Blog #2

During Tuesday's class on January17, 2011 guest speaker Michael Salter spoke and gave a presentation. Michael Salter is the chair of digital arts at the University of Oregon. He started off the presentation by giving a brief synopsis of his childhood and how he came to begin his amazing career. He described himself as an obsessive observer which I found very interesting. I have never heard anyone label themselves as that. He also talked about his love and interest in science fiction films and how they influenced his interest in digital arts. One film in particular he mentioned was Star Wars. Who hasn't seen Star Wars? So I was able to relate and understand the connection he has made with that film. He was quoted saying, "What you see affects the way you think". I really connected to that quote. When he said that I completely agreed. I make connections and relate certain objects or ideas with everything I see each and every day. Once he got to showing his work I was actually very impressed. I was also impressed with the fact he managed to get into bigger venues to show his work only after putting on his art shows with his own money. Some of his work was somewhat crude and offensive but I liked that he took risks and had somewhat of I don't care attitude because he only cares about putting his art into the world not necessarily what peoples opinions are. The work of his that really stuck out to me the most was his Styrofoam robots. I thought his use of styrofoam was incredibly creative and also inspiring to know that such a simple object could become such complex art. I loved how he was able to create such a large piece of art work just from plain white styrofoam pieces. His enthusiasm throughout the entire presentation was also very inspiring to me. I really loved how he was very into telling us as a class about his work. I was excited to hear that he teaches classes at the U of O because I feel as though I could learn a lot from him about art and expression and creating. I also really appreciated the fact that he talked to us very straight forward and I could tell that he wanted us at students to hear about how it really was and is in the art world rather than painting us a picture of false reality. I would very much enjoy listening to him speak again.

In addition to the guest lecture, we were also assigned a reading. The reading was in a comic strip form and was about icons. It showed many different images but the thing about the images is that the point of it was supposed to be that they were simply images and not actually the object the image was portraying. For example, an image that caught my eye was the drawing of a very detailed face that almost looked like a actual photo of a man. Then the image turned into a simpler drawing image, and then a simpler one, and then a simpler one. It dwindled down to being a simple smilie face with a circle around two dots and a half line in the shape of a smile (Page 29). The point of this transition of images was that an icon is anything from a photograph to the simplicity of a cartoon. On page 30 of the reading, the comic is quoted saying, "By stripping down an image to its essential meaning an artist can amplify that meaning in a way that realistic art can't". This is so that the viewer can focus on the specific details of the cartoon which is ultimately the icon. This quote was interesting to me because although sometimes intense detail can create an amazing image, it is when there is simplicity that I can appreciate and understand an image more and fully see what the icon of that image is trying to portray.

The lecture and the reading relate well with each other because Michael Salter's work is iconic. Just as in the reading how the images on the pages are not the actual objects itself but portrayals of the images that become icons, Salter's work does the same thing. Just as the reading says, although the drawing of the objects are not the real thing, as far as pictorial icons go they are pretty realistic. In both Michael's work and in the images in the reading there is always meaning in every icon. The icon isn't just the image it is more about what the image means. I feel as though when Michael was speaking in his lecture he also was trying to explain that his art work was about more than just the art it was about the underlying meaning of what it actually represented also known as being iconic. To be more specific, I connect the images of faces on page 28 in the upper right hand corner to the faces Michael created the had no bodies just a neck the connected a face to a hand. I connect these two types of faces because neither of them have bodies but the faces all portray something iconic. They have detail and simplicity at the same time which I really like about both types of faces. However, I have to say the faces done by Michael were more interesting to me. I also felt that although I can see how both works are iconic I felt that the images of Michael Salter were much more detailed and creative than the ones in the reading. Michael Salter's work had me wanting to see more!

Although this is not a drawing, I chose this image because it is an iconic photograph and an iconic piece of artwork which I thought went well with the theme of icons in both the reading and Michael Salter's work.