pond on the way to the campus center. The trees are very flowery and festive at this time of year. The birds will have different ways of making sounds (wind chime, whistle) to make them sing. I wanted to make them happy or goofy looking by making their shape fat and their little legs spindly but they might not come off as I plan. I might explore using different materials for my birds, or creating a house or cage that they have escaped from. I am going to make at least three birds.

Installation Idea

An idea I have for my installation is making wire birds and hanging them from a tree. I want to put in their bellies wind chimes so that they will "sing" when the wind blows. I was also thinking about putting a pipe perhaps in the birds' beaks so that people can blow through them and make sounds like a whistle. I think this is an uplifting idea that will be nice for the change of seasons to spring. I also like working with my hands and creating things that people can touch and hold. I will probably use copper wire and have not decided how to make the chimes or wind pipes yet (perhaps bamboo, metal, or glass?) An artist who uses wire to make sculptures is Elizabeth Berrien (above leaf and blue heron sculptures). She creates images of animals and plants and seems to be influenced a lot by nature. My project will be different from Berrien's because I do not think my birds will look exactly like a species of birds, it will be more interpretive. I am probably not going to use nice silver wire as she does, but use more hardy copper or a heavier metal since my birds will be hanging outside. I am also using some method of sound in my installation which is unlike Berrien's works.

Colby Caldwell's Last Lecture

In his lecture Colby recalled how music and all its forms have changed over the years of his life, and how it influenced him as a person and his creative mind. He grew up in North Carolina and when he was younger he loved bands like Pink Floyd and other southern rock music. When he went to college he discovered bands like Joy Division and the Cure which completely blew him away. He was going to be a history teacher and at the last minute got interested in photography and art. Colby is fascinated by how technology has affected not only how we create art but how music is created and how we interact with and interpret it. We used to play music on records, cassette tapes. We went from buying cds to downloading music to our ipods in just a few years. Colby has been to concerts where he saw bands perform onstage (as most people's concert experiences are) to watching a musician who created his songs entirely on his computer sit back on a couch on stage and "play" his music by pressing the keys to his computer. Having technology has maybe led people to take for granted their music or how it was created. It may not have as much of an effect on the listener to download a piece of music when in the past they had an entire album to experience where they would listen to it from the beginning to the end and understand the theme or intentions of the musician.

Is it installation?

The theory of installation art seems to encompass many art forms. I think that installation art interacts with its environment and that it is placed in a precise place so that the art and place react with each other. Installation art is also something that people can touch and interact with so that they can get a certain feeling from the artwork. I don't think it is always meant to be a climactic or strong feeling when experiencing it, becuase some installations are only replications of an artist's home. People are allowed to use this space as if it is their own home, or a good friends, it depends on the person how they will react to this space. The fact that they are reacting to this large space and are able to touch the things inside the space make it an installation. To be installation all parts must belong together as a whole which usually leads to an experience of the entire space in which the person is in. It seems that there is no way an installation can be small since it must take up a certain amount of space and there must be more than one part to it. This amuses me because I think that people like to accomplish big things and impress themselves and others. Americans especially like to think "big". This may be where installation art got the reputation of being middle-brow and low-talent as Liam Gillick observed.

Chris Coleman Artist Talk

Chris is an animation teacher at the University of Oregon who is mainly interested in creating animation and installation. His installation "Collusion" is a 20 minute looping video of smokestacks sucking in and breathing out smoke to the sound of unnatural human breathing. It symbolizes that we cannot live taking in more than we put it which includes the act of breathing and the way we pollute the earth. Another installation "Spatiodynamic" interacts with the public who watch through a video screen a rolling landscape. If they turn the corner they see that the image is created by computer fans blowing up a piece of plastic that is suspended from the ceiling. It is a grid form that creates an organic shape. The presence of people in the hallway determines which fans are operated. "Modern Times" is an animation using cartoons found from the government's website on how the public can prepare for terrorism. Chris makes a statement on how the government scares the public into being always scared of what could happen and how we lump things and people into good and evil categories. This makes society as a whole sometimes feel apathy towards others' pain and that we become scared of our own neighbors. Chris' work in progress deals with socioeconomic status, international divides, and other divides between people and cultures. He uses more imagery and cartoons from the idealistic 1950s and 1960s U.S.A. His intent for his work is to make us question conclusions that power figures such as the governemnt have already given us and to come to our own thoughts on important world issues.

Body Sculpture

Hope Chest Project on Display in Campus Center