I am having a difficult time trying to figure out how this particular piece relates to the class. Also, I was almost under the safe impression that there was not going to be a weekly statement, but instead it is a late one. Why waste word count on expressing my annoyance with the tardiness of this objective? “Waste not, want not,” I suppose. Back to what I can guess is the objective of this weekly statement; I am looking at a nicely rendered horse picture on a sterile brick wall with modern looking light fixtures. What is the message here? The pillow in the lower right hand corner as well as the couch along the bottom rim of the frame only adds to the ambiguity of the scene. I took a glance at the artist’s other work and it all seems to be a documentation of his travels. There is not much of a statement in any of the shots other than recording the found elements and decay that is the urban environment.
Then again, there is something interesting and useful about documenting things and spaces as is. It allows the viewer a clear lens to look through: an unbiased observation. With that said, is this art? When something is captured with minimal to no visible artist message or motivation, what is the expression? This is assuming that art is exclusively expression but somehow that is doubtful.
In this picture, I see a huge sense of irony. There is a beautiful painting of horses running freely in a natural landscape, and it is placed in a modernized home which has been designed to keep nature out. I think this is a great picture to discuss because in nearly every modern building there are pictures of nature or art that exemplifies nature. Is it a good thing that these images are there as a reminder? Does it do us any good to be reminded of it? What purpose does this serve? What are the alternatives? I’ve always liked having nature art in homes and buildings. Nature is indescribably beautiful. It’s important for me to be surrounded by it whether it is physically experienced or visually captured. There are many places all over the world that I haven’t seen: China, Colorado, Mexico, etc. I love seeing pictures of these places so that I can have some kind of idea of what that place is like. As for this picture of the horses, it reminds me of an older time; one in which houses were not captured, broken, and used for man’s supremacy. I will never be able to experience that period of time, so I find it important for me to experience it through seeing this work of art. Art such as this is not usually found in an outside setting. What if museums were turned inside out, and people would be in nature while looking at portrayals of its existence? Well, that wouldn’t really work because the art would be easily destroyed by weather damage. What would be the ideal? What is the point of this picture? Is it that art is used to immortalize the world that we are destroying? Or, that we consider looking at a painting of horses equally as fulfilling as seeing them in real life?
When I first saw this picture, I did not have any specific feelings attatched to this picture. However, as I looked at Brandon's other works, I kind of got interested, but still confused. I think this photo does not catch people's attention right away on the first look, but it really does have some kind of important meaning. The place with white brick wall seems like its a hallow hall way. Two modern looking bit lights are exactly placed on each side of the painting. Interestingly, there is a white pillow on the right corner of the painting. The brightness from the lighting and pillow make this photograph very cozy and homelike. On the other hand, the style of the lights and thick brick wall stands for the modern insight. and here comes the beautiful painting of the wild horses. Combining all of my ideas together, I think that Brandon wanted to convey that we are surrounded by the nature. In other word, Human bases in the nature, and we can't live without it. Even if you go to the fancy modernized Italian restaurant for example, you can find the paintings of nature. It because we are part of the nature, and what we consumes are all part of the nature, including food, doesn't matter how fancy it is...Nature is the very broad topic, but it is the most necessary or the basic background of human life.
I am very interested in Brandon Sorg’s work. His projects deal with a variety of subjects, but they all share a common quality: Sorg is looking for scenes or situations that one might not notice at first glance, but that make some sort of social or political commentary at closer inspection. Many of his images are ironic, such as the broken toilet with a “Free” sign placed on a well-manicured lawn, or the store built in the shape of a teepee with a sign out front advertising Lattes, Sun Tea, and Smoothies. Sorg obviously has a keen eye for ironic and interesting subjects, and he uses interesting photographic techniques to highlight the message he’s trying to display. For instance, he uses narrow depth of field to focus the viewer’s attention on otherwise overlooked subjects; symmetry, such as in the photo of the road median with plants growing out of it; and reflection, like in the photo of the newspaper-covered window. He also uses really interesting cropping techniques, like the photo of the deer’s legs in a museum display.
I had a strong reaction to Sorg’s “Where Fun Goes To Die” series, because so many of the pictures are reminiscent of the college scene that my peers and I are currently a part of. The pictures of drunken kids at parties are disheartening and yet so familiar – they are essentially the same as pictures that I see on Facebook from parties every weekend. Viewing Sorg’s portraits of forlorn teenagers with joints in their mouths and beer bottles, wine glasses, and a pipe in disarray on a table after a night of partying, I couldn’t help but be a little ashamed of my generation. We use alcohol and drugs as a form of escapism to deal with our hectic, demanding lives, but we end up doing more harm to ourselves than good. It’s an unfortunate reality of my generation that I am not very proud of.
Brandon Sorg's work is interesting to view because one could consider it not art. The reason why one might consider this at first is because of its simplistict appeareance. I dislike to reference the dictionary in this situation, but I looked up the defintion of art. I found one defintion that I think is relevant to this conversation. Art is "skill in conducting any human activity: a master at the art of conversation". This is what Brandon's work is doing creating a conversation around the images he chose to portray. His collection of photographs titled "This Nation", which the photograph above is part of, was revealing the discussion of technolgy and the environement. I believe Sorg may just want us to be placed in these juxtapostions so we begin to think about how we communicate as a nation through the images we place all around us. Today in lecture we were talking about Manifest Destiny and I can see similarieties to the work we viewed in class and in Sorg's photographs. The cross as well as other religious symbols are seen in his photographs contrasted to an expanse of land. These photographs specifically can reference our past as a nation, but also our present in how we portray this idea of Manifest Destiny. Many of the photos seemed to portray old broken rough and beaten up items and I wonder if this portrays to a certain extent a lack of care or abadonment between the relationship with our environment and are existence in it.
The reason is the image is so impressive is that those horses seem to be very free from technology within the frame, but their freedom is not really tangible. I don’t know if I got Brandon’s intention right, but the way I felt toward his photos is he tries to represent the things that are prohibited. His other images such as the one that shows a whole empty yard with grass and a notice that says for people to keep out of them, or teenagers smoking weed and drinking alcohol. It refers to social issues, also. Garbage that are just thrown away on the isolated areas, people that tend to stay out of the nature, teenagers’ pregnancy, and etc are followed from the numerous prohibitions.
He also did take many of the photos of the nature. But he didn’t just take picture of trees or grass. He took it when it is very gigantic that it overcomes the humans’ being. In his works, people are depicted as so small comparing to the nature that surrounds them.
Within the nature, there shows influence of human nature here and there. Graveyards, garbage’s on a desert. And influence of nature in human society like little flower decoration in the middle of the road, weedy grass that bore through the gap between rocks.
It is kind of difficult to figure out how the image on the blog and and the images on the web site of Brandon Sorg relate to the things that we are learning in the class. It seems that Brandon has documented images that he saw while traveling around the world.
The First image seems to be very awkward in that the modern setting and the image of the horses running on the field do not match very well. This got me to think about the photographs of Amy Stein. She has photographed wild animals being in contact with human. The horse painting is a painting that looks like it's going to come out in a movie from 1990's; however, the bedroom in the image seems to be a pretty modern place. And I believe this is the reason why I think these two things seem awkward together.
This irony that I saw between these two images makes me think need of nature in human lives. I would prefer living in a place where nature is around me. This might not be important to other people, but being reminded of the nature is important in that being reminded every time by seeing paintings or photographs to at least know that nature is in danger.
I am not sure if I understand the premise of this artist's work. After reviewing his "this nation" section I am confused. He seems to document absurdities of life. I do not find it interesting really, all the blog links are about photography. I would love to see some other forms that relate to ADP. I love when videos are shown in class; I wish more of those would be posted on the blog as well.
My favorite line in the youtube video we watched was when he commented on how if humans make the problems we should be able to fix them. Also when he discussed the most common question in the class he teaches to undergraduates at UCLA was how the collapsing cultures did not see it coming. The two statements seem to contradict themselves. I believe humans can create problems so far out of their hands it is impossible to reverse. Those are the consequences of our actions. I do think there are some problems that cannot be solved, there is not always a way to reverse the damage. The only way is to prevent further damage by learning from past mistakes. There is a saying that goes something like it’s hard to see when you are drowning when you have been in the water so long. I was told that about relationships but I think it also can apply to how humans interact with the environments they (or we) create. Collapsing cultures particularly interests me now since everyone seems to be “freaking out” over 2012, which reminds me more of the 2000 Y2K. Live and learn. Those who fail to know the past are doomed to repeat it. We do study past cultures, we take history and sociology, but why does it keep happening? Maybe it is a cycle that just cannot be broken.
I was under the impression that we were not having an assignment for this week and when I logged on to do our assignment for Dec 1, I noted there was an assignment; so I know I am late but I figured I would comment anyway.
My first impression of this painting was that the person displaying the painting was trying to call attention to it by hanging a light on either side of it. There is a pillow in the bottom corner of the picture, giving the impression that there is a sofa sitting in front of this picutre. But then I asked myself what the point would be of placing a sofa in front of this painting. Would you really sit down and analyze this painting.
The painting itself gives the feeling of action. These horses were moved to run, but why? Were they scared off by man, or were they scared off by another animal. To analyze this painting it takes you to the place where these horses are. They must be in a place where they have a place to run; perhaps in a horse farm out west.
In addition to the horses, there is a remarkable weather pattern in the background which ads to the activity of the picture. It also appears by the brick work wall that this room is in the basement. This tells me that the picture has lost its meaning for the owner; it has taken on a new place in their home. It is not so valuable any more.
When I went to Brandon Sorg's website after seeing the image posted on the blog I was a little bit put off. I really liked this first photo because it made it's statement more clearly and said something more universal. I felt like a lot of his work seemed a little bit judgemental. He showed many low income communities and their attempt at giving culture tot heir community and remembering their ancestors in means that they were familiar with. I like the photo put up on the blog because it doesn't strike any class of people but more makes a statement about the human society as a whole and how it's stepped away from real nature and how it tries to bring it back now with these over emphasized images of "glamorous nature". Not all nature is about beautiful horses running through ocean tides at sunrise. You can see how static our unnatural world has become from the area surrounding the painting and how we need a new re-vamped nature to actually enjoy nature itself.
I am having a difficult time trying to figure out how this particular piece relates to the class. Also, I was almost under the safe impression that there was not going to be a weekly statement, but instead it is a late one. Why waste word count on expressing my annoyance with the tardiness of this objective? “Waste not, want not,” I suppose. Back to what I can guess is the objective of this weekly statement; I am looking at a nicely rendered horse picture on a sterile brick wall with modern looking light fixtures. What is the message here? The pillow in the lower right hand corner as well as the couch along the bottom rim of the frame only adds to the ambiguity of the scene. I took a glance at the artist’s other work and it all seems to be a documentation of his travels. There is not much of a statement in any of the shots other than recording the found elements and decay that is the urban environment.
ReplyDeleteThen again, there is something interesting and useful about documenting things and spaces as is. It allows the viewer a clear lens to look through: an unbiased observation. With that said, is this art? When something is captured with minimal to no visible artist message or motivation, what is the expression? This is assuming that art is exclusively expression but somehow that is doubtful.
In this picture, I see a huge sense of irony. There is a beautiful painting of horses running freely in a natural landscape, and it is placed in a modernized home which has been designed to keep nature out. I think this is a great picture to discuss because in nearly every modern building there are pictures of nature or art that exemplifies nature. Is it a good thing that these images are there as a reminder? Does it do us any good to be reminded of it? What purpose does this serve? What are the alternatives? I’ve always liked having nature art in homes and buildings. Nature is indescribably beautiful. It’s important for me to be surrounded by it whether it is physically experienced or visually captured. There are many places all over the world that I haven’t seen: China, Colorado, Mexico, etc. I love seeing pictures of these places so that I can have some kind of idea of what that place is like. As for this picture of the horses, it reminds me of an older time; one in which houses were not captured, broken, and used for man’s supremacy. I will never be able to experience that period of time, so I find it important for me to experience it through seeing this work of art. Art such as this is not usually found in an outside setting. What if museums were turned inside out, and people would be in nature while looking at portrayals of its existence? Well, that wouldn’t really work because the art would be easily destroyed by weather damage. What would be the ideal? What is the point of this picture? Is it that art is used to immortalize the world that we are destroying? Or, that we consider looking at a painting of horses equally as fulfilling as seeing them in real life?
ReplyDeleteWhen I first saw this picture, I did not have any specific feelings attatched to this picture. However, as I looked at Brandon's other works, I kind of got interested, but still confused. I think this photo does not catch people's attention right away on the first look, but it really does have some kind of important meaning. The place with white brick wall seems like its a hallow hall way. Two modern looking bit lights are exactly placed on each side of the painting. Interestingly, there is a white pillow on the right corner of the painting. The brightness from the lighting and pillow make this photograph very cozy and homelike. On the other hand, the style of the lights and thick brick wall stands for the modern insight. and here comes the beautiful painting of the wild horses.
ReplyDeleteCombining all of my ideas together, I think that Brandon wanted to convey that we are surrounded by the nature. In other word, Human bases in the nature, and we can't live without it. Even if you go to the fancy modernized Italian restaurant for example, you can find the paintings of nature. It because we are part of the nature, and what we consumes are all part of the nature, including food, doesn't matter how fancy it is...Nature is the very broad topic, but it is the most necessary or the basic background of human life.
I am very interested in Brandon Sorg’s work. His projects deal with a variety of subjects, but they all share a common quality: Sorg is looking for scenes or situations that one might not notice at first glance, but that make some sort of social or political commentary at closer inspection. Many of his images are ironic, such as the broken toilet with a “Free” sign placed on a well-manicured lawn, or the store built in the shape of a teepee with a sign out front advertising Lattes, Sun Tea, and Smoothies. Sorg obviously has a keen eye for ironic and interesting subjects, and he uses interesting photographic techniques to highlight the message he’s trying to display. For instance, he uses narrow depth of field to focus the viewer’s attention on otherwise overlooked subjects; symmetry, such as in the photo of the road median with plants growing out of it; and reflection, like in the photo of the newspaper-covered window. He also uses really interesting cropping techniques, like the photo of the deer’s legs in a museum display.
ReplyDeleteI had a strong reaction to Sorg’s “Where Fun Goes To Die” series, because so many of the pictures are reminiscent of the college scene that my peers and I are currently a part of. The pictures of drunken kids at parties are disheartening and yet so familiar – they are essentially the same as pictures that I see on Facebook from parties every weekend. Viewing Sorg’s portraits of forlorn teenagers with joints in their mouths and beer bottles, wine glasses, and a pipe in disarray on a table after a night of partying, I couldn’t help but be a little ashamed of my generation. We use alcohol and drugs as a form of escapism to deal with our hectic, demanding lives, but we end up doing more harm to ourselves than good. It’s an unfortunate reality of my generation that I am not very proud of.
Brandon Sorg's work is interesting to view because one could consider it not art. The reason why one might consider this at first is because of its simplistict appeareance. I dislike to reference the dictionary in this situation, but I looked up the defintion of art. I found one defintion that I think is relevant to this conversation. Art is "skill in conducting any human activity: a master at the art of conversation". This is what Brandon's work is doing creating a conversation around the images he chose to portray. His collection of photographs titled "This Nation", which the photograph above is part of, was revealing the discussion of technolgy and the environement. I believe Sorg may just want us to be placed in these juxtapostions so we begin to think about how we communicate as a nation through the images we place all around us. Today in lecture we were talking about Manifest Destiny and I can see similarieties to the work we viewed in class and in Sorg's photographs. The cross as well as other religious symbols are seen in his photographs contrasted to an expanse of land. These photographs specifically can reference our past as a nation, but also our present in how we portray this idea of Manifest Destiny. Many of the photos seemed to portray old broken rough and beaten up items and I wonder if this portrays to a certain extent a lack of care or abadonment between the relationship with our environment and are existence in it.
ReplyDeleteThe reason is the image is so impressive is that those horses seem to be very free from technology within the frame, but their freedom is not really tangible. I don’t know if I got Brandon’s intention right, but the way I felt toward his photos is he tries to represent the things that are prohibited. His other images such as the one that shows a whole empty yard with grass and a notice that says for people to keep out of them, or teenagers smoking weed and drinking alcohol. It refers to social issues, also. Garbage that are just thrown away on the isolated areas, people that tend to stay out of the nature, teenagers’ pregnancy, and etc are followed from the numerous prohibitions.
ReplyDeleteHe also did take many of the photos of the nature. But he didn’t just take picture of trees or grass. He took it when it is very gigantic that it overcomes the humans’ being. In his works, people are depicted as so small comparing to the nature that surrounds them.
Within the nature, there shows influence of human nature here and there. Graveyards, garbage’s on a desert. And influence of nature in human society like little flower decoration in the middle of the road, weedy grass that bore through the gap between rocks.
It is kind of difficult to figure out how the image on the blog and and the images on the web site of Brandon Sorg relate to the things that we are learning in the class. It seems that Brandon has documented images that he saw while traveling around the world.
ReplyDeleteThe First image seems to be very awkward in that the modern setting and the image of the horses running on the field do not match very well. This got me to think about the photographs of Amy Stein. She has photographed wild animals being in contact with human. The horse painting is a painting that looks like it's going to come out in a movie from 1990's; however, the bedroom in the image seems to be a pretty modern place. And I believe this is the reason why I think these two things seem awkward together.
This irony that I saw between these two images makes me think need of nature in human lives. I would prefer living in a place where nature is around me. This might not be important to other people, but being reminded of the nature is important in that being reminded every time by seeing paintings or photographs to at least know that nature is in danger.
I am not sure if I understand the premise of this artist's work. After reviewing his "this nation" section I am confused. He seems to document absurdities of life. I do not find it interesting really, all the blog links are about photography. I would love to see some other forms that relate to ADP. I love when videos are shown in class; I wish more of those would be posted on the blog as well.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite line in the youtube video we watched was when he commented on how if humans make the problems we should be able to fix them. Also when he discussed the most common question in the class he teaches to undergraduates at UCLA was how the collapsing cultures did not see it coming. The two statements seem to contradict themselves. I believe humans can create problems so far out of their hands it is impossible to reverse. Those are the consequences of our actions. I do think there are some problems that cannot be solved, there is not always a way to reverse the damage. The only way is to prevent further damage by learning from past mistakes. There is a saying that goes something like it’s hard to see when you are drowning when you have been in the water so long. I was told that about relationships but I think it also can apply to how humans interact with the environments they (or we) create. Collapsing cultures particularly interests me now since everyone seems to be “freaking out” over 2012, which reminds me more of the 2000 Y2K. Live and learn. Those who fail to know the past are doomed to repeat it. We do study past cultures, we take history and sociology, but why does it keep happening? Maybe it is a cycle that just cannot be broken.
I was under the impression that we were not having an assignment for this week and when I logged on to do our assignment for Dec 1, I noted there was an assignment; so I know I am late but I figured I would comment anyway.
ReplyDeleteMy first impression of this painting was that the person displaying the painting was trying to call attention to it by hanging a light on either side of it. There is a pillow in the bottom corner of the picture, giving the impression that there is a sofa sitting in front of this picutre. But then I asked myself what the point would be of placing a sofa in front of this painting. Would you really sit down and analyze this painting.
The painting itself gives the feeling of action. These horses were moved to run, but why? Were they scared off by man, or were they scared off by another animal. To analyze this painting it takes you to the place where these horses are. They must be in a place where they have a place to run; perhaps in a horse farm out west.
In addition to the horses, there is a remarkable weather pattern in the background which ads to the activity of the picture. It also appears by the brick work wall that this room is in the basement. This tells me that the picture has lost its meaning for the owner; it has taken on a new place in their home. It is not so valuable any more.
When I went to Brandon Sorg's website after seeing the image posted on the blog I was a little bit put off. I really liked this first photo because it made it's statement more clearly and said something more universal. I felt like a lot of his work seemed a little bit judgemental. He showed many low income communities and their attempt at giving culture tot heir community and remembering their ancestors in means that they were familiar with. I like the photo put up on the blog because it doesn't strike any class of people but more makes a statement about the human society as a whole and how it's stepped away from real nature and how it tries to bring it back now with these over emphasized images of "glamorous nature". Not all nature is about beautiful horses running through ocean tides at sunrise. You can see how static our unnatural world has become from the area surrounding the painting and how we need a new re-vamped nature to actually enjoy nature itself.
ReplyDelete