Lukas Felzmann

Lukas Felzmann was born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1959. He received his MFA at San Francisco Art Institute. Felzmann is a photographer, sculptor, and installation artist. A lot of his work focuses on nature, especially his newest series "about the Sacramento Valley as place and metaphor by documenting a marsh altered through agriculture" and development (art.stanford.edu). His work focuses on the intersection of nature and human culture. Through his work, "our environment appears dissected, condensed into stacks of books and strung with wires, threatened but ultimately triumphant as it tears apart and floods our roadways and topples our houses. Yet far from aggressive, his art is subtle, metaphorical and based in a world which seems to elude easy categorization" (greenmuseum.org).

I chose to research this artist for a couple of different reasons. His work primarily focuses on nature, which is what my work is focusing on as well. He exposes the connection between the natural world and human civilization and what we do to control it. Ultimately, nature prevails though. Through my work, I'm trying to expose my connection to nature and my environment through abstracted surreal imagery. Also, he is an installation artist. I've been thinking about how I will present my final work and I've considered doing an installation with projections. Looking at other multimedia artists and their final presentation is really helpful when I think about how I will present my pieces.

http://www.lukasfelzmann.com/felzmann.html

http://www.sloanfineart.com/index.html

http://www.lukasfelzmann.com/index.html

Cary Street Gym Art Space

I just applied to the Cary Street Gym Art Space call for art. If picked I will get to exhibit 7-10 pieces of work in the gym. I'll be hearing from the committee in a few weeks. Wish me luck!

Biophilia

The Biophilia hypothesis suggests that "there is an instinctive bond between human beings and other living systems" (wikipedia.org). This word literally means a love of life or living systems. I think this pretty accurately describes the reasoning for my work. I love nature. I love animals. I love people. I love life. All of these things interest me. And that is why I want to do what I'm doing. I want to capture nature and hopefully get across my feelings through my photographs. American biologist Edward O. Wilson popularized this term in his book Biophilia. He describes it as "the connections that human beings subconsciously seek with the rest of life" (wikipedia.org).

         "And it occurred to me that evening that one of the things about the world is that it is largely        indifferent to the human stories that we weave. We may be, as I have said before on this blog, storytellers by nature; but nature itself is not story-like. And because the stories that we weave can so often be limiting, can so often trap us, or can so often simply go over the same old ground, again and again, this attention to the world can loosen the bonds a little, can give us over to a kind of thinking that can help us find new paths and tracks through the world" (thinkbuddha.org).

I'm not sure if I want to tell a story with my images. Maybe I do. I think right now I have hit a bit of a roadblock. I'm not sure what to do next. All I can do at the moment is keep meditating, be out in nature, and shoot. I found out about this hypothesis on accident. I was researching on thinkbuddha.org and came across the term in a blog entry. It was kind of crazy how much it related to what I'm doing now and what I want to keep doing with my work.

Wilson, Edward O. Biophilia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1984. Print.

Florian Maier-Aichen

Florian Maier-Aichen was born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1973. He earned his MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. His work could be described as "alternately romantic, cerebral, and unearthly" (pbs.org/art21). Aichen digitally alters his photographs to the point where they are more like drawings than documentation. However, he embraces many different techniques to photograph. He chooses to use equipment with light leaks that double expose occasionally. He is interested in the areas where landscape and cityscape meet, so he "chooses locations and subjects from the American West and Europe—from his own neighborhoods to vistas of the natural world" to photograph (pbs.org/art21).

I have chosen this artist because his work is somewhat similar to mine, although our ideas may be a little different. I too am interested in nature and my relationship to it. Along with my interest in nature, I am interested in figuring out my relationship with the city I live in too. Is it possible to feel as lost in a city as I feel in nature? Or vice versa? I like the fact that he experiments with his photography. He doesn't try to use super nice equipment, he would rather take a chance and use cameras that may leak light or double expose a few shots. I'm approaching my project with this same intention. I use a Diana camera that isn't entirely reliable. It tends to leak light and "mess up" my images in various ways. But this is the kind of thing I'm looking for. I like my images to look raw and organic. I think that helps out a lot when it comes to my ideas and what I'm trying to go for.

Interview: http://blog.art21.org/2010/07/09/florian-maier-aichen-rejecting-tradition/

http://www.303gallery.com/artists/florian_maier-aichen/

www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/florian_maier_aichen.htm
www.pbs.org/art21

Black and White Images

Wanderer

The Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu uses the word yu, which means to wander, or a wandering. He describes a metaphor for life as a "totally free and purposeless journey" (p 6). This is how man should wander through life, just enjoying creation and not becoming attached to anything material. Another part of his philosophy was the idea of wu-wei, or inaction. This is "a course of action that is not founded upon any purposeful motives of gain or striving. All human actions become as spontaneous and mindless as those of the natural world" (p 6).

Reading Tzu's work has been really beneficial to my work and has aided me in furthering what I'm doing. I really like the quote about human action becoming spontaneous. That is kind of the direction my work has been going the past few times I have been shooting. I go places, not intending to shoot something in particular. I end up just wandering around, till I feel comfortable wherever I am. Sometimes this doesn't take long at all, other times I have to sit there, in silence, meditating or writing or just thinking. When I start shooting, it is very spontaneous. My camera ends up feeling like an extension of my hands. Everything I have been shooting is very organic and in the moment, which is something I really enjoy.

Zhuangzi, and Burton Watson. Basic Writings. New York: Columbia UP, 1964. Print.

John Cage

Cage was an American composer, philosopher, poet, music theorist, artist, and printmaker. He pioneered "chance music", electronic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments. He has been called one of the most influential American composers of the 20th century. He is best known for his 1952 composition 4'33", which was performed without a single note being played. The content of this piece was meant to be perceived as the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it's being performed. His work that I am particularly interested in is the work that was devoted to chance. He was given a copy of the book called, I Ching, and he used that to compose his work.

"When I hear what we call music, it seems to me that someone is talking. And talking about his feelings, or about his ideas of relationships. But when I hear traffic, the sound of traffic—here on Sixth Avenue, for instance—I don't have the feeling that anyone is talking. I have the feeling that sound is acting. And I love the activity of sound [...] I don't need sound to talk to me" (wikipedia.org).

"The highest purpose is to have no purpose at all. This puts one in accord with nature, in her manner of operation" (brainyquote.com).


I really love the philosophy of Cage's work, especially the above quote. I am trying to do the same thing with my work. All of the photographs I have been taking are completely up to chance. When I set out to shoot, all I know is the location. I have no shots in mind, I just go out, meditate, and shoot when I feel moved to. I have been reading Basic Writings by Chuang Tzu and a lot of his philosophy is just like Cage's. Tzu urges people to have no attachments, no purpose. The whole point of life is to just wander.


www.johncage.info


www.newalbion.com/artists/cagej/

epc.buffalo.edu/authors/berrigan/cage.html 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJagb7hL0E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExUosomc8Uc
<a href="http://www.kewego.com/video/iLyROoaftbhg.html">John Cage Variations III - kewego</a>
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1326163/variations_vii_by_john_cage/


Sorry Lauren! Blogger wouldn't let me embed video clips into my blog so I had to post links.

Wafaa Bilal Question/Response

1. Would you be interested in doing other political pieces besides those involving the Iraq war, like the Darfur genocide etc.?

2. How are our stereotypes of Arab culture related to views of Arab women and women in general?

Response

I really enjoyed Wafaa Bilal's lecture, I thought he did a really good job of presenting his pieces. By only presenting a couple of his past works we were able to get a very in-depth look at each individual piece. He said two things that were really interesting to me. Bilal thinks "all art is political. It matters what kind of politics you engage in." I thought that was interesting, it made me look at my work and see if I could relate my work in any way. The fact that he makes his work very personal yet open to all people, in the form of games or Internet sites, is inspiring. I don't know if I would be able to make work on a personal level like that for so many people to see. The fact that other Muslims and Arabs sometimes don't agree with his work is interesting; I would think that his message to the world that Iraqi's need help would be appreciated. That doesn't matter to Bilal though, I think he actually likes it when people get enraged or offended because he stated that his work is "meant to agitate and engage" the audience. I liked his reasoning for making the work because in the end it raises awareness and gives other courage. I think my favorite piece of his is ...And Counting. I like the idea of using your body as a canvas and the fact that he has Iraq cities tattooed on his body forever is real commitment to his work. I think it says a lot too when you are finally shown the blacklight tattoos and you can really take in the enormity of the situation and the fact that so many innocent people have been killed. It really makes you step back and realize the pointlessness of war.

Time

"Time has been defined as the continuum in which events occur in succession from the past to the present and on to the future" (wikipedia.org). Looking at time from a religious standpoint it can be defined "as a medium for the passage of predestined events" (wikipedia.org). I find this interesting because part of my work is focusing on meditation and other practices relating to Eastern religions.

There is an appointed time (zman) for everything. And there is a time (’êth) for every event under heaven–
A time (’êth) to give birth, and a time to die; A time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted.
A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to tear down, and a time to build up.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance.
A time to throw stones, and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, and a time to shun embracing.
A time to search, and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep, and a time to throw away.
A time to tear apart, and a time to sew together; A time to be silent, and a time to speak.
A time to love, and a time to hate; A time for war, and a time for peace. – Ecclesiastes 3:1–8

I've been thinking about how time relates to the work I'm making this semester. For one, I thought it would be interesting to document my journeys over a period of time. Or to document everything that happens during my meditations, which could be an hour or more.

Time as "unreal"

"In 5th century BC Greece, Antiphon the Sophist, in a fragment preserved from his chief work On Truth held that: "Time is not a reality (hypostasis), but a concept (noêma) or a measure (metron)." Parmenides went further, maintaining that time, motion, and change were illusions, leading to the paradoxes of his follower Zeno.^[35] Time as illusion is also a common theme in Buddhist thought,^[36] and some modern philosophers have carried on with this theme. J. M. E. McTaggart's 1908 The Unreality of Time, for example, argues that time is unreal (see also The flow of time).
However, these arguments often center around what it means for something to be "real". Modern physicists generally consider time to be as "real" as space, though others such as Julian Barbour in his book The End of Time, argue that quantum equations of the universe take their true form when expressed in the timeless configuration spacerealm containing every possible "Now" or momentary configuration of the universe, which he terms 'platonia'" (wikipedia.org).

Strauss, D.F.M. "Do We Really Comprehend Time?" South African Journal of Philosophy 29.2 (2010): 167-77. Print.

Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy is a sculptor, photographer, and environmentalist. He was born in England, in 1956. He spent the majority of his youth on farms, working as a laborer. He once compared the repetitiveness of farm work to that of sculpture saying, "a lot of my work is like picking potatoes; you have to get into the rhythm of it" (wikipedia.org). He uses natural and found objects to create permanent and temporary sculptures, which draw the character out of their environment. He once said, ""I think it's incredibly brave to be working with flowers and leaves and petals. But I have to: I can't edit the materials I work with. My remit is to work with nature as a whole" (wikipedia.org). In a way, that is what I am trying to do with my work this semester. I want to work with nature and document my experiences in different environments, whether I am meditating or just examining my surroundings. 


"His goal is to understand nature by directly participating in nature as intimately as he can" (morningearth.org). 


Goldsworthy states, "Looking, touching, material, place and form are all inseparable from the resulting work. It is difficult to say where one stops and another begins" (morningearth.org). This is also something I have been contemplating with my work. I see myself as part of nature. That's one of the reasons why I meditate while I am photographing; so I can feel that oneness with my surroundings and really become in tune with the environment. 


http://www.sfmoma.org/- represents some of his work


http://www.artnet.com/artist/7145/andy-goldsworthy.html- Goldsworthy doesn't have his own website but this is his artnet page with a bio and examples of his work. 


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3663966/Hes-got-the-whole-world-in-his-hands.html

Lost

"It's not unusual to feel lost in the middle of our lives while sitting in our own living room, and it's possible to remain lost for months, years, or permanently. Lost souls" (Bill Plotkin, innerself.com).

Being "lost" was one of the topics of discussion in my first meeting with Lauren. It's also something I've been interested in since the beginning of the summer when I started traveling cross-country. I've been thinking about the idea of being lost in everyday life, even when you're surrounded by others. Primarily, I am interested in being lost within nature and our surrounding environment. I've started doing meditations in remote locations, trying to figure this all out. I think what I am working towards this semester is trying to answer all of my questions about being lost in life and seeking inner happiness. What it takes to find inner peace, I'm not sure yet. I'm hoping with my photography I can figure that out.

"When wandering, there is immense value in "finding ourselves lost" because we can find something when we are lost, we can find our selves. Indeed, the deepest form of wandering requires that we be lost" (innerself.com).

Solnit, Rebecca. A Field Guide to Getting Lost. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.

"Either you will go through this door or you will not go through. If you go through there is always the risk of remembering your name..." (Adrienne Rich)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3fdZewJc3Y

Chris Welsby

Chris Welsby was born in England in 1948. He is an experimental photographer and filmmaker; making work since 1969. His work primarily focuses on the relationship between the moving image and nature. He has created special cameras for his various projects. One of his most notable creations was in "Anemometer", where he made a camera motor that was driven by the wind so when the wind blew fast the film went fast as well.

"In my single screen films and single channel videos the mechanics of film and video interact with the landscape in such a way that elemental processes—such as changes in light, the rise and fall of the tide or changes in wind direction—are given the space and time to participate in the process of representation" (sfu.ca).

This is what I have been thinking about a lot as I contemplate my own project. I've been thinking about my interactions with nature and taking a documentary style approach to my work. I like the fact that Welsby creates cameras that work with nature so it's like nature is doing the work for him. 

"The process of re-presenting the landscape in either the single screen works or the installations is not seen to be separate from nature or in any way objective, but is viewed instead, as part of a more symbiotic model in which technology and nature are both viewed as inter-related parts of a larger gestalt" (sfu.ca).


This is another aspect I have been considering when I think about my project. I've been thinking about incorporating sound/video into my work as well as photography. In the end, I would hope that everything would come together as one interconnected whole.
Samadhi-It has been described as a non-dualistic state of consciousness in which the consciousness of the experiencing subject becomes one with the experienced object (wikipedia.org).

Chris Welsby interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnGrOmIIBrI
http://www.sfu.ca/~welsby/Tree_S_L.jpg
http://www.sfu.ca/~welsby/At_Sea_L.jpg
http://www.sfu.ca/~welsby/SeaPic-L.jpg
http://www.sfu.ca/~welsby/Stream1L.jpg

Moving Images Distribution
http://www.sfu.ca/~welsby/Intro.htm

Transcend

"In religion, transcendence is a condition or state of being that surpasses physical existence and in one form is also independent of it" (Wikipedia).
Lately, I have been fascinated by the Buddhist religion and the art of meditation. I think what I like about meditation the most is the fact that it's something that you do all by yourself. When you are meditating, it is just you, your thoughts, and sound. I'm interested in these quiet, out of the way places where you are able to be one with nature and be alone. I have always loved being alone, especially in these special places where it's just me and my thoughts. Sometimes when I explore these places I wonder what went on before I got there. I'm intrigued by the fact that I don't know everything, I wish I could but I know it's impossible. I think I would like to explore this more in the course of my project.
"To recognise the limitations of our models of the world leads to a kind of freedom. There is always a further dimension to be explored, another angle to take; and therefore we are never simply stuck with the knowledge that we have, the world that we have constructed" (thinkBuddha.org). Part of this interest in transcendence is also an interest in inner happiness and what is necessary to feel true happiness. "If we understand transcendence in this broad sense, then perhaps it is not only a factor that contributes to happiness, but also a necessary condition of happiness. These are the roots that we need to nurture if we value happiness at all" (thinkBuddha.org).

Gyatso, Geshe K. The New Mediation Handbook. 2009 ed. Glen Spey: Tharpa Publications, NY. Print.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/uravenu/4761696471/in/set-72157624297703139/
The above link is a picture from the road trip that I went on this past summer. It was taken by Harrison Moenich. Seeing places like this, I have never felt so happy or alive. That is what I want to search for as I work on my projects this semester.