Blog Assignment 10-Respond Advertising &Culture Jamming

Culture jamming is a subverting phenomenon which can be seen in forms like TV programme, product images, advertising and so on. Culture jammers are simply aimed at exposing questionable political issues behind commercial culture or emphatically illustrate the dark side of an object which can not be seen from surface or is hided. Commercial ad is really popular at the moment, many jamming artists jam culture by re-figure original ads.
"Something not far from the surface of the public psyche is delighted to see the icons of corporate power subverted and mocked," Naomi Klein writes, a New York journalist . Take a McDonald's ad for example, this is a video called McDonald's Culture Jam Montage from YouTube. In this video, at the beginning, we can see some scene about ronald McDonald playing with kids and several colorful burgers and chips images keep moving. Approximately at 0:28, the happy atmosphere changed, followed by a illustration about obesity trends among U.S. adults. After that, some obese people come out and followed by an visual animation which showing people how a little chicken by killed and cooked. At the end of this video, there are some short strips displayed. It's about the results by over eating McDonald's. Especially at the end, a close-up of a sick man's gut which is gathering up by a doctor is really make viewers feel disgusting, make McDonald's disgusting. In normal times, McDonald's consumers don't realize those dark fact. On the contrary, what they can see normally are some yummy hamburger images and the new McDonald's foods ads. I believe some one won't eat burgers in a while after they saw the video.
In my opinion, the main function of this video is not letting people stop eating McDonald's but expose extreme truth. A good jam, in other words, is an "X-ray of the subconscious of a campaign, uncovering not an opposite meaning but the deeper truth hiding beneath the layers of advertising euphemisms." In the movie Super Size Me, the main character Morgan Spur lock consumed nothing but food from McDonald's, an experiment in bad living that frames a jaunty critique of junk food. This movie is an entertaining statement of the obvious, but it let viewers thinking about a question- Is the food enjoyment more important than health? Through culture jamming, people can understand more things which can not be seen from surface. It's also a good tool of exposing social problems.

Blog Assignment 9-Respond Site And Surface

Site-specific art is a kind of art medium which use to create artwork in a certain place. Christo and Jeanne-Claude were a married couple who created outdoor site-specific art and environmental artworks. One of their most influential artworks they created is the Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin. The Reichstag was the former German parliment building and is located right next to the Berlin wall. Christo and Jeanne-Claude designed it could be transformed to something special. By making this masterpiece, more than 100,000 m2 of fireproof polypropylene fabric were used, covered by an aluminum layer, and 15km of rope were needed. When viewers look at the wrapped building, particularly at night, there were yellow lights around the building, the dark side color is deep blue and the color between the bright side and dark side is purple. It looks like a white castle comes from fairy tales or dream. People who viewing this will just enjoy this beauty thing instead of talking about Reichstag's negative symbolism.

Lot's of significant environmental artworks all over the world, just like wrapped Reichstag or surrounded islands Christo and Jeanne created have the function of making a big impact. Because they have large scale and millions of people can view at the same time. However, huge artworks are not the only medium to make big impact, little scale can also astonishing people. Like surface artworks, many artists create beauty through hand drawing, copy or print. They probably not large like outdoor artworks, they may small. Such as Andy Warhol's Artworks.

Andy Warhol was an American artist who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. In 1962, Andy Warhol's first one-man art gallery exhibition displayed his artworks 100 Soup Cans, 100Coke Bottles and 100 Dollar Bills which made him famous. He always using those mass media images like coke bottles as his basic elements repeatedly setting on his artworks. He intentionally remove the emotive color. In fact, viewers can find a specific dull, repetition in his works. He tried to describe a blank, alienated feeling.

Different art methods can give viewers different impact and enjoyment. If you like use Large scale to deliver nature, universe, then you can also use surface or small scale to talk about something inside people's heart.

Blog Assignment8-Characters Analysis In Original Star Wars

Star Wars are a series of science fiction movies conceived and directed by George Lucas. Up to now, George Lucas has directed six films and the final one is released on May, 2005 called Revenge of the Sith. The first one is originally released on May 5, 1977, called A New Hope, in this one, there are two characters which give me great impression and let me focus on. The first is the small droid R2-D2, it is one of the four main protagonists to appear in all six Star Wars films. If you don't know this droid before and you see it from a long distance, you may think that is a dustbin in error. I consider this would be one of the reasons why R2-D2 is special from other robots in other science fiction movies. In A New Hope, The with small droid Leia's plans and C-3PO escapes to the surface of the desert planet Tatooine where is the place Luke Skywalker living in. In many plots, R2-D2 is always play a key role. When Luke, princess Leia and Rebel Alliance are fall into the big dustbin and almost be crashed. In this urgent moment, it's R2-D2 who saves all these three most important figures. And with the cute appearance, R2-D2 become one of my favourite characters in Star Wars. R2-D2 also be designed and manufactured in different fields. Like R2-D2 dustbin, toy, souvenir, etc.... it seems like R2-D2 has become the symbol of the Star Wars series.

Another character I want to talk about is droid C-3PO, this gold surface droid looks more humanization cause it can speak and keep breaking jests. In the movie, C-3PO bring lots of happiness, without this character, the movie may possibly looks more boring. In fact, a large number of movies use this kind of character to make film plots more humorous. For example, in Transformers 2, we can also find some characters like C-3PO, except Leo, we can also see a red and a green Chevrolet autobots. These two brothers have the function of producing a lively and happy atmosphere in the film. When Prime transfer his body for fight, audience will scream"awesome". The red and green small autobots are not that strong, but their attitude are always optimistic, they are not important, but they are absolutely necessary elements in films.

Blog Assignment7-Respnd The Auckland War Memorial Museum Visit

In the Auckland War Memorial Museum we saw a wild range of exhibitions about New Zealand culture and history. At the ground level, there are many spaces display the Pacific Island communities and many astonishing beautiful objects they produced like models which can reflect history, toys and tools people played and used in the past. Some galleries tell the story of Pakeha childhood while the Maori court displays many kinds of objects which deeply tell people the magnificent culture of Maori. Other spaces show the international design and decorative arts.

When it comes to the Maori culture, all the objects showed in the Maori Court are outstanding. The majority of Maori's historical objects like sculptures made of wood are show in the glass walls because these treasures are untouchable. One of the most astonishing objects is the Te Toki a Topiri, displayed at the right corner of the Maori Court. This is the last of the great Maori war canoes. With the hull adzed from a singe huge log, the canoe is 25m long and can carry 100 warriors. This show makes me think of the Camakau, sailing canoe. This canoe is produced by Fijian craftsmen, made of wood, too. It is a dugout sailing canoe with outrigger, added wash strakes and decking. This canoe is not that long like Te Toki a Topiri, but in my opinion, I think this one is displayed much better. With the moving blue lights under the canoe, and dark lights as the background, it more looks like a canoe comes from dream.

I was also attracted by the Wild Child space, people can enjoy a story of childhood in New Zealand over the past 150 years. When you step in this place, first you will see a life-size elephant standing in black iron railings, this elephant called Rajah, an icon of Auckland Museum and Auckland's childhoods. And I think that is why Rajsh placed at the head of the Wild Child. Most of the objects displayed here are toys, dolls with strings, many kinds of sweet sugars. Plush toys, cars, photographs, dolls are hanging on the wall or setting on the ground inside glass walls. What special we can see is how those different sugars displayed, each kind of sugars are set in a glass block and when all the blocks get together, it looks very colorful. On the left side of the space, people can see some uniformed children models in the window wall, models are all white, so the colorful uniforms can stand out.

However, in my opinion, the childhood story should be told in a better way. Many objects are represent very simple, people come here just browsing the objects but not totally into the story and after they walk out of the space they may remember nothing. A little bit change is necessary, like when talking about the uniformed children, how about make a series of 3D film for people to watch or put on some historical files, photographs. And if elephant Rajsh graved more special than other elephants, or make some voice to let people pay more attention, that will be a better way to represent that Rajsh don't like viewers riding on it's back in the zoo.

Blog Assignment 6-Respond the Post-colonialism

Colonialism means a country compulsorily oppress and control another country's military, economic and culture. However, post colonialism means not just rob another nation's culture, economic, but also reconstruct economic, culture and politics of injured countries and conform their wealth to suzerain's own construction. With the development of post colonialism, the majority of the indigenous art and culture in the third world has been assimilated and some of them became popular on the global society. So, black, yellow and white people started living together and than another problem came out which is especially always happened in western world- the racialism.

Because of the post colonialism, many things appear on society include art strongly impacted. Some classy or traditional custom affected by some new habit from other countries. And for protecting the tradition or with other purpose, some racists reject black skin color people, letting them do many hard work or even treat those labours just as an animal . For example, in old United States, some public places are not available for black people or even African American and this event actually still appear at present. To expose this unfair social problem, many indigenous artists are using contemporary art present those untold stories.

Adrian Piper, the first generation conceptual artist in New York city who did drew some great art works about her gaze to the race. Like the one, Self-Portrait Exaggerating my Negroid Features, 1981. This is a insinuative self-portrait. In this drawing, the image presented an African American long hair woman. Piper designedly emphasize the big nose, full lips and hair and telling us she views herself as an African American woman. If viewers watch this image, they wouldn't just realise that they are watching a African woman, they will think about the people usually view her as a white woman but in fact she is a black woman, in this race ignore society, will she still have equal treatment or not.

Another work which present problem of racism is the video: Wog Features, directed by Lisa Reihana , in this video, people can see many black person toys, some black people are performing on the stage or strangely laughing each other or playing together, and elements and stuff about minority nationalities keep making up different patterns which transfer racist imagery. the technology Reihana use in the video, just like the American animation film: Chicken Run. This is different way to look at the minority race, letting people consider the racism society we are living and question people's previous attitude about those indigenous people who are having unfair treatment.

Blog Assignment 5-Respond The Triennial

There are lots of contemporary artworks exhibited in the 4th Auckland Triennial exhibits fulfilled it's terms "adventure & risk" in a extraordinary way. The theme of this exhibition: Last Ride In A Hot Air Balloon, tells people that nowadays, we are facing more and more risk and contradiction in our society, like the recent economic recession, higher unemployment rate, gap between wealthy and poor and so on. And now it's the time to change the situation and face the risk bravely. In this Triennial, we can find most of the artists trying to describe their desire of having adventure and break something new. one if those artworks which can totally represents the terms is the short films made by Marine Hugonnier, her films almost completely contain all kinds of risk and adventure, especially the third one has a image of a hot balloon image, this one has the function of emphasis the theme of this exhibition and let me think of the last year American 3D animation UP, the old man attaches thousands of hot balloons to the house and use the flying house to go to the south American waterfall to finish the dream of him and his wife who had die. For a person, a life without adventure and risk isn't a worth life, for our society, environment, and our world, if we don't try to transform or try to explore the world, we will never develop our society. And the artists are try to telling us, it's time to risk. In addition to the idea those artworks represent, I'm also attracted by the wild range of materials they use, you can see color painting or hand-made drawing in this exhibition, all these new materials and art forms seem like telling person this is something new, some new style, not tradition.I think this is also one part of the risk and adventure.

There are two artworks interest me most, first one is the "Singing Cloud", by Shilpa Gupta. I was amazed by the 4000 microphones, and the sound of singing songs, bird, surfing, etc. This one is really close to the adventure than others because this one can give viewer not only visual impact but also the natural sound which lead listener to the adventure, making people feel they are walking in the forest.

Another one is Robert Hood's Making Useful Useless, this one is quite a performance art. I'm really appreciate the tension of this artwork and I was surprised by the scrap from his white car. It's really a wonderful idea to destroy a useful thing useless to represent his idea. Actually, it's not destroy, it's a non-traditional way to give one thing a new life. Through looking at those car materials can you feel Hood's insinuative attitude to the lack of productivity in both economy and art area. He trying to tell us well should create something new, something more contemporary, don't be outmoded.

Blog Assignment 4-Respond Gaze

When talking about gaze, I think it's something can be explained as an action expresses a psychological power relationship between gazed and gazer. No matter male, female or homo, people are always gaze from recorded photographies, images, painting or something else and some sort of photographies and artworks are repersent naked lady. And these works give gazer a voyeuristic dimension and male group are always the gazer, female group and their bodies are gazed. Viewer should looking at the relationship of the objects appear in a work. Below there is a example about explaination of the relationship between gazed and gazer.

From the art photography Vanessa Beecroft, VB 50, by photographer and designer Vanessa Beecroft. We can see lots of black, yellow and white skin naked women are standing on the ground with black boots, red wigs. And with the white interesting desgined building, this picture looks like a tableau and it's reminiscent of multicolored culture and societies. This is not just a naked women photography, however, the women's act of exhibiting has a power of letting gazer to reduce a naked woman to a object and increasing voyeuristic watching to secondary thing. For Vanessa Beecroft, those girls are materials, are a part of her visual components to organize her own visual language. Viewers will pay more attention on the women's height, dimensions, types, colors, even their emotion instead of just browsing on surface of the image. So, the power of the image represents which can inspire gazer is the culture and stories behind the naked bodies. To gaze is to analyse the visual component, color and materials artists use and consider the background of naked bodies.

I researched more information about Beecroft, and what interests me most is her performance art. The majority of Vanessa Beecroft's performances arts are all quite similar. Especially on the creative form and construction. The main materials she use in her art are normally heels, wigs or some other live figure. The models are always naked standing on the ground without any emotion(for Beecroft, those models are also the part of her materials to accomplish her performance art). From the Internet, Beecroft's performance has be describe as art, fashion, brilliant, evocative, provocative, disturbing, sexist, and I am really agree with these description. Beecroft usually bring us lots of girls without too many clothes or just naked girls on high black heels and dressing red, yellow black wigs. Every time I watch Beecroft's performance art and her photograpies from the Internet, those girls always try to find their own position with no talk or noise, and then standing in front of viewers completely. In these works, models wearing same dressing or just naked, and they have same face-painting. The girls in her artworks has no different characteristics any more. All these information these artworks present have changed my way of how I thought about nudity, and also I think this is not just some kind of naked girl pictures for male viewers to see.However, in Beecroft's works, nudity is a form of clothing. The particular hair color, the powerful heels girls on or shade of pantyhose, all these elements represent the illusion of integrate atmosphere.