So tonight we had our presentation. I think it went alright actually. Red's main criticism was the audio fidelity in part one - a shortcoming that we were already aware of. All in all it was a great experience and I'm glad, in the end, that we went first. The other group that presented did something completely different involving Karaoke, pinatas and chocolate. They got the class very involved and everyone seemes to have a good time.
Our speaker for the evening was Lily Cheng from Microsoft. It was a 180 degree turn from Vito, but enjoyable all the same. She's an ITP alum ('93?) - so it was interesting to hear her speak from that perspective. She comes from a place of having been an architect before coming to NYU to working at Apple to Microsoft research to being the head of User Experience for the Vista team. Now she is back to doing research and has been working on programs for kids - developing them for PC use using the XNA system. I'll write in on that more later.
posted by Amanda @ 9/11/2007 10:40:00 PM, ,
Our reaction presentation to Vito's lecture last week is in a couple of hours. We've been updating our software and running through things to make sure at least the backend runs smoothly.
posted by Amanda @ 9/11/2007 09:48:00 AM, ,
It's Monday night and Scott, Corey, Mikaela and I are finishing up the preparation for tomorrow's presentation.
A bit of background:
Last week, Vito Acconci spoke to our class about his career - the transitions and ebbs and flows, where he thinks he has suceeded and where he thinks he didn't quite make the mark. He was a pleasure to watch and to listen to and I'm so glad he was our first speaker. I think what I appreciated most was his earnestness.
Key themes:
The viewer as voyeur
Apatability of space/adapting to space
the ideas of viewer/agent/object
the public v. the private and where they intersect
transformation (of body, space)
trust
fluidity
Things he said that resonated with me:
Wanted words to be material
How do you move from the left margin to the right margin -- an integer - an indicator of movement
wanted to write himself onto the street
art was a field into which you could import from other fields
For a period he did voyeurism based work - following a person each day until they entered a private for anywhere from 2/3 minutes to 7/8 hours. For that time he was the receiver of someone else's action. His aim was to key himself into that world. He wanted to focus on himself as the instrument - use whatever medium was available to him at that time.
Subservient to an external scheme,
I a person (an agent)
attends to (it)
can i start to attend to me? how do i prove that i am concentrating on myself?
conversions -- viewer/agent/object (trying to avoid the object)
viewer ends up being the outsider - pieces couldn't be so isolated
in 1971 he did security zone which depicted his dependence on someone he couldn't trust. [in an attempt to gain said trust]
circularity --> the pieces didn't get rid of enclosure. viewer is always voyeur.
Vito spoke of art as an exchange system - a meeting between artist and viewer
meeting should be between equals - started to think about art as religion/artwork as alter -- his work seemed to be enhancing this, and not debunking it as he had hoped.
his thoughts turned to "what if i was a part of the space" (then came seedbed)
--take a neutral space and fill it with a person--
decided not to concentrate on self anymore - site specificity
art makes sense maybe at this particular time, in this particular space
1976 - where are we now (who are we anyway)
didn't know how to get rid of himself
trying to look at art space as if it were a town square
houses/architecture caused by a body/person
games of architecture
community house
mid 80s
wanted to deal with public space
stopped being interested in art, wanted things to be used
users/inhabitants/participants rather than viewers / public comes out of a conversation/collision
created acconci studio -- you can't do public stuff from a position of singularity
gallery in own house
make a world
poke a whole
architecture of perferations // actions and operations
methods that make openings
a building that changes shape / can grow
Tomorrow we will present our reaction, as a group, to the first year class.
posted by Amanda @ 9/10/2007 06:30:00 PM, ,
Testing! Applications
posted by Amanda @ 9/06/2007 11:24:00 PM, ,