GO Blog 10 Community arts project.

-What´s the big idea? As one child in one of the classes I work with says all time, at statement which I smile at every time.

-I´ll tell you. Raise awareness and provide resources for aboriginal women in an urban environment that the big idea!

So we, me Reilly and Rose, chose this topic because it is one that is often overlooked and me personally hadn´t thought about it that much, because in some ways the people involved are a bit invisible in Toronto.

Who do we want to involve, well have a look at this wonderful popplet(btw popplet is a word I can say over and over again).



Reilly had a friend, Moira, and she is an artist. Reilly talked to her about the project and she really liked the idea. We needed a symbol for the project so we discussed the details on what we wanted to communicate. It was important that it was not cliche but still projected our vision. The end result was so much better than I could have ever imagined.

By Moira



After a discussion about how to spread our message we decided to start with street art and a wiki. The point with the street art would be that even people that are not intrested in the issue would view it and think about it. We did not put our webiste to the wikia on it because we thought that would cheapen the picture. The downside of that is that our oage does not get spread as much. A wikia is a site with pages for different intrests, the point with a wikia is that everyone can contribute to it and we thought that we needed a page where lots of information were gathered on the issue. We thought that it was important that other people could contribute since we are no experts on the subject and that if people contribute they might also start spreading the word about the issue and wiki.

So art street art section is captured in this video:


Canadian Aboriginal Women and Families in Toronto from Rose Lugue on Vimeo.

And our wikia is found here Reguro project.


When we done all this we presented our idea to the class on Tuesday the 12th of April. We went out last which is a bit unfortunate, since a lot of people probably were tired. But someone has to do it. I like to do presentations and I don´t really have a problem speaking in front of people. I my own head I don´t make much sense but people always say that I am good at explaining, so I´ll guess I´ll have to take their word for it. Usually when I speak in public or present I am a bit more houmorus but this is a serious issue so I adjusted. I think that we had a nice mix of presentation materials, the popplet a bit different than your average power point, a webpage filled with information, a really cool video and of course us the presenter. I really felt that we knew the material well. I try not the even have cheat notes because it is so tiring to hear people read a presentation. A good advice I got somewhere on my journey was "to never worry about what you forgot to say because the audience doesn´t know what you were going to say". That is something I follow and has helped me. Sometimes I prepare by looking at a stand-up or listening to a speech just to get into the right vibe. I try to carry that vibe into the presentation and pretend that I´m a bit of that person. So I don´t really see what we could have done differently.

Our group only got one comment and that was from our teacher, Patricia, and she wondered if we did all the art ourselves and yes, that we did. So I guess the lack of comments confirms both that it was a solid presentation and that people was a bit tired.

Art word of the post is: Space

The size of the paper, canvas, stone or whatever is the space that the artist is confined to in that particular creation. In this space there is either positive or negative space. Positive space is basically all that is put there by the artist and what is left is called the negative space the artist uses both in different ways to portray hers or his message (Schirrmacher & Englebright, 2009).

With this project we tried to take back some space to the people that it was stolen from. We in our goup is also tired of the fact that it is money that decides on how much influence one will have over the public space. Why should companies be able to control what images we see on the streets and not artists? Companies wants you tu buy stuff and artists wants you to think. Shame if everyone got their thinking on instead of listing shopping as their favourite activity. Maybe people would vote differently?

References

Schirrmacher, R. & Englebright Fox, J. (2009). Art & creative development for young children. Belmont, CA, USA: Delmar, Cengage Learning.

GO Blog 06 Drawing with scissors

So basically I this blog is going to be about drawing with scissors. I choose drawing because that was I thought that I might actually do it if someone suggested it to me. You do this activity by having a pair of scissors and a pencil. I would stick to a pencil made of wood since it is easier to get a better grip with the scissor, so that might be something you want to consider, especially if you work with children.

So grip the pencil with the scissors and start drawing. It could look something like this:

and this is the end result:

It actually became better than I thought. I thought it was going to be a lot harder, like if you switched hands and did the same things. So in that sense it might be hard enough for children. I think the underlying purpose of this excercise is to step out of your comfort zone and look at an everyday activity, like drawing, with new eyes. If you are doing this activity with children you could start talking about how some people needs to do certain activities differently, like drawing with your mouth or toes, but that anyone can be creative.

Art word of the post is shape.

Shape is the form of an object, made up by lines that goes together and are the end of an area (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009). There are shapes everywhere and in everything, they can be simple or complex. There are shapes, like a triangle, that are recognised by everyone but you can also make up your own shape. It is important that children learn how to read signs since they, together with colours, sends so many messages. The messages could be anything from traffic signals to advetisment or directions to the nearest washroom.

References

Schirrmacher, R. & Englebright Fox, J. (2009). Art & creative development for young children. Belmont, CA, USA: Delmar, Cengage Learning.

GO Blog 09 Guerilla art

So firstly some inspiring tunes. Brick walls is a song by Chicago rapper Qwel. It is a conversation between him and his dad about music and art. I think that is shows the differences between an older and younger generation.



The second is a tribute to street art by the Swede's Promoe and CosMic.



What I decided to do was to combine the street art project with the Community Arts project. The project was focused to raise awareness on single parent women in an urban setting. A woman in our group knew a an artist that was interested in the issue so we collaborated to make the painting that was supposed to be displayed.

By Moira

I interpret this image as there is a need to turn the debate upside down to get a new perspective. Even though Toronto has the largest population of off-reserve aboriginal population, they are very seldom seen in the public life. Taking the art to the streets is to me the most natural arena to speak to people that are not a part of the mainstream. After some discussion on location we decided to put it on a school. We thought that young people would be more open to the picture and actually look at it. This is how we did it.

Canadian Aboriginal Women and Families in Toronto from Rose Lugue on Vimeo.

One of our group memebers went back the day afterwards to capture the reactions. Unfortunaetly there was something wrong with glue and the image was on the ground. So there we could not get any "live" reactions. However, my mom saw the video and here reaction was that it looks like "a real street painting". After the presentation we made in our Creative Arts class one of my classmates said to me that she thought that it was a really cool thing that we did. Enhanced, no doubt by Roses good editing skills.



Photo by Reilly Dow



I had a mixed feeling of excitment and reminicsing when putting it up. Because it needs to be done fairly quick since not everyone thinks that this is a really good idea. I also recollected a lot of memories for doing similiar activities back in Sweden. There I postered both for night clubs and political issues and it has been so long since I did that so it was nice to walk down memory lane.

I wanna link to a Swedish street artist that goes by the name of Akayism. I have enjoyed his work for a decade or so before moving to Toronto.

Another form of public event that I like is bookcrossing. What you do is you sign in a book on the site, the site will generate a number for it that you write in the book. Then you find a creative way to release it in a public space. Then it will be found by someone else and hopefully they will register the book on the site, read the book and release it again, then after a while you can hopefully follow the books travel.

Art word of the post is line.

Mastery and control over lines is essential for the live painting street artist, wether you are making a quick tag or throw-up, or have the whole day to plan your painting it is the lines that will define the art and act as guide to where to color in. During the development of grafftiti one thing that really stands out is how the artists has become faster and faster in creating their art. In the beginning the train yards in New York where unguarded and artists could spend hours painting on the trains. Today we increased security the usually do not have more than 5-10 minutes to make their art work. Has this influenced the overall quality of the paintings? No, in most cases the techniqes are more advanced today even though the have a shorter amount of time to do it in.

GO Blog 04 Looking for patterns in urban settings

Okay so I would suggest playing this music clip while reading the blog. I think it sets the mood for the pictures. The song is called Modern day city symphony by Looptroop. The have a homepage at; Looptroop Rockaz. The reader will probably see the return of them in the blog about guerilla arts.

Upside down apartment building on Sherbourne and Shuter street.

The Grand hotel on Jarvis street corner of Dundas. 

The Grand hotel on Jarvis street corner of Dundas.

As I mentioned in my first blog entry  I really like postapocalyptic/futuristic environments. Skyscrapers and tall buildings are big part of this. The look so cold, hard and evil and sets of a sort of lobomtomized sense in my. A slow, chilling tranquility that suits me well somedays. The buildings are on one one of my routes to school so I pass them often. They remind me of a number of buildings in Bologna, Italy that also had an evil look to the, unfortunaetly those pictures lost in a hard disc crash so I can not show any for comparison. :-(

Sometimes I wonder what types of activites that could be going on in such evil looking houses, probably a lot of everyday life since it is an apartment building and a hotel. Those thoughts are however not so fun to play around with so I think of other things. I think that the Grand could be a good HQ for Kingpin or other criminal masterminds.

My second highschool, S:t Görans gymnasium, looked much like one of those evil buildings. I got voted as the ugliset building in my area many years in a row. I think there is a certain charm to those ugly beasts, I wouldn´t have a city consisting of only them, mind you. But it makes one appreciate other, more warm and personal buildings after a time of this kind of exposure.

S:t Görans Gymnasium photo by: Björn Roos. http://bild.admin.kth.se

Art word ot the post; Pattern.

The two buildings have the same sort of repetitve pattern with squares as the main component to it. They are very regular and symmetrical and I think that is what gives it, together with the lustreless colour of th building, its evil apperance. But I guess that patterns of regularity is the cheapest and most efficent way to build houses that are still safe and liveable. But a house than no house.

GO Blog 05 Art Film Chat

Me and a couple of fellow students decided to watch and discusss the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The discussion was made over facebook and I have taken away the last name of people so as to keep their privacy.

Spoiler alert!
If you haven´t seen to movie, and would like to do so, the following discussion contains material that would ruin the experience so be aware of that.

If you have seen it but it was a while a go maybe reading the plot on IMDB would be helpful;
The plot

Here is a trailer for the movie:

Diana

YO. So it's time to get this out of the way so just write a short paragraph. I have no idea what to talk about, but here I go. (P.S. I think I sent it to everyone but If I didn't send it to them as well :) )


Diana: What caught my attention in the movie was the fact that they were erasing people's memories. Even if something bad happened, don't you want to remember it and learn from it? Even though they end up with a "Spotless Mind", it doesn't seem like the most pleasant thing to go through. Nothing can be perfect, and stuff happens so you just have to go with it. Mary had her mind erased and she just went down the same path with Howard not knowing that it all happened before. To me that's just inconvenient (and embarrassing).

Gustav

Im going to write something tomorrow...

Michelle 

I agree with Diana. I don't think I could go through erasing my memories (even the bad ones), because I think that they are part of who you are. Also, I don't think you can escape fate, which would make erasing your memory pointless because the same things would end up happening (a point in case with Mary). I also cannot imagine what the world would be like if you were actually able to erase your memory. I think it would be interesting to see who would do it and for what reasons. Just like to point out there's a new movie coming out that reminds me of this....the adjustment bureau and for some reason inception.

Samantha

Ha ha, yeah. The whole thing ends up with them realizing what they had in the beginning. Any relationship, no matter how crappy it may have/did/could (I don't know how to phrase this, ha) become, had to have some good points or it wouldn't have manifested into a relationship at all. Those memories are certainly worth having, in my opinion. I love memories and nostalgia.


This movie won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. I love when little indie-ish (I hate using the word indie) movies win Academy Awards. The Oscars is by no way a means of judging whether a film is good or not since it's run by old people, but when a film like this wins, it's cool. Especially when it's screenplay awards. It demonstrates that many people appreciate the film for its uniqueness. To me, the story is most important in a film. Visual effects? No thanks. The story is the foundation, and then you build on top of that. Big time blockbusters are so cheesy these days, and I feel half of the movies nominated for awards were produced solely to win awards. Which is why The Social Network won't win anything at the Oscars this year and it'll be The Kings Speech and stuff like that. Sorry, I am getting personal now (NOT DIMINISHING THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STORY BEHIND THE KING'S SPEECH, because I like it).


POINT IS, the team behind it makes this story interesting. Charlie Kaufman was a writer for the story and adapted it into a screenplay, and he did Being John Malkovich which is AWESOME (among other good films). Michel Gondry was a writer, and does awesome stuff on his own, especially music videos. I see a lot of his influence in the visual style of the film. There is a third writer dude, but I don't know much about him. I am pretty passionate about film, writing and directing. Not only did they write an interesting story, they made it visually appealing as well. Anyway, I love the idea of them working together, it's like a collaboration piece. Writing is art, film is art. Yay art.

Samantha

A world where we could erase our memory would be...


horrible
pointless
unemotional
vapid
boring
heartless.


I like feeling feelings, which goes hand in hand with thinking thoughts and remembering memories.

Samantha

ALSO I am ready to propose watching this in class and calling it a beautiful piece of art and defending it.


http://www.facebook.com/sameliz/posts/184906404881537

Diana

I can't really touch upon the awards and people behind the making of the film because I don't know anything about anything when it comes to that. But EXACTLY. You can't run away from what is going to happen, change what has, or make yourself permanently forget it all. The words you have for a world where people could erase their memories are PERFECT!! If someone passes away and you can't take the pain anymore, or if you break up with someone and you just want to forget it, you're not only erasing all the bad, but you're erasing all the good. All the wonderful memories and emotions would be gone. It would be such a waste of your life to have memories and then erase them. You look back on it, you laugh about it, cry about it or regret it, whatever. It makes you who you are.

Michelle

I think that although you can't (and I wouldn't want to) erase memories, I'm sure there are definitely some people who would disagree (there always are). I think that doing this would make the world as sam described it, and these people would rethink their stance on the issue. I think though this is one of these issues where if people did want to erase their memories, the only way of making them see the effects of their actions would be for it to actually happen, because we will truly never know...

Natalie

Well, since all the good comments have been made, I will try to reiterate my similar thoughts. Erasing your memory no matter how painful some are, is a terrible thing. Those memories are a part of who you are! They make/break/ define parts of your life that shape who you become and how you got to that. The movie in itself shows a fair representation of a world where that is possible but I don't agree with the concept whatsoever. It's a disturbing idea. But I actually did enjoy the movie... AND just for you Gustav, Kirsten Dunst was excellent comic relief! :P

Gustav 

The frist paragraph is just my fresh thoughts without reading your comments and the second one wil be comments on what you have written.


I think that it is interesting how Patrick(Elijah Wood) wants to take over Joel pretty mundane life. As an observer, Joel´s life is not really that desriable, maybe with the exception of his girlfriend. But he could try to start dating her without trying to be Joel. Because since Clementine wanted her memory earesed, Joel is clearly not the optimum fit for her. So is it an expression for "that the pasture is always greener on the other side" and he cannot get rid of the thought of being Joel before he tried? Or is he only a very weak individual unable to create a life for himself that he feels that he needs to take over someone elses? From what we can see in the movie he constantly seeks validation from other people to give him a right to exsist.


So I think its fair to say that there is a general agreement about not erasing your memories. But what if you where abused as a child? Raped? Bullied, like really bad, in school and it limited you as a person? And if the technology was available wouldnt it be fair to let adults choose for themselves what to do with their lives? I dont believe in fate as in that things a pre-determined, things happen far to much by chance. So to explain how Mary fell in love with the doctor all over again is because as she grew up she aquired a taste for certain things and therefore she will make choices that would nudge chance at the direction she would want, so I think he could be exchanged for someone fairly similar and she would fall in love with him, because she likes those qualities that he poesses like being kind, patient and secure.


But then again Kirsten is a bit of a nut case, aint that right Nat? I wish I could do my art paper on her.

Gustav

Oh and if anyone wonders, Kirsten Dunst is a fictional character created by me and Natalie, or so we been told during therapy. She seems completly real to us and we love to hate her. If anyone was wondering.

Diana

Karishma: Well to start off... I see this movie as a realization that you never really know what you have until you begin to lose it and it’s gone. As much as I did enjoy this movie, I also found it to be terribly cliché. It begins with the message that you can’t fight fate; it is something beyond our control, and even in a world where we can erase memories and alter our minds in ways we feel might benefit us, destiny will only cause these events to re-occur all over again. Which brings me to my next point, and the second cliché; everything happens for a reason. Every conversation, thought, action, etc. in our life is for a reason, it is the result of one thing, and the cause of another. Every moment is connected and for us to simply erase one or more of these occurrences, it kind of breaks the chain. So in the movie it kind of makes sense that fate would intervene and make Joel and Clementine meet again. Then comes the third and final moral of the movie; if we don’t learn from our mistakes, we’ll only repeat them. Or as many would say, those who don’t know their history are bound to repeat it. In the movie, Joel and Clementine hesitate before deciding to re-attempt their relationship, we don’t know if they are meant for each other or if they really will end up the same way as the first time around. However, the point is even if it is a mistake, it’s one that they were supposed to make. By forgetting the relationship, they forget the experience and everything that came with it, including knowledge, emotion, and development. Personally, I feel like it is our mistakes that make us who we are. Our memories are what help us advance and grow as individuals; we use them as precedent in our everyday life. That might be why I’m completely against the idea of memory erasure. I kind of see it as a form of regret; which it actually is...and I think that’s the worst thing for someone to have. Either you do something and you live and learn from the outcome, or you refrain from doing it at all in the first place...but otherwise, what Clementine did—erasing Joel from her memory, I think it was just plain stupid and cowardly. He did it, too, but not as a form of regret, but kind of a rebuttal. He was hurt and this was his response. Nevertheless, in one sentence, I disagree with the concept of “lacuna implementation.”

Art-word of the post; Balance.

I will write about balance in reference to the movie. I think that the movie creator has very succesfully built in unbalance in the movie as to, figuratively, shake the heads of its viewers. It is like being on a ship in a storm, you go from on side to the other bit the viewer feels lost and confused instead of sick. But then at the end of the movie, or the storm, everything falls into place and the audience goes "aha". I think that it is a very skillfull play with balance and a disciplned preciseness that creates this feeling.

GO Blog 08 Pretend play and magical thinking

So this is Kon;

Kon

It is a cousin of the Tachikomas robots, or maybe an earlier prototype. It depends on who you ask. Evil rumour has it that it is beacuase of Kon´s personality that he lost his ability to move around.  The Tachikomas is most famous from appearances in Masamune Shirows mangas Ghost in the Shell. 

Tachikomas  Masamune Shirow

He is named Kon for two reason. The first being a tribute to director Satoshi Kon who sadly passed away in cancer last August. Satoshi Kon was one of my favourite directors because he mixed surrealistic themes with modern technology and set in a metropolis environment. Some of his best work is Tokyo Godfathers, Paranoia Agent and Paprika. The other reason is that its name shows what it is a con or a fake. Since imaginative play is fake in its best form, but still only real in the mind of the imaginator, but to be interpreded in the best possible way.

Being named Kon would then give the reader the impression that Kon is something of a sly and shady character. That would be quite true, it holds a resentment to the world since it can only move around when someone lifts it and since the resentfulness, at this point, has taking over the sly skills that is something that happens less and less frequently. Often this happends when someone mistakes it for a gamepad, a mistake that results in rapid fire of insults, but to the relief of most humans it mostly comes out as zeros and ones. This could be due to a programming error or that the anger gets the best of Kon. This does not stop him from browsing sites with gamepads on them, to excite himself. Sadly this is one of the few things that he finds interesting these days. He used to be intrestested in a very ambitious project comparing the big japanese role-playing series with each other and try to answer the big question "Why does so few of these characters look japanese?". So far it has only come up with the very vague statement "Most role-playing characters has a very weak or none visibile ethnic membership". Critics on online fourms says that the lack of good answers is because to much "gamepad-watching" from Kon´s side. After those insults he logged out for the last time.

Kon started his excistence in a research lab i Hokkaido for Logitech. They wanted to develop the "next generation" of gamepads and this was one of the prototypes. So Kon is actually a gamepad, something that it denies furiously. One day a brilliant, but socially akward, reasearcher saw Kon upside down and saw a face in the gamepad. He then sneaked the gamepad out of the lab and took it home. There he did a lot of rewiring and programming and finallay instilled the illusion of the illusion of free will. Lo and behold Kon became as miserable as every other human being.

Art word of the post; texture.

The texture of an art work is how the surface feels and looks. It can be hard or soft, dull or shiny and many more. It is often very tempting, for child and adult alike, to touch and artwork with an intresting or provoking texture. This can be done with more sturdy sculptures but would be a disaster if it was done to paintings.

Reference

Schirrmacher, R., & Fox, J.E. (2009). Art and creative development for young children 

        (6th Ed.). Belmont, CA: Delmar

GO Blog 07 Grocery shopping with a twist!

I went to Metro on Gould street. this is one of the stores I usually buy groceries in, because it is on my way to and from Ryerson.

My category was pork products, because I love my pork and pigs. One of my favourite dishes are pasta carbonara. I have strong memories from my childhood at my grandparents summerhouse on the country side where I could stand for a long time and watching the pigs play at a farm that was close by. A decade later I went back with my cousin but now the where only in a big barn and they did not get to play outside, that was very discouraging. I wish that laws where stricter so that pigs, and other farm animals, were treated better. I know that there are alternatives to buy "happy meat" but I simply can not afford in my tight budget, so I wish the only option would be "happy meat". Maybe some day...

Writer, chef and GOD Anthony Bourdain talks about how buying ecological food is a class issue, were rich people can buy away there guilt, and poorer people is made to feel guilty because they cannot afford the more expensive food.


This is how pigs should be treated:



In Hugh Fearnleys bokk River Cottage he spekas at length about raising pigs. When I read that  it actually got me, the hard-core city bnoy, to start dreaming of that maybe someday, I will live on the countryside and raise pigs.


At Metro I found the following pork products:

• pork chops
• pork shoulder
• pork sirloin chops
• porkback ribs
• pork cubes boneless
• pork tenderloin
• ready crisp bacon
• real bacon bits
• smoked pork picninc shoulder
• honey & maple smoked ham
• bacon
• extra thick bacon
• bacon 50% less sodium
• applewood smoked bacon
• cooked pork back ribs
• prosciuttino
• pancetta
• caccitatore
• salami

As we can see pork products comes in a wide variety. They go from being soft, like porkchops, when they are fresh to being very hard when cured like the prosciuttino. The pork products are usually on the red scale of colours from pink to dark red, they also have white fat patches in them.

Here are the results of my drawings of food.

Art word of the post is Color.

It is fascinating to think that color is dependant on light and that with different light settings, we perceive different colors, and with no light no colors (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009). To me it is quite philosophical to see that what I have seen as stable and set things, like the colors of things, growing up is actually something very dependent on others, like individual perception and the light. Colors gives that extra spice to life and it would be impossible to imagine life without it.

References

Schirrmacher, R. & Englebright Fox, J. (2009). Art & creative development for young children. Belmont, CA, USA: Delmar, Cengage Learning.