Theresa's Artisteacher Blog

Abstract

Today was really interesting– there are so many ways to make motorized art, from simple hand-driven Lego to the ultimate mototized mechanisms like I have included below.  I went you tube cruising and found these things; quite amazing.

We wer all really interested and fascinated when Fred used Arduino  and Max SP to program sound, and then attached it to light sensor to control it… very cool; I could hear the wheels turning in everyone’s heads (pun intended) as to how they could use this software.  And clearly it is not a huge learning curve, which is good.  We don’t want to become Fred, we just want to be able to program our work an/or get the kids started so that they can learn themselves.

We talked a bit about the issue of schools being geared (pun intended) toward finished products, and how it would be hard to make the things that we made yesterday and today, since they are not ‘finished products’.  Fred had some great ideas for that:  We could find and use parts that have a finished look, like cigar boxes.  Can put out calls for these things and network to get them.  We can use more pre-cut parts, but that doesn’t give the kid the discovery process of trying to make it work and fit, and figuring out the difficulties.  The best solutions were these:  We could make  a video of the process;  have the kids make it; and that would be the finished process.  Or we could make a stop-motion film with still photos, by programming a camera to take interval pictures.  This would add another whole layer to the project, a really valuable layer and lesson for the kids.  I really like this idea.  Thanks Fred!

Our Lego Community

My Whirly-gig gear machine

Below are some artist’s work that I found online– they are ultimate gear-heads!

The coolest gear-art.

Sculpture In Motion

What a glorious place!

I love that this clock was made from ‘found’ objects significant to art.  So beautiful.

This wooden clock was designed by Clayton Boyer and made by Philip Brutz. It is made from a teak banister scavenged from the Cleveland Museum of Art’s former Asian gallery. The hands are made of rosewood given to me by the late Gerald Smith, master cabinet maker at the Cleveland Museum of Art. This clock was made as a memorial for him.

OHHHH what a frustrating day… I have SO MUCH respect for all of those that do kinetic and robotic art!  So many little things… how the wire bends, whether it looks like a 3 year old bent it or it is squared off and even; whether the holes are even, and then they look like I just passed a shredder through them.  I thought I had an idea that was really simple, but I loved the idea, so I wanted to see it made.  Turns out, eight hours later, it wasn’t so simple!  I tried to use cams, and I think that it was just too delicate, it only needed a crank with a crank shaft that raised each part at different times.

So, I found these wishbones, and was thinking about how they look like male and female.. residual I guess from the Hon sculpture yesterday.  I wanted to see them interacting.  Not quite so easy, but I did it!  Now I need to do it again neatly… but it works!  I loved the way that the two pieces interact, and how it was very random and spontaneous looking.  Thank you, Jen, for all of the help, and mostly for the encouragement. You know, I do constantly encourage my students, but didn’t realize what an effect that it can have– will definitely ramp it up– it helps so much!

First attempt with cams.  It was just too delicate and light weight, it only needed a crank.

Second attempt with a crank and crank shaft.  This one worked, but it is so messy! I was just in a hurry to see if it would work, and it did. Yay!

I love this.

Video of the final product in action.

I call it The Dance.

These are some more bits that I have kinetic plans for.  We’ll see.

Gina Kamentsky Rocks!

Gina’s Kinetic Sculpture and Animations are just awesome; so intricate, and refined, and organic and mechanically intriguing……Thank you Gina!

Gina Kamentsky’s Web Site

I loved the term “Mechanical Confections.”

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References I don’t want to forget….

Archive.org

The Automata/automation bolg

The Mechanical Turk- art piece

“Hon” by Tinguely  art piece ( what an art piece)

Fred Wolflink wonder man and mechanical marvel

Fred at Babel

Fred’s Resources I

Fred’s Resources II Automata

ArthurGanson.com  (MIT Museum)

TheoJansen.com  beach monsters

JenHall.org

Donald Norman

AxiomArt.org  Center for New and Experimental Media  Heidi Kaiser

Erica von Schilling

American Visionary Art Museum  Outsider Art Baltimore

Robolab- program for automata. Used for Lego

Arduino  Program for automating things with motion, sound, light. (MIT)

Max SP  Program for automating things with sound, light and animation

Books

Gear UP!     Zap It!      Build It!

Creative Kinetics

Automata and Mechanical Toys

Catalog- American Science Surplus    www.sciplus.com

Flying Pig Paper Sculpture robives.com

Making Mechanical Marvels in Wood by Raymond Levy

Mechanical Devices for Electronic Experiments by Britt Rorabaugh

Leonardo leMachine

Cabaret Mechanical Movement by Orr and Alexander

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Definitely would love to do kinetic sculpture with my students, because it is something that they will love.  My first couple of years teaching I did take apart a bunch of old computers (actually a very enterprising and mechanically inclined student did it for me)  and we used the parts for great art pieces, but not kinetic ones.  Now we are talking!

If you can just connect or tap into what they are interested, it works.  Once I had a student that didn’t want anything to do with learning about an artist– boy, 18 years old… until I introduced him to John Chamberlain.  He brought in a whole bumper and various other very large car parts and made a really large mobile.  From there, he did an abstract sculpture that looked like an elephant’s trunk with tire rubber and won a prize in a six- school exhibition.  It was just awesome.  This will be the same, I know it.

Theo Jansen “The walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds.”

Artist: Fernando Velázquez

Fernando Velázquez is a multimedia artist.
His works include videos, installations, objects and audiovisual performances. He is a PhD candidate in Communication and Semiotics at PUC-SP, and has showed his work in Brazil and abroad in exhibitions as the Mercosul and Thessaloniki Biennials (both in 2009). He obtained several awards such as Premio Sergio Motta for Art and (Brazil, 2009) and 2008 Cultures (Madrid, Spain). He teaches and give workshops in the field and technology and/or audiovisual in public and private universities and institutions. He teaches at Fundacao Armando Alvares Penteado University in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Full Bio

Website:  Blogart.com

Self Portrait

Self-portrait is a video made from the genetic code of the author. The genetic code was obtained by sending samples by mail to a company that offer this service on-line, and the data was received in XML format. The process of translating genetic information in audiovisual data is done by analogy. Through programming, is possible to assign to each data stream the property of conversion into shape, color, sound and movement. The poetics of the work is at the intersection of the objectivity of the genetic data and the subjectivity of the data interpretation.

Discrete-Landscape-2008-multimedia-installation

Artists: Fernando Velázquez & Francisco Lapetina 2009

Library is an audiovisual performance inspired by the way we process experience and reach the memory on perceptions of the world as in the construction of knowledge. The title alludes to the library folder, common to virtually all computer software: a storage space of modular components, expandable, often interchangeable, but always essential to functioning. This folder name responds to one of the many analogies with the physical world with which the computer interfaces and behaviors were appointed at some point in recent history. In Library, the folder is the imaginary staff of the performers and the embeddable/disposable modules are the personal experiences (knowledge). Inspired by the “physical world”/computer analogies, Library also operates with sound and images of our private libraries, those where we keep books, magazines, cds, dvds, etc.. The soundscape is a hybrid of analog sounds generated and processed in real time with samples.

Mindscapes Audio Visual Performance

Artist:  Paul McLean

Paul McLean is an artist accomplished in new media and traditional fine art, a pioneer in dimensional production and integrated exhibit practice. His research interests include media philosophy, specifically pertaining to time and systems; arts management, art and cultural economics; and the convergence of 4D methodologies among military, political, business and social sectors.

Art for Humans Gallery and website

Video Work

Blog

Bio

Artist’s Statement of Fact: “The me I thought I was never even existed.”

A brief bio: I’ve been exhibiting for over 20 years now, in galleries, museums, foundations, universities and alternative art spaces. I usually characterize what I do as multi-media/multi-disciplinary art, or 4D art, utilizing traditional and new media. I’ve done innovative work in digital print and animation, photography, installation, video(projected, monitor- and web-based) and more.

The foundation of everything I do as an artist is painting and drawing. I also have done much work as Lead Artist of collectives. I’m very much dedicated to community art. I’ve also worked in lots of art-related, arts advocate roles: writing, hosting radio shows, teaching, etc.

When:I’ve been working with web artists, webmasters and internet-based projects since 1992 or -3.
Where: 1013 Grand Street Brooklyn, NY       My website: (est. 2000): http://www.artforhumans.com
My CV: http://www.artforhumans.com/CV.pdf

100 Hanks

About 5 years ago, I was invited to submit work to a designer/consultant putting together a collection for Loews Vanderbilt Hotel in Nashville. They wanted Opry-ish stuff. I went to Opry website & lifted a 5k or so thumbnail of Hank & used it to build some digi-paintings. Fast-forward to fall 06. I came across my sketches of Hank while building a Flickr archive. For a while now I’ve been exploring the reconstitution of digital/photographic/painted images starting at the pixel root. This project dovetailed into print work that I’m doing now focused on optic affects experienced by the viewer, depending on POV & distance from the printed object. The choice of image was influenced of course by Wahol, the techniques used to build the image by C Close/R Lichtenstein (Macro) and J Albers/P Mondrian (Micro) & others. This is the first stage of an installation project. Each frame of the slideshow can be output for exhibition in sequence or as wallpaper. The sequence can easily be converted to a QT movie for projection and/or monitor presentation. I invited Adam Cotton to write a sequence of Hank interpretations based on a single riff from one of Hank’s songs. I suggested he listen to the Neil Young soundtrack for “Dead Man” and the Lynchian soundtracks, especially “Twin Peaks”. An expanded version will be produced for the installation. Hank died about 20 miles from my hometown. I’m thinking of how an iconic image translates at 4k, repititive dosing of icon, & popular myth. & Ghosts of icons.

Bio

Artists are often asked to attach a “bio” – a biography – to our exhibit and media packages, slide submissions, & so forth (including this submission to ArtBase). When I decided to rebuild my Art for Humans website in the fall of 2006 (with the help of Rhizome member Curtis Stage), I conceived of the Bio section of the site not as a dry narrative (tho there is one introducing the work), but as a 4D rhizome-like, vital bio-structure. My premise: the “me” I thought I was never even existed. The AFH bio is an ongoing exploration of experience, memory, autobiographical definitions, movement, time sequences, links, personal/artistic vision and the facts & mysteries of spirit-in-body-in-a-series-of-moments-&-places, of love & mortality. I’m using repeated patterns (moving and still, thought as weavings, referring to the tartan and celtic knot) as backdrops for very personal details of my life, which are not made confessional by additional textual elements. Collaborations with accomplished musos establish an aural context for the visuals in the Bio. The individual works include video, audio, HTML, Flash, animated gif, and still components. I intend to stop the project at 1000 pages. At this writing (December 25, 2006), I’ve published 100+.

Fall

Feature-length (72 minutes-long) digital animation, with composited video elements; soundtrack by Amsterdam-based electronica duo Funckarma (post-production completed 2006). Originally screened on over a dozen channels (three synchronized, the others not) for Cultura, a Circus Maximus production in 2004, sponsored in part by the Nashville Film & Video Association. The event included live improvizational jazz performance (orchestrated by Max Abrams), performance poetry & dance. The movie was presented as projections and on monitors. Some animation elements were created during a residency at the Morris Graves Foundation/Ink People Center for the Arts, Loleta/Eureka, CA. Others were created initially for exhibition in museums, galleries, contemporary art foundations and alternative artspaces, in conjunction with DddD/01/Art for Humans/Journeyman Project productions in Nashville, TN, 1999-2002.

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How do diagrams work as objects?  How can diagrams be objects to think with? How does the Encyclopedia deal with the challenge of describing the world?

So who would have ever thought that diagrams could stimulate such an intense discussion?  As much as I think I look, and compared to my students I am highly trained to look, I would not have ever seen the intricacies of the differences in these diagrams, nor understood their significance.  Using light and shadow to render a ‘realistic’  image  (image that we can draw from experience) versus the use of blank white space to suspend the images in space, thus clearly identifying them as teaching tools.  The use (and intentional misuse ) of perspective to create the surreal, covert ‘images as tools’ that disguise themselves as pastoral scenes. The diagrams (images suspended in space) are the raw materials.  The illustration of the pastoral scene is the descriptive, or the example, which is rooted in our experiences.  Diagram plus example equals explanation.  Amazing.  The most amazing part, though, was thinking about how much the ‘rooted in our own experience’ was key to the equation.

I found the graphic rendition, in many ways, easier to read (i.e. learn from) because I was not distracted by the ‘beauty’ of a drawing or the presence of a human’s hand and their conceptual interpretation.  In the graphic rendition I was not distracted by art, but I did need  the deciphering of code.  Kind of like modern art….. the more cryptic the diagrams were, the more they needed the written word to function.  But both the drawing of the soldiers and the graphic image require the deciphering of a kind of code…

More will be revealed…..

I believe in a holistic approach to education.  As an art teacher, this may be a rather unusual approach, since in the arts we often must use so much energy carving out our space in the curriculum, and then vigorously defending it.  I believe that we can accomplish a holistic approach to educating children together with a strong commitment to the arts.

In my opinion there are two sets of goals that are our paramount duties as educators.  They are:  teaching students to become articulate readers and writers, and assisting students in developing into critical and creative thinkers.  I believe that these duties are shared equally by all teachers, and are easily integrated into our entire curriculum.

Reading and writing cannot be confined to English classes if students are to become proficient.  We as adults and teachers are acutely aware that practice is the key to proficiency in these areas.  Simply, the more one reads, the more fluent one becomes, the more vocabulary he or she develops, and the more tools that they have available to them.  The more they write and are assessed in their writing skills, the better writers they will become.

Equally important is the development of the abilities of critical thinking, analysis, and decision making, and creative thinking and problem solving.  The education process must shift dramatically for students from memorizing and remembering, to analyzing and assessing the world around them.  Higher order thinking skills are the basic requirements for functioning in today’s world. I am committed to developing both of these sets of goals in students. In the arts both sets of goals can be easily and essentially integrated.

It is in the arts particularly that I feel the challenge and responsibility to develop critical and creative thinkers.  Students desperately want us to give them an assignment, provide the information, and then they will give it back to us as the proof of learning.  They ask me daily to “just tell me what to do and I will do it.”  In the arts we have the freedom to pose a problem and ask them to think as far outside the box as possible to solve it.  Simultaneously, and conversely, we ask them to turn off the thinking process and invoke their powers of observation, a skill that is severely neglected in the fast-paced world that we live in.  Asking them to slow down long enough is a challenge, but seeing them experience just how rewarding it is to do so makes the job worthwhile.  Just as I have seen how the academic issues of reading and writing are essential to the arts, I believe that the core ideas of creative thinking and creativity from the arts can be integrated into the academics to develop both sides of the brain, and I am committed to assist in this endeavor.

In a professional development session at the Cape Cod Museum of Art, I recently heard Anita Walker, director of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, assert so eloquently that creativity is the commodity of the 21^st century.  I couldn’t agree more.

“As educators, I think that our most important task is fostering the development of creative thinking skills, which include invention and problem solving, and critical thinking skills, which include analysis and decision-making. The education process of our students must shift dramatically from memorizing and remembering, to analyzing and assessing the world around them. Higher order thinking skills are becoming the basic requirements for functioning in today’s world.  I am deeply committed to developing these skills in my students.”

The above quote is from my artistic and educational philosophy statement, which I have presented to principals as prospective employers.  It is the core of my belief and drives my vision.  Creativity is essential to student achievement and success in all areas, and developing that creativity in students is my passion as an art teacher.

Yet with each passing year, the more we find that creativity is the commodity of the future, the less motivated and prepared my students are in this area.   My students desperately want me to give them a specific assignment with steps

for how to carry it out.  It is my desire to study the essential question of how to teach to creativity.  Can we truly teach creative thinking? How can we get students to think freely and creatively, and then translate it into creative expression?  What is holding them back?  Can we foster creative thinking and expression, and still meet all of the requirements that the educational system has put in place?  How does choice-based art fit into the equation?  Can I effectively teach creativity and use choice-based art in a classroom where a majority of my students are not motivated?  These are my emerging issues after eight years of teaching at the high school level.  These are the issues that I would like to study, research and test.

As for my own artwork, I am drawn to texture in absolutely everything.  Real touch-and-feel tactile texture, visual texture, implied texture; it thrills me in all capacities.  I am a photographer, printmaker and ceramicist.  My principle area of interest is alternative photography, where I am especially drawn to the way VanDyke printing on various papers and surfaces looks and feels and produces texture.  I have been working with and exhibiting Vandyke prints on watercolor paper that incorporate my environment and love of surfaces and texture.  I have been away from clay for far too long, and am interested in developing a body of work that incorporates various printing techniques on clay.  Fiber-based ceramics is an area that I would like to experiment in, and using these pieces as a canvas for images seems quite the natural integration of media that belong together.