Playing Favorites

What is your favorite color?

That is one of the most common questions that people ask. It is a relatively safe, simple inquiry throught which we attempt to get a better grasp of the person that we happen to be stuck with.
Blue seems to an almost equally common answer. Blue is used in many advertisements, with the general purpose of luring in and creating soothing, positive associations within the person that is looking. However, blue is also used in commercials for depression treating drugs to impress upon the viewer feelings of cold, bleakness, and despair. I cannot get past my own prejudices against the color blue; I find it to be distasteful in almost every shade unless mixed with another color.
Blue has come to symbolize mediocrity: a color for someone with no imagination and without the ability to look anywhere but skyward, ignoring all of the other wonderful colors around them.
Green is my color of choice. When I think of green I am always reminded of spring, when everything is more alive. Green always calls to mind the new shoots of grass, forests thick with leaves, and the running water of the river I grew up near. It also brings to mind slightly more incongruent and abstract things: new possibilites, laughter, and joy. Green surpasses the description afforded to colors. It is a scent, a taste, a feeling, a specific sound (like that of music, rain, and birds chirping).
In choosing our favorite, we are all making a small declaration about which color causes us this synesthesia; capturing all of our senses in the most positive of ways.

Color and its social implications

The red of the fire alarm is used so often that the familiar sight of red as an indication of danger has become almost cliche. First and foremost, it is an attention grabber. With the frequent assault of images rendered in red, most people have been programmed since birth to respond to it in some way, whether it simply by drawing their attention to the object to read or look at or even by producing a more emotional reaction such as love, anger, fear, or panic. This is probably the reason why red is now so frequently used as a way to direct a viewers attention to something.
The red of the fire alarm is used so often that the familiar sight of red as an indication of danger has become almost cliche. First and foremost, it is an attention grabber. With the frequent assault of images rendered in red, most people have been programmed since birth to respond to it in some way, whether it simply by drawing their attention to the object to read or look at or even by producing a more emotional reaction such as love, anger, fear, or panic. This is probably the reason why red is now so frequently used as a way to direct a viewers attention to something.This photo of a pawn shop's sign is done in colors of green and gold. The green is a darker, forest-like green, and the gold is more subtle and subdued. It seems likely that these colors were chosen either consciously or subconsciously because of their association with money. The green brings to mind the green tint of paper bills, and the gold signifies (quite literally) gold; a valuable metal that suggests wealth to those that behold it. Also, the fact that the colors chosen are not bright and agressive, but rather dark and toned down gives the pawn shop a slightly more sophisticated and serious feel.

Performance art research

One of the leading art movements in performance art is called Dada. It began as an art form that represented a sort of anti-aesthetically pleasing viewpoint. Dadaists believed that the barbarism of world war 1 was caused by logic. They did not approve, and therefore sought to remedy the problem by creating and performing art that was illogical and irrational. Their performance art was also typically anti-upper class. One such performance art consisted of the participants walking past urinals while being read poetry. Dadaists would also create music that was generally nonsensical and not very pleasing to listen to.

All information provided by:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada

conceptual art activity

I don't really know the purpose behind this activity, or if there really is one at all. All we did was make lines and put them up in the order in which we chose our shapes from the hat. I did, however, like the bit about Rauschenberg's piece where he exhibited one of De Kooning's drawing that he erased. That is an "oh snap" moment if I ever heard one. As of yet, I cannot think of any concepts to propose. Hopefully I will have one by class tomorrow

Performace art

For all intents and purposes, I am brain-dead today (perhaps because I haven't slept in two months). I guess this made the activity slightly more interesting, as everything I think and experience is slightly fuzzy, and not processing quite as fast as it is happening. I think the activity I came up with went really well, and it was interesting that as they got towards the end, each person started responding to the other person's mark very rapidly.

Happening

This activity was real awkward. Most of the time I felt uncomfortable and overly self conscious. It is freezing outside. I just remember not wanting to copy someone else's facial movements. Usually people naturally mirror other people during a conversation but it felt wrong and weird to be doing it consciously. Also, the faces were funny so it was hard to concentrate on actually performing the activity rather than giving in to the absurdity of it.

Critiquing Duchamp

While I do not find Duchamp's piece The Bride to be visually appealing or to be clearly telling a narrative, his explanation of it seems valid and thought out. However, I would hesitate to call it a successful work of art, as the explanation required is not only extremely long, involved (and somewhat boring); but the same conclusion cannot be reached by an outsider merely looking at the piece.
For a work of art to be successful, it should be able to be "read" or understood coherently without the aid of multiple notes and pages of in-depth analysis. If this cannot be done, the viewer can neither connect nor react to the piece, and it may as well be completely meaningless.
Furthermore, Duchamp has also failed to produce the comedy that he claims it to be. If too much explanation is required of a joke, it becomes ruined. Humor is something that is intuitive, causing reactions first and then, later on, thought about more clearly. This aside, I would not even consider The Bride to be humorous though I do have a (vague) understanding of its meaning.
It seems to me that the message the piece sends is more depressing than anything else. It trivializes the pursuit of love and desire, suggesting that it is a meaningless, animal instinct, prompting actions that are futile and equally meaningless. The figures are not people that the viewer is allowed to connect to. They are mere types...the virgin bride, the bachelors with unquestionably masculine careers. Their actions are mechanical, part of a game, and they are propelled forth automatically, without having any concept of why or how.
The ultimate outcome of The Bride and her fate are never given, perhaps adding even more to cynical feeling that this work stirs in the viewer. She and the bachelors have come to the end of the game and are stuck in a standstill, unable to go forward or backward, with no future.