2 Contests

I entered three images from this year's series into the Student Juried Show by the VCU Anderson Gallery and got two images accepted into the show.

Later, I also entered three environmental portraits into the PDN "Faces" Portraiture photo competition, and haven't heard back from them yet.

Idea Post #9: Spring Semester

Idea Post #9: Spring Semester

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Video Game Influence

Quotes:

"The most widely used positive impact video games are said to have on children is that they may improve a player's manual dexterity and computer literacy. Ever-improving technology also provides players with better graphics that give a more "realistic" virtual playing experience." 

Source: http://www.pamf.org/preteen/parents/videogames.html 

"Gentile & Anderson (2003) state that playing video games may increase aggressive behavior because violent acts are continually repeated throughout the video game. This method of repetition has long been considered an effective teaching method in reinforcing learning patterns."

Source: http://www.pamf.org/preteen/parents/videogames.html

Annotated Bibliography:

Bushman, B. & Anderson, C. (2002). Violent Video Games and Hostile Expectations: A Test of the General Aggression Model. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1679-1686.  This source focuses on violence in video games and how it effects children and their well-being.  It goes into detail about how a certain amount of violence in video games, if played regularly, creates a certain amount of hostility in the child's environment.  It also goes into detail about how violence in video games can alter the personality of a child.

Relation:

Similar to my post about musical influence on children, I am again exploring what influences children besides their parents or people in their lives directly. Video game influence isn't really an aspect of my thought process that will come out in my series directly, but looking into all aspect of childhood influence helps me to figure out what to focus on, what to research, and what isn't as important for my series.

Artist Post #10: Spring Semester

Artist Post #10: Spring Semester

April 11, 2011

Darren Saravis

Bio: "Darren Saravis studied Fine Art at the Pratt Institute, and graduated from California State University at Northridge with a degree in Industrial Design. He sees photography as a natural extension of the formal aspects of design. Darren lives and works in Long Beach, California, where he founded Nectar Design, one of Southern California's most successful design studios. His work has been exhibited in many venues in his home state, including Infusion Gallery in Los Angeles and the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art. His photographs will be featured at the Micro Museum in Brooklyn in 2009."

-Source:  http://www.compositiongallery.com/artists/25-Darren-Saravis

Quotes:

"I created the Body/Text Project as a means of using technology to explore how traditional media and artistic exploitation of the human form separates thought from flesh. By turning skin into a screen and projecting text onto it, I seek to reunite the intellectual and the physical in an aesthetically bold context. My aim is to render beauty and to celebrate human beings as thinking animals."

- Source: http://www.compositiongallery.com/shows/35-Body-Text-Project 

"Ideally, overlaying this text onto naked human flesh will serve as a reminder that these agreements are vitally important to our very survival. In mythology and classical art, messengers are usually depicted nude or draped only in scant clothing. These models are messengers as well."

Source: http://darrensaravis.net/statement/

 Relation: As my previous posts have obviously shown, I am kind of obsessed with photography and text this semester.  Thematically, this work isn't really relevant to my current series, but technically it is.  I really am drawn to the projections of text on top of the subjects in the photographs.  The contrast of the white projection light and the dark text on skin tones is really beautiful. 

Links:

Artist Website

Interview

Gallery Rep

Idea Post #8: Spring Semester

Idea Post #8: Spring Semester

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Parental Influence

"The parent-child relationship is the most important relationship the child has. Different parental styles lead to various ways we interact with our children and is an important component that shapes the child's views about themselves and their world."

Source: http://www.mesacc.edu/dept/d46/psy/dev/Spring99/schoolage/family.html

"What can we, as parents and teachers, do to facilitate a child's development in the psychosocial arena? First, we must recognize the child's need and interpret his behavior from his perspective, not our own. Secondly, we can encourage the child and seek to meet his need to belong in a way that he understands. By doing these things, the child builds a good self-image which increases his ability to interact in a positive way with others and leads to the development of effective relationships with important people in his life: parents, siblings, and peers."

Source: http://www.mesacc.edu/dept/d46/psy/dev/Spring99/schoolage/family.html

Annotated Bibliography: Hill, C.R. and Stafford, F.P. (1980). Parental care of children: Time diary estimate of quantity, predictability, and variety. Journal of Human Resources, 15, 219-239.

This journal goes into the specifics of raising children and the how much the child benefits, or doesn't benefit from certain types of parental influence.  It goes into the psychology behind the child's feelings and their actions how each varied response from a parent can affect the child in different ways.  

Throughout the whole last year, I have been looking into the various ways children are influenced and how that influence affects their behavior and mindset. Looking into parental influence for once, instead of researching educational influence gave me a new perspective on how a child can be influenced.  I sought out with this original thought process, and got wrapped up in educational settings that it was time for me to turn back to the parents for some answers as well.

Artist Lecture: Trevor Paglen

Artist Lecture: Trevor Paglen

Tuesday April 5th, 2011

Questions:  

1. I love the way you don't just call yourself an artist or a photographer, but you also refer to yourself as a social scientist, a geographer, and a provocateur. Do you feel this way and market yourself this way for a certain reason?

2.  What is your attraction to painting with light and creating abstractions from cityscapes?

Favorite Quotes from the Lecture:

"How do we try to know something that is designed to be unknowable? How do we see things that are designed to be invisible?"

"If we want to try to see invisible things, we have to be like astronomers."

"If you want to build an invisible airplane, you can not employ ghosts to work in your factory."


Three Words:
Secrecy
Contradictions
Paranoia

Honestly, this lecture was just weird.  I have looked at Paglen's work before and from reading his descriptions and reviews have always enjoyed it, but after hearing him speak today, I certainly have a different take on his work.  He began his lecture with saying, "Today I want to talk to you specifically about state secrecy."  He went on to talk about tracing "nonsensical" names with "billions of dollars attached to them" and following where the money goes to expose undercover areas and operations.  The talk itself was interesting, but the art shown wasn't work, in my opinion, of a creative mind, but rather evidence collected and displayed by a geographer and researcher. He talked to us about setting up "front companies" and the military patches with insignias for secret organizations.  Again, the lecture was interesting and I'm glad I got to hear him speak, but I don't think I was inspired to make creative work after this, my head was just confused.

Artist Post #9: Spring Semester

Artist Post #9: Spring Semester

Monday, April 4, 2011

Lewis Koch

Bio: Lewis Koch was born in 1949 in New York, New York but now lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He got his BA in History from Beloit College and then entered the Concerned Photography (ICP) Program at NYU in 1971. He has had numerous solo exhibitions at colleges, galleries, and museums around the country since 1978.  He has also participated in a good number of environmental installations around the country ranging from 1982 to 1998. Koch has a huge amount of permanent collections and has won a whole list of grant awards and fellowships to continue his art making.

Relation: In the late 1970s, Koch began working with the idea of "found text." He was drawn to the idea that these written themes, often cynical and mysterious, are found out there in our daily lives, in the ordinary world, but are often overlooked. He uses his photography to draw attention to these areas and these sometimes cryptic pieces of text. I have been looking at artists who use text in their photography all semester and most of them have added text to existing photographs. Koch, on the other hand, uses found text AS his photographs which is a really interesting idea to me.

Quotes:

“I like seeing things and I like words. There is something revelatory about the two together, an almost pentecostal feeling of seeing in tongues.”

 Source:

http://www.eyecurious.com/review-lewis-koch-touchless-automatic-wonder/

Links:

Gallery Rep

Artist Website

Interview

Idea Post #7: Spring Semester

Idea Post #7: Spring Semester

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Music

Quotes:

"Music helps to relax you and your child and can improve his memory development and sensory coordination."

 Source: http://www.child-development-guide.com/music-and-child-development.html

"There are many benefits of surrounding your child with music. Music assists in the development of his speech. Singing nursery rhymes and simple songs teaches him how language is constructed and assists with the acquisition of language. Singing songs with him will also teach him about tone, beat and rhythm." 

Source: http://www.child-development-guide.com/music-and-child-development.html

Annotated Bibliography: Greenberg, M. "The Development and Evaluation of a Preschool Music Curriculum for Preschool and Headstart Children." Psychology of Music, 2:1 (1974): 34-38.

I was led to this source through a few scholarly journal articles about the effects of music played to children at an early age. This source talks about just that. It shows examples of what effects music can have on young children around ages of 3 to 5 years old.

Relation: I have recently been interested on other types of media that affect children at a pivotal age.
 In general, I have been talking about media and indirect influence as a whole, but I have decided to look into more specific types of things that affect a child growing up. Music is something that affects a child as early as in the womb and there are plenty of articles written on the effects.