HOOPS! EXPLAIN YOURSELF!

[Triple Zero]

1. I, too, love Pollock. I like the first image in LMNO's post best. The last image in it is probably also nice, but as was said, it needs to be at a much bigger resolution, it looks kind of noisy. Big reason why I got interested in Pollock is because a bunch of mathematicians measured the fractal dimension (a measure of self-similarity) of his abstract works over time (decades, IIRC), and it was increasing. This is odd, because fractal dimension is not something you do on purpose when making splatter paintings, it's not like you can just add more paint or make bigger or tinier squiggles, besides, Pollock never heard of fractal dimension. So, apparently Pollock had been practising and enhancing his splattering technique, which just happened to coincide with increasing the fractal dimension as well. And that's damn cool.

2. I also love the concept of graffiti removal reinterpretation of subconscious abstract art. I saw a Youtube vid about it, really slow, with some piercing cold electronic ambient music in the background. Not sure if the text was narrated or written on the video. My gf loved the idea but the music made her really uncomfortable. So I guess it was narrated, otherwise I'd have just turned off the sound, heh.

3. Will give the ice city stuff a closer look later, but it looks beautiful at first glance.

4. Invisible man dude is also wonderful. It's even more amazing because it's himself that you see on those photographs, it would be a lot easier to accomplish if he just put a suit on some model and started painting on that.

5. Cram, between your first contact and an oiled guy balancing logs, well it seems there must be world of interesting performance art in between

[hooplala]

Don't get me wrong, 99% of the performance art I've seen has blown pigs.  I just happen to like the one woman's work.

[LMNO]

Don't get me wrong, 99% of the performance art I've seen has blown pigs.  

I think I saw that one.  It was called "Th-th-th-that's all, folks!" right?

[hooplala]

Don't get me wrong, 99% of the performance art I've seen has blown pigs.  

I think I saw that one.  It was called "Th-th-th-that's all, folks!" right?

Yes, and that one was good, but to be fair, all the art out of Salazore is amazing.

[AFK]

I was going to guess a Roger Waters concert. 

[P3nT4gR4m]

"modern art" great fucking label for old fashioned shit from 100 years ago. And that's all it is - a label. Labels have absolutely no business in art, in any form of art, but human beings just can't fucking resist it can they? "Oooh that cunt was too fucking lazy to finish that picture but it looks quite nice, lets call it impressionist..", or, "that shit is just a bunch of random shapes, lets call it cubist"

Art is art - if you like it its good, if you don't then it sucks, that's subjective, tho. Don't let anyone with a degree in postmodernism tell you any differently. Ramones > Beethoven, there, I've said it!

[LMNO]

"modern art" great fucking label for old fashioned shit from 100 years ago. And that's all it is - a label. Labels have absolutely no business in art, in any form of art, but human beings just can't fucking resist it can they? "Oooh that cunt was too fucking lazy to finish that picture but it looks quite nice, lets call it impressionist..", or, "that shit is just a bunch of random shapes, lets call it cubist"

Art is art - if you like it its good, if you don't then it sucks, that's subjective, tho. Don't let anyone with a degree in postmodernism tell you any differently. Ramones > Beethoven, there, I've said it!

Nice polemic, but there is often a reason to group some paintings together as a "style", "school", or "movement".

[P3nT4gR4m]

I'm not saying there isn't a reason. Just that more often than not that reason becomes a constraint. As soon as there's a new bandwagon a bunch of people who might have come up with something new and exciting jump on it instead. This can provide good shit in it's own right. Sometimes people push the envelope or perfect the style but it's a double edged sword. Shit gets pidgeonholed, people form camps, it turns into a massive clusterfuck. Personally I try to avoid the whole "is this pre-raphaelite or is it renaissance" thing and just look at the shit. As soon as you say "I'm a fan of X" you close yourself off to Y, Z and a whole bunch of other cool letters.

[Cramulus]

my ex girlfriend took a bunch of classes in book making.

The first day of the class, the professor said something to the effect of this

"Listen, we're all artists here. So I don't have to tell you that the borders of any given medium are pretty blurry. So I was going to spend this class discussing the question What is a book?, but it's a waste of time because here's how the conversation ends: it's a blurry definition. Books don't have to have pages or words or be made of paper. So let's just agree that books are whatever we want them to be because I don't want to hear anybody say that's not a book this semester."

Two of the books Chlo made for that class: a wooden doll house, and a video of herself dancing with a cat  

[Cain]

 

[LMNO]

Ok, I fully recognize that's the same spirit of the idea as the "glass of water is a tree" piece, but for some reason I find this much more enjoyable.

[Jenne]

  A video playing with a cat?  Nice!  I think sometimes you can take a lot of licence, but then you're always going to find an audience willing to listen to such as well.  The best part about art is when it STRETCHES that boundary you didn't even know existed in the first place.  I think that's what Cram was talking about.  And it's a righteous exercise, to my mind, when you allow that to happen or shit, as in Cram's case, seek it out.

The other best part about art is when it finds a voice for things that heretofore had none.  An expression of things that a people were grappling with.  I'm thinking here of the movements that came out of WWI, how modern life had seeped so far into the subconscious that all-out destruction by machine was so terrible and horrible and yet all-consuming.  The ripple effect of this gave way to many of the staples in American life today, and looking at what those ripple effects caused can please or displease you, either way, it shaped who you are today.  And it will shape how your children are as well.

The labels, really, in the end, don't matter, unless you're just learning about all of it.  It just helps to put a name to a face, so to speak.  Categorization is helpful to shuck information into whatever bin makes it easier to grasp and use, if you so choose to do so.  Getting caught up in labels only matters if the definition is what's hard for you to take/conceputalize/use.  And then the label takes on a life of its own away from what it represents.

And this can be a good or bad thing depending on your point of view.

And now I've probably killed the thread. 

[Triple Zero]

Don't get me wrong, 99% of the performance art I've seen has blown pigs.  

I think I saw that one.  It was called "Th-th-th-that's all, folks!" right?

Thermite up the arse and send it to Afghanistan!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

my ex girlfriend took a bunch of classes in book making.

The first day of the class, the professor said something to the effect of this

"Listen, we're all artists here. So I don't have to tell you that the borders of any given medium are pretty blurry. So I was going to spend this class discussing the question What is a book?, but it's a waste of time because here's how the conversation ends: it's a blurry definition. Books don't have to have pages or words or be made of paper. So let's just agree that books are whatever we want them to be because I don't want to hear anybody say that's not a book this semester."

Two of the books Chlo made for that class: a wooden doll house, and a video of herself dancing with a cat  

That's brilliant.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I like that.  It's sculpture (?) that is pleasing to the eye.

Contrast it with this crap:

Yeah, it's sculpture usually, though I've seen it done in ways that makes it almost like a painting. Glad you like it.

As for the other thing, I don't know what to make of it. It looks like a bus stop.

Or a retarded green house.

It's ugly. It looks like an office building, which is jarring in juxtaposition with the bushes in the background. It wouldn't have that effect if it was in the city. It's certainly not a thing you would expect to see if you were out for a stroll around the park. It's kind of a thing that makes you feel like you're trapped in an office even when you're not.