An absolutely hystarical use of technology & music....

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This guy has attached electrodes to his face and wired them into a synthesizer that reacts to the music being fed to it. So the music directly controls the muscles of his face.

I about laughed so hard I fell out of my chair.

More Extra Credit

Another opp to get some extra credit, attend the lecture at PSU on Monday 10/27 at 7:30pm. Matt McCormick will be speaking about his work (you might already be familiar with his work if you've seen music videos for Sleater Kinney or The Shins).  Great chance to hear from a local artist using technology in their work. For information on where you need to be to hear Matt, click here.  You'll need to turn in your one page synopsis by November 10th.  Also include "proof" (photo, postcard, info sheet) that you attended the event.  

Mid Term Image

I am two days late with this, but hey, I have been in a Vicodin-induced haze.
Sad but true.
Anyway!!! I wrote my mid term paper about Chapter Two, Video Art. (And I am pretty sure most of these people know about drug-induced haze, the woman in this photo does for sure.)

This is a photo of a video art piece, TV Bra for Living Sculpture, that was created by Nam June Paik. The cellist is Charlotte Moorman.

Hey, you know me well enough by now to know I am amused by "boob tubes."


~Spring Atkinson~

John Baldessari

It seems that I am yet again a day late in response.... I really need to get this together!

I tend to think that most conceptual art is basically just a lack of talent coupled with bizarre ideas. For example, I'm sure you all remember the video of the artist whose work was to paint the white floor of a gallery black with hair dye, using her hair as a brush. I'm sure that anyone with half a brain can connect this weird "artistic idea" to some overarching feminist thought; that much is all too easy....
John Baldessari though, on the other hand, actually makes me laugh with his concepts! His goal, as far as I know, is to make the art world appear absurd---thus he gives us absurd art! This doesn't always work with a conceptual artist who is attempting to take themselves overly serious while, say, painting a floor with their hair....



Take for instance Baldessari's The Pencil Story. Here he makes "art" out of the extremely mundane, and almost presents the story as some obsessive need to right the repulsive wrong of the dull pencil. Even yet, despite this obsession, despite seeing and loathing it every day, he succumbs to that most familiar of human traits: laziness---that is, until the obsession resurfaces and he cannot take it any more. The pencil must be sharpened, the cosmic order restored to its once great and absolute place! And then, to top it off as all "real" artists must, who have something dire and ultimately important to say, Baldessari tells you that this might be art.... But in the end he's not sure. Hahaha!! Genius!

"If I saw the art around me that I liked, then I wouldn’t do art."


-Bryce VanHoosen-

John Baldessari: Video Art

I did my paper on Chapter 2: Video Art and admired John Baldessari's work and influences of video art throughout the chapter. 

Otto Muehl

Otto Muehl was a member if the Viennese Actionist school whose performance art pieces were excursions into the deprivation of humanity. The subjects of his pieces were often dehumanized, sometimes in front of onlookers, but mostly in front of a camera. One of his best known works is Shit-Guy from 1969, in which acts of corprophilia are engaged in. This particular piece, and for that matter the majority of Muehl's other work, is quite disturbing....



-Bryce VanHoosen-

John Baldassari

This guy was interesting since he used humor to portray art in a very moving way. As you can see this photograph simply displays humor--however he has a deeper connection to his work that you must understand... in his work he is known to give the viewer not only what to look at but how to make selections and comparisons, often simply for the sake of doing so.